were in the northern parts of Germany, in the Netherlands, Denmark, the south of Sweden and Norway, along the coasts of the Baltic, and also towards the west on those of the Atlantic. At a later period only did central and southern Germany become generally cultivated, and inhabited principally by Germans. By reason of its effects, this circumstance is of great importance. The Celts were the first who occupied the Alps, and perhaps many districts also between those mountains and the Danube; German tribes may subsequently have mingled among them, and hence Roman authors speak of semi-Germanic tribes upon the Alps. But it was only when a great German nation, the Suabians, and the Swiss, who were akin to them, migrated from the more northern districts, and from the coasts of the Baltic to their present seats, that the country between the Maine, the Danube, and the Alps, as well as a part of the latter, became wholly German. That on the lower Danube, in the north of Greece and up to the Carpathian mountains, Celtic, and perhaps even German tribes, also existed, is probable. Some of the latter, as appears by certain names, and by other circumstances, were intermingled with the Gauls, who from this quarter once penetrated into Greece, and ultimately settled in Asia Minor.

The eastern neighbours of the Germans were, two thousand years ago, as at the present day, the wide-spread Sclavonic nations. The Romans, who were really acquainted only with the western and southern frontier-districts of Germany, and knew little or nothing of the interior, are uncertain in their assignment of boundaries between the two. As to some of these Eastern people, the writer who had most knowledge of Germany says, he was unable to decide whether they were Germans or Sarmatians. Perhaps from the Oder to the Vistula, or even still more easterly as far as modern Livonia and Lithuania, German and Sclavonian, as well as other tribes, dwelled together. They were not intermixed, however, but lived side by side, in the same manner as in Hungary and the Turkish empire, several nations of totally different language and origin, have done for centuries, without being blended; each preserving its peculiar language and customs. Even at that early period, varied intercourse and manifold relations seem to have existed between the Germanic and Sclavonian nations.

CAUSES OF GERMANIC MIGRATION.

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This is the more probable, as in the principal expeditions of the Germans during the time of the Goths, we find many nonGermanic tribes associated with them, of whom some probably, and others most certainly, were of the Sclavonic race.

Thus of the above-named three great nations, the Germans, of whom we are at present more immediately treating, possessed the most northern seats. It even seems as though they had designedly penetrated as far as possible towards the north. Now if the existence of widely-spread species of domesticated animals originally indigenous to Asia; if the manners and customs, the mythology, the universal traditions, and, above all, the languages of the European nations, incontrovertibly prove that they had all, earlier or later, immigrated from Asia; then the question may well be asked: what could have possibly induced the Germanic nation to abandon their happier dwelling-places, and to seek an abode in the rude, extreme north? It was undoubtedly not necessity alone. At that time, the earth was not so thickly peopled, as to leave no room for choice; and it would not have been difficult for them to find settlements elsewhere. We must, perhaps, seek the reason of this singular phenomenon in the sentiments. and sagas of antiquity. Though an altogether satisfactory reply to the question can scarcely be expected, yet it is at least note-worthy, that the Indians, precisely the most southern Asiatic people, transfer the most glorious and perfect region of the earth, the terrestrial paradise,-which we generally look for in the south, to the extreme north. They conceive it to be in the form of a vast mountain, and to be the seat of every kind of wealth. To have climbed and conquered this wonderful mountain, is one of the highest adventures fabled of their gods or deified heroes. Hence have some English scholars gone so far as to seek the derivation of the name Scandinavia from Scanda, one of those Indian deified heroes, to whom that adventure is ascribed. Hazardous and inadmissible as this supposition may appear, it is yet certain that the key to the earliest events in the history of nations, is not to be sought for in what we call policy, nor even in physical necessities alone, which are apt more immediately to occur to us, but much rather in their mythology, that is, in their perhaps incorrect and vague, but still poetical conceptions. and sagas. Strange as these may appear to us at the first

glance, still upon the minds of these primitive men they exercised a marvellously powerful influence.

Thus much as to the situation of the Germans between their eastern and western neighbours. We have already ventured to cast a passing glance at their early origin and first migrations; but the territory they possessed in Europe by reason of its great influence on the national character, is also well worthy of our attentive consideration. In despite of her northern situation, Germany has many and great advantages. She possesses in fullest measure that first condition of all fertility in a country, a rich abundance of great and small rivers, intersecting her on every side. In this first and most important quality of a fruitful and lovely region, she surpasses many other European lands, and equals the most favoured. Even the great plains and flats, that stretch towards the sea on the coasts of the North Sea and the Baltic, are in part fruitful, and only a few tracts are rendered waste and barren by the sand. At the period we are speaking of, however, the fertility of the German soil, which in later times has made Germany a flourishing and proportionately a very populous country, was by no means developed by careful husbandry. Another peculiarity, too, had even then the greatest influence on the national mind and disposition. Its elevated situation, and numberless mountains, distinguish this country from those immediately adjacent on the north-east and south-west; namely, France and Poland, which lie incomparably lower. The lofty Alps in the south, the Riesengebirge towards the east, towards the west the mountains of the Vosges in Alsace; then the mountains of Treves along the Moselle on this side the Rhine the heights of the Black Forest, the mountains of the middle Rhine and in the Wetterau, which on the one side towards the sea gradually sink down, and on the other, to the north, unite with the Harz mountains; all these make our old Germany a land universally girdled and interwoven with mountains of the most varied elevation and nature. In this respect, indeed, within Europe, she can only be compared with Spain.

The internal treasures of these mountains (and they are very considerable) were not brought to light before the discovery of America. But the greater was the wealth of living feelings, enthusiastic, strong, and joyous,-which the sublime

GERMAN SCENERY AND CLIMATE.

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aspect of nature in their land called forth and preserved ever fresh in the breast of the German nations. The power exercised by nature and her outward forms over men is incomparably greater than is commonly supposed, even in the state of artificial civilization; and still more mighty is it in that condition of primitive simplicity, when man himself stands in a nearer relation to nature, and has therefore a deeper, more inward feeling for her. What impression, indeed, can a plain, however fertile, make upon the soul? none, but that of fertility. There is nothing there to lead the mind away from thoughts on the labours and earnings of men, to elevate it above the sphere of vulgar wants. It in fact only raises suggestions as to the products of the soil, and the abundance and the degree of perfection which they attain to. How totally different is the impression made upon the soul by elevated mountainous regions?

Nature there stands visible before us, as it were, in all her majesty; in the presence of these rocks, the speaking monuments of her greatness, the primitive fragments of antecedent creations, our views become expanded and exalted; we are led back to the thousands of years that have gone before us; self, and everything petty and narrow, disappear. A similar impression to that made by beautiful mountain-scenery, is produced by lofty, primeval forests, little touched by the hand of man, where oaks of a thousand years, (as in Germany, according to the description of the elder Pliny,) form, with their clustering and intertwining roots and boughs, high arches, galleries, and figures, strangely like to the daring constructions of human art, but only grander, more life-like, and freer, as if raised for a great temple of nature.

Individual Romans were not wanting, as is proved by the passage referred to in Pliny, in taste for the high natural beauties of the German land; in general, however, they portray the north as very rugged. So it may be even now called, in comparison with Italy; but the expressions of the Romans, and their descriptions of Germany, are too disproportionate and exaggerated for the real and present condition of the country. The question has been raised whether Germany was not formerly colder, whether the climate has not to some extent been modified by the more perfect cultivation of the soil. As to central and southern Germany, the question

This whole tract was

may be answered in the affirmative. undoubtedly much ruder and much colder, as nearly its entire extent was covered over by one great continuous forest, single remnants of which we still see in the Black Forest, the Spesshart, the Harz, and the Thuringian and Bohemian forests. That the lower northern districts of Germany, however, lying nearer to the sea, were formerly colder than now, we have no reason whatever to assume. On the contrary, putting aside the particular causes, arising from larger forests, and from still greater number and mass of lakes and watery hollows, naturalists incline to the opinion as the most probable, that the earth is growing gradually, although slowly, colder. Within historical times, the frozen ocean has increased towards the south; in northern countries and on mountain summits, traces of a flourishing vegetation, belonging to a period of time not very remote, are still to be found, where such will no longer thrive. Northern Germany, therefore, and the Danish and Swedish coasts, were certainly not colder than at present, and were, perhaps, even warmer.

Now this deep and strong love for nature, which the primitive Germans inhaled with the native air of their mountains and their woods, is the peculiar characteristic of the Germanic character, and has ever adhered to the Germanic nations in all ages and in all countries. Wherever in the progress of time they fixed their dwelling-places, whether in the southern fields of Spain and Italy, or in northern England, everywhere they dwelt and built after the same fashion, choosing their abodes not so much for the sake of convenience or utility, as from that love for free nature and her enchanting beauty which had become to them an absolute want. Upon the hills, on the steep declivities of rocks, near the headlong mountaintorrent, in the solitary wooded valley, they most loved to fix their dwelling. This love of nature is visible in the whole way of life, in the divine worship, in the faith, aye, even in the very constitution of the primitive Germans. In all productions of later and more civilized times, it will reveal its dominant influence, and give them their peculiar German stamp. It is still living in our language and poetry; and should this love of nature ever become wholly extinct among the Germans, it would only be a proof that the Germanic character had utterly changed, or that it had even ceased to be.