The Franks

If the Greeks and Romans are rightly called the people of the past, the Germans, in the wider sense of the appellation, have an undoubted claim to be considered the people of the present and the future. To whatever part we turn our eyes of the course which this favoured race has run, whether under the name of Teuton, German, Frank, Saxon, Dane, Norman, Englishman, or North American, we find it full of interest and glory. Majestic in stature, high in spirit, with fearless hearts, on which no shackle had been laid, they came forth from their primeval forests to wrestle with the masters of the world. They dared to meet the Romans when they were mightiest; when their armies, schooled in a thousand battles with the bravest foes, were led by “Danger’s own twin brother,” whose military genius laid the Roman Empire at his feet : and he himself has told us, that his tribunes and prefects wept with terror at the very aspect of their giant foes ; that throughout his ever victorious army the Ro­man soldiers, on the eve of their first conflict with the forces of Ariovistus, were engaged in making their wills in the recesses of their tents.This mere horde of undisciplined barbarians, with naked bodies, and swords so badly tempered that they bent at every stroke, — with no fortifications but their waggons, and no reserve but their wives and children, —rushed fearlessly on the finest armies that the ancient world produced, and came off with honour, and sometimes with success, according to the testimony of their not over-truthful enemies. Triumphed over in the streets of Rome, they remained unconquered on the Rhine. The tide of German life which set towards the East, was one of which no imperial command from Rome could stay the impetuous course. When African, Parthian, Greek and Gaul had bent the neck and borne the chain, the Germans alone kept up a doubtful struggle with the universal conquerors, and laughed at their pompous threats and empty triumphs...