spered
half trembling to his lord--'Surely this must be Rome.'

Some such arguments as these might surely be brought in favour of a
greater migration than Dr. Latham is inclined to allow: but I must leave
the question for men of deeper research and wider learning, than I
possess.

LECTURE III.--THE HUMAN DELUGE

'I have taken in hand,' said Sir Francis Drake once to the crew of the
immortal Pelican, 'that which I know not how to accomplish. Yea, it hath
even bereaved me of my wits to think of it.'

And so I must say on the subject of this lecture. I wish to give you
some notion of the history of Italy for nearly one hundred years; say
from 400 to 500. But it is very difficult. How can a man draw a picture
of that which has no shape; or tell the order of absolute disorder? It
is all a horrible 'fourmillement des nations,' like the working of an ant-
heap; like the insects devouring each other in a drop of water. Teuton
tribes, Sclavonic tribes, Tartar tribes, Roman generals, empresses,
bishops, courtiers, adventurers, appear for a moment out of the crowd,
dim phantoms--nothing more, most of them--with a name appended, and then
vanish, proving their humanity only by leaving behind them one more stain
of blood.

And what became of the masses all the while? of the men, slaves the
greater part of them, if not all, who tilled the soil, and ground the
corn--for man must have eaten, then as now? We have no hint. One trusts
that God had mercy on them, if not in this world, still in the world to
come. Man, at least, had none.

Taking one's stand at Rome, and looking toward the north, what does one
see for nearly one hundred years? Wave after wave rising out of the
north, the land of night, and wonder, and the terrible unknown; visible
only as the light of Roman civilization strikes their crests, and they
dash against the Alps, and roll over through the mountain passes, into
the fertile plains below. Then at last they are seen but too well; and
you discover that the waves are living men, women, and children, horses,
dogs, and cattle, all rushing headlong into that great whirlpool of
Italy: and yet the gulf is never full. The earth drinks up the blood;
the bones decay into the fruitful soil; the very names and memories of
whole tribes are washed away. And the result of an immigration which may
be counted by hundreds of thousands is this--that all the land is waste.

The best authorities which I can give