East-_Saxons_, the South-_Saxons_, and the
Middle-_Saxons_, respectively; that in the sixth and seventh centuries
there was a Kingdom of Wes-_sex_, or the West-_Saxons_; that _Angle_ and
_Saxon_ were nearly convertible terms; and that Anglo-_Saxon_ is the
name of the English Language in its oldest known stage. How these names
came to be so nearly synonymous, or how certain south-eastern counties
of England and a German Kingdom on the frontier of Bohemia, bear names
so much alike as Sus-_sex_ and _Sax_-ony, are questions which he has yet
to solve.

The German Kingdom of Saxony may be disposed of first. It is chiefly in
name that it has any relation to the Saxon parts of England. In language
and blood there are numerous points of difference. The original
population was Slavonic, which began to be displaced by Germans from the
left bank of the Saale as early as the seventh century; possibly
earlier. The language of these Slavonians was spoken in the
neighbourhood of Leipsic as late as the fourteenth century, and at the
present time two populations in Silesia and Lusatia still retain it--the
Srbie, and Srskie. Sorabi, Milcieni, Siusli, and Lusicii, are the
designations of these populations in the time of Charlemagne; and,
earlier still, they were included in the great name of Semnones. It is
only because they were conquered from that part of Germany which was
called _Saxonia_ or _Saxenland_, or else because numerous colonies of
the previously reduced Saxons of the Lower Weser were planted on their
territory, that their present name became attached to them. Slavonic in
blood, and High German in language, the Saxons of the Upper Elbe, or the
Saxons of Upper Saxony, are but remotely connected with the ancestors of
the Anglo-Saxons of Britain.

In Upper Saxony, at least, the name is not native.

_Lower_ Saxony was the country on the _Lower_ Elbe, and also of the
_Lower_ Weser, and until the extension of the name to the parts about
Leipsic and Dresden, was simply known as _Saxonia_, or the Land of the
_Saxones_; at least, the qualifying adjective _Lower_ made no part of
the designation. _Saxony_ was what it was called by the Merovingian
Franks, as well as the Carlovingians who succeeded them. Whether,
however, any portion of the _indigenae_ so called itself is uncertain. In
the latter half of the eighth century it falls into three divisions, two
of which are denoted by geographical or political designations, and one
by the n