e blow of his heavy sabre, the
yet palpitating corpse, and waves the gory head with demoniac triumph in
the air; and as he returns home, yet reeking with blood and intoxicated
with victory, and suspends above his threshold the ghastly trophy. Look
again--the scene is changed--the glittering arms are flung aside. With
his mantle floating in the breeze, his light spear quivering in his
hand, he plunges into the pathless forest; with fearless step he pursues
his way through the leafy shade, and traverses the treacherous surface
of the morass. Beneath yon giant oak he has encountered the fiercest
inhabitant of those solitudes--the wild bull; but it has fallen beneath
his javelin, which yet protrudes from it bushy neck, and, as it lies
struggling on the greensward, making the wood ring again with its
bellowings, his dagger is raised to give it the final stroke.--Observe
him once more in the council of his nation. The warriors stand in an
attentive circle leaning on their arms; he has risen to address them;
his action is animated, his words are vehement; the polished accents,
the finished periods of the Greek, flow not from his lips, but there is
eagerness in his eye, there is earnestness in his speech, his language
is figurative in the extreme, a thousand picturesque and striking images
illustrate his meaning; his metaphors, drawn from the battle and the
chase, thrill to the bosom of all his listeners; and the clash and clang
of their arms, amidst which he sits down, proclaims alike their assent
to his proposition and their admiration of his eloquence. It is amidst
scenes like these that we love to follow the Gaul, to picture to
ourselves an old race and an old civilization, which combined in so
strange a way the greatness and the savageness, the heroism in danger
and weakness under temptation, of primeval and half-civilized man.

To comprehend clearly the internal and external history of the Gauls, we
must understand the political condition of their country. This is
unfolded in a clear and masterly manner by our author, in the following
passage:--

"In Gaul, two privileged orders ruled the rest of the people--the
elective order of the priests, who recruited themselves
indiscriminately from all ranks, and the hereditary order of the
nobles or knights. This latter was composed of the ancient royal
families of the tribes, and of those men who had been recently
ennobled, either by war or by the in