it is exceptionable and unsatisfactory; and like the previous
one, in all probability, an incorrect inference founded upon the
misinterpretation of a name.

In the eighth century there _was_, and at the present moment there _is_, a
portion of the duchy of Sleswick called _Anglen_ or _the corner_. It is
really what its name denotes, a triangle of irregular shape, formed by the
Slie, the firth of Flensborg, and a line drawn from Flensborg to Sleswick.
It is just as Danish as the rest of the peninsula, and cannot be shown to
have been occupied by a Germanic population at all. Its area is less than
that of the county of Rutland, and by no means likely to have supplied such
a population as that of the Angles of England. The fact of its being a
desert at the time of Beda is credible; since it formed a sort of _March_
or _Debatable Ground_ between the Saxons and Slavonians of Holstein, and
the Danes of Jutland.

Now if we suppose that the real Angles of Germany were either so reduced in
numbers as to have become an obscure tribe, or so incorporated with other
populations as to have lost their independent existence, we can easily see
how the similarity of name, combined with the geographical contiguity of
Anglen to the Saxon frontier, might mislead even so good a writer as Beda,
into the notion that he had found the country of the _Angles_ in the
_Angulus_ (Anglen) of Sleswick.

The true _Angles_ were the descendants of the _Angli_ of Tacitus. Who these
were will be investigated in ss. 47-54.

s. 16. _The Saxons of Beda._--The Saxons of Beda reached from the country
of the Old Saxons[29] on the Lippe, in Westphalia, to that of the
Nordalbingian[30] Saxons between the Elbe and Eyder; and nearly, but not
quite, coincided with the present countries of Hanover, Oldenburg,
Westphalia, and part of Holstein. This we may call the _Saxon_, or (as
reasons will be given for considering that it nearly coincided with the
country of the Angles) the _Anglo-Saxon_ area.

s. 17. _River-system and sea-board of the Anglo-Saxon area._--As the
invasion of England took place by sea, we must expect to find in the
invaders a maritime population. This leads to the consideration of the
physical character of that part of Germany which they occupied. And here
comes a remarkable and unexpected fact. The line of coast between the Rhine
and Elbe, the line which in reasoning _a priori_, we should fix upon as the
most likely tract for the bold seamen who