Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/315

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OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 293 superable as they were unforeseen to these ignorant fanatics. The savage countries of Hungary and Bulgaria were whitened with their bones ; their vanguard was cut in pieces by the Turkish sultan : and the loss of the first adventure, by the sword, or climate, or fatigue, has already been stated at three hundred thousand men. Yet the myriads that survived, that marched, that pressed forwards on the holy pilgrimage were a subject of astonishment to themselves and to the Greeks. The copious energy of her language sinks under the efforts of the princess Anne ; '* the images of locusts, of leaves and flowers, of the sands of the sea, or the stars of heaven, imperfectly represent what she had seen and heard ; and the daughter of Alexius exclaims that Europe was loosened from its foundations and hurled against Asia. The ancient hosts of Darius and Xerxes labour under the same doubt of a vague and indefinite magnitude ; but I am inclined to believe that a larger number has never been con- tained within the lines of a single camji than at the siege of Nice, the first operation of the Latin princes. Their motives, their characters, and their arms have been already displayed. Of their troops, the most numerous portion were natives of France ; the Low Countries, the banks of the Rhine, and Apulia, sent a powerful reinforcement ; some bands of adven- turers were drawn from Spain, Lombardy, and England ; "^ and from the distant bogs and mountains of Ireland or Scotland ^" 78 Alexias, 1. x. p. 283 [c. 5], 305 [c. 11]. Her fastidious delicacy complains of their strange and inarticulate names ; and indeed there is scarcely one that she has not contrived to disfigure with the proud ignorance, so dear and familiar to a polished people. I shall select only one example, Sangeles, for the count of St. Giles. [Sangeles would be a near enough equivalent for St. Gilles, but it is Isangeles ; and the form of the corruption seems to have been determined by an etymology complimentary to the count, — io-ayyfAos-, angelic. A reader, ignorant of the pronunciation of modern Greek, might easily do injustice to Anna. The modern Greek alphabet has no letters equivalent to b and d {p represents v, and 5 is aspirated dA); and in order to reproduce these sounds they resort to the devices of liTT and i/T. Thus Robert is quite correctly 'Pojin-epTo?, and rocroi/ipe is a near transliteration of Godfrey (Godefroi).] '■s William of Malmesbury (who wrote about the year 1130) has inserted in his history (1. iv. p. 130-154) a narrative of the first crusade ; but I wish that, instead of listening to the tenue murmur which had passed the British ocean (p. 143), he had confined himself to the numbers, families, and adventures of his countrymen. I find in Dugdale that an English Norman, Stephen, Earl of Albemarle and Holdernesse, led the rear-guard with Duke Robert, at the battle of Antioch (Baronage, part i. p. 61). 80 Videres Scotorum apud se ferocium alias imbellium cuneos (Guibert, p. 471) ;

the crus intectum, and hispida c/ilamys, may suit the Highlanders ; but thv /in i bus 

m uljginusis may rather apply to the Irish bogs. William of Malmesbury expressly I mentions the Welsh and Scots, &c. (1. iv. p. 133), who quitted, the former vena-