e, has done for mankind may be best felt by
watching, with Arnold, over how large a portion of the earth the
influence of the German element is now extended.

"It affects, more or less, the whole west of Europe, from the head of
the Gulf of Bothnia to the most southern promontory of Sicily, from the
Oder and the Adriatic to the Hebrides and to Lisbon. It is true that the
language spoken over a large portion of this place is not predominantly
German; but even in France and Italy, and Spain, the influence of the
Franks, Burgundians, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Lombards while it has
colored even the language, has in blood and institutions left its mark
legibly and indelibly. Germany, the Low Countries, Switzerland, for the
most part Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, and our own islands are all in
language, in blood, and in institutions German most decidedly. But all
South America is peopled with Spaniards and Portuguese; all North
America and all Australia with Englishmen. I say nothing of the
prospects and influence of the German race in Africa and in India; it is
enough to say that half of Europe and all America and Australia are
German, more or less completely, in race, in language, or in
institutions, or in all."

By the middle of the fifth century Germanic nations had settled
themselves in many of the fairest regions of the Roman Empire, had
imposed their yoke on the provincials, and had undergone, to a
considerable extent, that moral conquest which the arts and refinements
of the vanquished in arms have so often achieved over the rough victor.
The Visigoths held the North of Spain, and Gaul south of the Loire.
Franks, Alemanni, Alans, and Burgundians had established themselves in
other Gallic provinces, and the Suevi were masters of a large southern
portion of the Spanish peninsula. A king of the Vandals reigned in
North Africa; and the Ostrogoths had firmly planted themselves in the
provinces north of Italy. Of these powers and principalities, that of
the Visigoths, under their king Theodoric, son of Alaric, was by far the
first in power and in civilization.

The pressure of the Huns upon Europe had first been felt in the fourth
century of our era. They had long been formidable to the Chinese empire,
but the ascendency in arms which another nomadic tribe of Central Asia,
the Sienpi, gained over them, drove the Huns from their Chinese conquest
westward; and this movement once being communicated to the whole chain
of bar