is ac valentissimis
nationibus cincti non per obsequium sed praeliis et periclitando tuti
sunt. Reudigni, deinde, et Aviones, et Angli, et Varini, et Suardones,
et Nuithones fluminibus aut sylvis muniuntur; neque quidquam notabile in
singulis nisi quod in commune Hertham, id est, Terram Matrem colunt,
eamque intervenire rebus hominum, invehi populis arbitrantur. Est in
insula Oceani castum nemus, dicatum in eo vehiculum, veste contectum,
attingere uni sacerdoti concessum. Is adesse penetrali deam intelligit,
vectamque bobus feminis multa cum veneratione prosequitur. Laeti tunc
dies, festa loca, quaecunque adventu hospitioque dignatur. Non bella
ineunt, non arma sumunt, clausum omne ferrum; pax et quies tunc tantum
nota, tunc tantum amata, donec idem sacerdos satiatam conversatione
mortalium deam templo reddat: mox vehiculum et vestes, et si credere
velis, numen ipsum secreto lacu abluitur. Servi ministrant, quos statim
idem lacus haurit. Arcanus hinc terror, sanctaque ignorantia, quid sit
id, quod perituri tantum vident."

Let us ask what we get from this passage _when taken by itself_, _i.e._,
without the light thrown upon it by the present existence of the
descendants of the Angli as the English of England.

We get the evidence of a good writer, that six nations considered by him
as sufficiently Germanic to be included in his _Germania_, were far
enough north of the Germans who came in immediate contact with Rome to
be briefly and imperfectly described and near enough the sea to frequent
an island worshipping a goddess with a German name and certain
remarkable attributes. This is the most we get; and to get this we must
shut our eyes to more than one complication.

_a._ Thus the country that can most reasonably be assigned to the
_Varini_, is in the tenth century the country of the _Varnavi_, who are
no Germans, but Slavonians.

_b._ Another reading, instead of _Hertham_, is _Nerthum_, a name less
decidedly Germanic.

All we get beyond this is from their subsequent histories; and of these
subsequent histories there is only one--the _Angle_ or _English_.
Truly, then, may we say that the Angles of Germany are only known from
their _relations to the Angles of England_.

Let us inquire into the geographical and ethnological conditions of the
Angli of Tacitus; and first in respect to their geography.

1. They must be placed as far north as the Weser; because the area
required for the Cherusci, Fosi, Chasuarii, Dulg