aker and king-murderer; even good Majorian, who as puppet Emperor
set up by Ricimer, tries to pass a few respectable laws, and is only
murdered all the sooner. None of these need detain us. They mean
nothing, they represent no idea, they are simply kites and crows
quarrelling over the carcase, and cannot possibly teach us anything, but
the terrible lesson, that in all revolutions the worst men are certain to
rise to the top.

But only for a while, gentlemen, only for a while. Villany is by its
very essence self-destructive, and if rogues have their day, the time
comes when rogues fall out, and honest men come by their own.

That day, however, was not come for wretched Rome. A third time she was
sacked by Ricimer her own general; and then more villains ruled her; and
more kites and crows plundered her. The last of them only need keep us a
while. He is Odoacer, the giant Herule, Houd-y-wacker, as some say his
name really is, a soubriquet perhaps from his war-cry, 'Hold ye stoutly,'
'Stand you steady.' His father was AEdecon, Attila's secretary, chief of
the little Turkling tribe, who, though Teutonic, had clung faithfully to
Attila's sons, and after the battle of Netad, came to ruin. There are
strange stories of Odoacer. One from the Lives of St. Severinus, how
Odoacer and his brothers started over the Alps, knapsacks at back, to
seek their fortunes in Italy, and take service with the Romans; and how
they came to St. Severinus' cell near Vienna, and went in, heathens as
they probably were, to get a blessing from the holy hermit; and how
Odoacer had to stoop, and stand stooping, so huge he was. And how the
saint saw that he was no common lad, and said, 'Go into Italy, clothed in
thy ragged sheep-skins: thou shalt soon give greater gifts to thy
friends.' So he went, and his brother with him. One of them at least
ought to interest us. He was Onulf, Hunwulf, Wulf, Guelph, the Wolf-cub,
who went away to Constantinople, and saw strange things, and did strange
things likewise, and at last got back to Germany, and settled in Bavaria,
and became the ancestor of all the Guelphs, and of Victoria, queen of
England. His son, Wulfgang, fought under Belisarius against the Goths;
his son again, Ulgang, under Belisarius against Persian and Lombard; his
son or grandson was Queen Brunhilda's confidant in France, and became
Duke of Burgundy; and after that the fortunes of his family were mixed up
with the Merovingian kings of F