of the exact ancestors of the conquerors
of Hungary, but of the populations most nearly allied to such ancestors.
And it is in these that we must study the Majiar before he became
European. The direct descendants of the same parents have disappeared,
but collateral branches of the family survive; and these we study,
_assuming that there is a family likeness_.

All this has been written in illustration of a case near home. The
Majiar of the Uralian wilds, the Majiar of the Yaik and Oby, the Majiar,
in short, of Asia, is not more obscure, unknown, and unimportant when
compared with the countrymen of Hunyades, Zapolya, and Kossuth, than is
the Angle of Germany when contrasted with the Angle of England, the
Angle of the great continent with the Angle of the small island. When we
say that the former is named by Tacitus, Ptolemy, and a few other less
important writers, we have said all. There is the name, and little
enough besides. What does the most learned ethnologist know of a people
called the _Eudoses_? Nothing. He speculates, perhaps, on a
letter-change, and fancies that by prefixing a _Ph_, and inserting an
_n_ he can convert the name into _Phundusii_. But what does he know of
the Phundusii? Nothing; except that by ejecting the _ph_ and omitting
the _n_ he can reduce them to _Eudoses_. Then come the _Aviones_, whom,
by omission and rejection, we can identify with the _Obii_, of whom we
know little, and also convert into the _Cobandi_, of whom we know less.
The _Reudigni_--what light comes from these? The _Nuithones_--what from
these? The _Suardones_--what from these? Now, it is not going too far if
we say that, were it not for the conquest of England, the Angles of
Germany would have been known to the ethnologist just as the _Aviones_
are, _i.e._, very little; that, like the _Eudoses_, they might have had
their very name tampered with; and that, like the _Suardones_ and
_Reudigni_ and _Nuithones_, they might have been anything or nothing in
the way of ethnological affinity, historical development, and
geographical locality.

This is the true case. Nine-tenths of what is known of the Angli of
Germany is known from a single passage, and every word in that single
passage which applies to Angli applies to the _Eudoses_, _Aviones_,
_Reudigni_, _Suardones_, and _Nuithones_ as well.

The passage in question is the 40th section of the Germania of Tacitus,
and is as follows:--

"Contra Langobardos paucitas nobilitat: plurim