chap, xxxviii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 155 cited a discontented people to reject the yoke of the Barbarians and to assert the name and dignity of Eoman citizens. The allegiance of doubtful subjects is indeed most effectually secured by their own persuasion that they hazard more in a revolt than they can hope to obtain by a revolution ; but it has appeared so natural to oppress those whom we hate and fear, that the contrary system well deserves the praise of wisdom and modera- tion. 132 While the kingdoms of the Franks and Visigoths were estab- Revolution . . , _ . _. . _ ~ io 1--I1 °f Britain hshed in Graul and Spam, the Saxons achieved the conquest of Britain, the third great diocese of the Prefecture of the West. Since Britain was already separated from the Roman empire, I might, without reproach, decline a story, familiar to the most illiterate, and obscure to the most learned, of my readers. The Saxons, who excelled in the use of the oar or the battle-axe, were ignorant of the art which could alone per- petuate the fame of their exploits ; the Provincials, relapsing into barbarism, neglected to describe the ruin of their country ; and the doubtful tradition was almost extinguished, before the missionaries of Rome restored the light of science and Christianity. The declamations of Gildas, the fragments or fables of Nennius, the obscure hints of the Saxon laws and chronicles, and the ecclesiastical tales of the venerable Bede, 133 have been illustrated by the diligence, and sometimes em- bellished by the fancy, of succeeding writers whose works I am not ambitious either to censure or to transcribe. 134 Yet 132 The Code of the Visigoths, regularly divided into twelve books, has been correctly published by Dom Bouquet (in torn. iv. p. 273-460). It has been treated by the president de Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, 1. xxviii. c. 1) with excessive severity. I dislike the style ; I detest the superstition ; but I shall presume to think that the civil jurisprudence displays a more civilized and en- lightened state of society than that of the Burgundians or even of the Lombards. [The fragments of a Visigothic code preserved in a Paris Ms. had been ascribed by Bluhme to Keccared I. (a.d. 586-601), but have been successfully vindicated for Euric by Gaupp and Zeumer. They have been edited by Zeumer in the Mon. Germ. Hist. (1902) along with the code of Reccessvind (7th cent.).] 133 See Gildas, de Exeidio Britanniae, c. 11-25, p. 4-9, edit. Gale ; Nennius, Hist. Britonum, c. 28, 35-65, p. 105-115, edit. Gale ; Bede, Hist. Ecclesiast. Gentis Anglorum, 1. i. c. 12-16, p. 49-53, c. 22, p. 58, edit. Smith; Chron. Saxonicum, p. 11-23, &c. edit. Gibson. The Anglo-Saxon laws were published by Wilkins, London, 1731, in folio, [ed. Thorpe, 1840 ; Schmid, 1858 ; Lieber- mann, 1903] ; and the Leges Wallicas, by Wotton and Clarke, London, 1730, in folio. 134 The laborious Mr. Carte and the ingenious Mr. Whitaker are the two modern writers to whom I am principally indebted. The particular historian of Manchester embraces, under that obscure title, a subject almost as extensive as the general history of England.
