story of civilization in Europe. During those years
the spirit of earnest inquiry into the germs and primary developments of
existing institutions has become more and more active and universal, and
the merited celebrity of M. Guizot's work has proportionally increased.
Its admirable analysis of the complex political and social organizations
of which the modern civilized world is made up must have led thousands
to trace with keener interest the great crises of times past, by which
the characteristics of the present were determined. The narrative of one
of these great crises, of the epoch A.D. 9, when Germany took up arms
for her independence against Roman invasion, has for us this special
attraction--that it forms part of our own national history. Had Arminius
been supine or unsuccessful, our Germanic ancestors would have been
enslaved or exterminated in their original seats along the Eider and the
Elbe. This island would never have borne the name of England, and "we,
this great English nation, whose race and language are now overrunning
the earth, from one end of it to the other," would have been utterly cut
off from existence.

[Footnote 82: Guizot was minister of foreign affairs, and later (1848)
prime minister, under Louis Philippe.]

Arnold may, indeed, go too far in holding that we are wholly unconnected
in race with the Romans and Britons who inhabited this country before
the coming over of the Saxons; that, "nationally speaking, the history
of Caesar's invasion has no more to do with us than the natural history
of the animals which then inhabited our forests." There seems ample
evidence to prove that the Romanized Celts whom our Teutonic forefathers
found here influenced materially the character of our nation. But the
main stream of our people was, and is, Germanic. Our language alone
decisively proves this. Arminius is far more truly one of our national
heroes than Caractacus; and it was our own primeval fatherland that the
brave German rescued when he slaughtered the Roman legions, eighteen
centuries ago, in the marshy glens between the Lippe and the Ems.

Dark and disheartening, even to heroic spirits, must have seemed the
prospects of Germany when Arminius planned the general rising of his
countrymen against Rome. Half the land was occupied by Roman garrisons;
and, what was worse, many of the Germans seemed patiently acquiescent in
their state of bondage. The braver portion, whose patriotism could be
relied