BOOK men discovered that he was born in the floating ark. We must excel each other in the length of our national as well as individual genealogy, or our spirit of competition will not be gratified, nor our envy appeased. When the Saxon pedigree had been sufficiently guarded, a brilliant history was yet wanting to their glory. Some friendly pens supplied this defect. The defenders of Troy are immortal amongst mankind, and their fame led the erudition of some to perceive that the Saxons marched with the battalions of Priam.g But to be the children of vanquished fugitives was less palatable to others, and a destiny more glorious has been claimed for those whose posterity have filled Germany and Britain with their colonies. The triumphant Alexander was the general alone worthy to have led the ancient Saxons to the field of martial honour: they are stated to have followed him to the stream of victory, and on his death, to elude the envy excited by their exploits, to have exchanged the slothful plains of the East for the hardier soil of the Germanic continent. The Thuringians did not receive the heroes with the confidence they exacted, but fraud and violence soon extorted a country!!h In the sixteenth century, as true learning spread, these details were found to be warranted by no evidence, and fell into discredit; but as these disappeared, other suppositions, not less gratuitous, took their place. They were admitted to be neither Trojans nor Macedonians; they were Germans, indigenous Germans, polluted by no foreign race, and they were asserted to have been flourishing in arms and commerce above a thousand years before the Christian æra!! No claim of vanity could be bolder than this. They were active on the Elbe, the Weser, and the Emsk before, perhaps, these rivers had been at all disturbed by any human oars! The effect of evidence on the mind is as various as the perceptions and associations of individuals. The authorities which were decisive Trithemius, in the name of Wasthald de Orig. Franc. p. 3. 64., exhibits the Saxons as a progeny of Trojans. Lazius also makes them part" of the fatal relics of the Trojan war," de Gent. Migrat. 19. "This derivation was at one time the most popular. It is found in Wittichind Gest. Sax. p. 2., and was firmly believed by Gotfred. Viterb. 2 Pís. 361. Saxo, velut credo, patria fuit ante Macedo, Regis Alexandri miles ubique fuit. It is one of the The authors who have adopted this idea are very numerous. Many continental writers affirm this. Among these is Bebelius, a man of merit; but whose learning and eloquence were too partially pressed into the service of his patriotism. He discovers his ancient Germans not only to have been valiant, but perpetually victorious; not only to have possessed mind, strength, beauty, and integrity, but superior mind, strength, beauty, and an integrity unparalleled in the world. See his tract in 1 Schard. Hist. Germ. 256-286. * Krantz (Saxonia, p. 5.) was betrayed into this mistake by accrediting the reveries of Saxo Grammaticus, of which Chrytæus says truly "poetica magis quam historica fide scripta temporum etiam, ut tota ipsius historia, distinctione accurate carent.' Saxonia Proemium. in the estimation of one scholar were light as 'chaff in the judg- CHAP. ment of another. When once the origin of the Saxons was submitted to investigation, conjecture began to unfold its plumes, and soared in devious flights through the dark expanse of historical erudition. No principle of judgment governed its exertions: men were only solicitous to be singular; and if the opinion were but novel, its extravagance was overlooked. Hence the Cimbri', the Chauci ", and the Suevi", or, as other advocates prevailed, the Boii o, the Suardones, and the Catti 4, were declared to be identical with the Saxon nation. The proofs of the affinity of either were indeed invisible, as the whimsical selection and casual belief of the writers were the only authorities by which they were supported. It was the same sort of authentication, combined with the grossest ignorance of the transactions of nations, which induced two authors, who from their proximity both in time and place to the Saxon emigra. tion, ought to have supplied the most authentic information, to derive this people from the very island which they invaded. Others, seduced by the vicinity of situation, have discerned their parents in the Danes and Northmen; and an author, even of our own period, has thought the Vandals of Scandinavias to have juster claims to this honour than all the rest. r But those antiquarians, whose narrow views looked only into Europe for the cradle of our ancestors, may be despised as indolent by the adventurous spirits who have made Asia and Africa the 1 Aventinus Ann. Boiorum, p. 388., and Sheringham de Orig. Angl. 45., one of the most learned and intelligent of our antiquaries. m See Glareanus and Althamerus in 1 Schard. Hist. Ger. 187. 48. Bebelius, 1 Schard. 241. n • Eneas Sylvius (Pope Pius II.), in his Historia Bohemica, c. 1. p. 3., says, the Saczania is one of the rivers which the Multavia receives. The episode annexed to this was, that such of the Galli Boii as were driven over the Saczania were denominated Saxons. Krantz. Sax. p. 3. P Langhorn's Antiq. Alb. 333. intimates the Suardones of Tacitus to be the Saxon name distorted by negligent transcribers; because Saxones might easily slip into Sardones, and that into Suardones. This is the favourite idea of Krantz (Saxon, p. 4.), which Reineccius denominates fœdum errorem. Præf. to Wittichind. Chrytæus admits that it seemed durior et alienior aliis eruditis. Proem. r Meginhard delivers it with an ut tradit antiquitas. Vita S. Alexandri, 2 Langb. Scrip. Dan. 39. He wrote about 870. Adam of Bremen, in the eleventh century, repeated the derivation on his authority, and quotes him, p. 4., under the name of Eginhard. Until lately he has been confounded with the biographer of Charlemagne. His work was thought lost. Fabr. Bibl. Medii Ævi, 1. 5. p. 264. It was fancied to have been a curious history of the Saxons. It has been found to be but the life of a saint, containing no more about the Saxons than what Adam has extracted into his Hist. Eccl. The chronicle of Conrad, which Melancthon published with commendations, repeats the story. Abb. Usper. Chron. p. 145. s Macpherson's Introduction to the History of Great Britain, p. 291. 12° ed. The Danish origin had been started before by Wittichind. See this ancient author, p. 2. Leibnitz inclined to it. I BOOK regions of their research. So indefatigable has been the activity of some, that the Pontic Chersonesus has been visited t, the classic Euxine navigated ", Armenia traversed ˇ, and Mount Imaus approached, w Wherever the chorographical polemic has turned his eye, this fairy people have appeared. Distance has been no difficulty; impossibility no impediment; but the bleak deserts of Scythia, and the sands of Africa y, have alike been presented to us as the birthplace of that tribe, which in the days of Ptolemy just darkened the neck of the peninsula of Jutland, and three inconsiderable islands in its neighbourhood. A contemporary of our own, whose talents and industry deserve more applause than his judgment, has taken a flight on this subject which is peculiarly eccentric. His genius, disdaining the prudence which would dictate hesitation amid obscurity so impenetrable, has set both chronology and geography at defiance. He finds the Saxons in almost all parts of Europe, and in almost all ages; at one time marauding in Europe as Celto-Scythæ, intimidating the Romans as Ambrones from Liguria, afterwards peeping out to Lucan in the name of Axones, then settling in Gaul in the character of Suessiones, and at last haunting the natives of the British isles in the terrific shape of the Lochlynach; it was in vain that the Celtic Protei shifted their disguises; the historian of Manchester detected them in all! An illustrious instance that imagination may be as active in the dullest and darkest as in its most bright and congenial themes. * M. Casaubon de Ling. Sax. 393. The modesty of Casaubon entitles him to respect: "In hac tanta et ipsarum rerum obscuritate et opinionum varietate, non meum neque fortasse cujusquam vel diligentissimi quicquam certe statuere." Capnio and others supposed the Axones on the Euxine to have been the Saxons. Cisner's preface to Krantz Sax. and M. Casaub. 392. Capnio contends the Saxones of Ptolemy should be read Ağoves. ▾ The Chronicon Holsatiæ says, that Alexander found in Armenia a hardy race of men, who partook of all his expeditions, and whose name, from their valour, he changed into Saxones, from saxum, a rock. Leibnitz Access. Histor. 12. W Beyond the Jaxartes, according to Strabo, and opposite to the Sogdiani, according to Eratosthenes, and half enclosed by the mountains of Ascatanea and Imaus, according to Ptolemy, were the Sacæ. It was the opinion formerly of almost all the learned, that from these the Saxons descended. Cisner Præf. Camden favours it. This position is that which we have before mentioned as the most probable seat of our ancestors in Asia, if they have really sprung from the Sacæ. * North of the Sacæ, and near the Syebian and Tapurian mountains, Ptolemy has placed another people, the Sasones. These have been selected as our ancestors. Krantz Saxonia, 2. This opinion has been united with the former. Sasones, Sacæsons, Sacsones, Saxones. Cisner Præf. y Verstegan quotes Occa Scarlensis for this derivation. Suffridus Petri has courageously undertaken the defence of Occa's veracity, Apol. pro Ant. Fris. Hist. p. 180. I wonder no one has thought of the Saxoi, near the Pontus, according to Stephanus, or the Saxinæ, who were some troglodytes in Ethiopia, according to Pliny. Ortelius Thesaur. Geograph, in voc. 2 Hist. Manch. i. p. 427. CHAP. II. Description of the Country inhabited by the SAXONS near the ELBE, before they occupied BRITAIN. II. THE infant state of the Saxon people, when the CHAP. Romans first observed them, exhibited nothing from which human sagacity would have predicted greatness. A territory, on the neck of the Cimbric Chersonesus, and three small islands, contained those whose descendants occupy the circle of Westphalia, the electorate of Saxony, the British islands, the United States of North America, and the British colonies in the two Indies. Such is the course of Providence, that empires the most extended, and the most formidable, are found to vanish as the morning mist; while tribes scarce visible, or contemptuously overlooked, like the springs of a mighty river, often glide on gradually to greatness and veneration. islands. THE three islands which the Saxons in the days Saxon of Ptolemy inhabited, were those which we now denominate North Strandt, Busen, and Heiligland.1 NORTH STRANDT, formerly torn from South Jut- North land by the violence of the waves, is situated oppo 1 Cluver. Ant. Ger. iii. p. 97. Pontanus Chorog. 737. Du Bos Histoire Critique, i. p. 148. The geographer of Ravenna places Eustrachia among the Saxon isles, lib. v. c. 30. This may mean the neighbouring peninsula, Eyderstadt, which was almost an island. Strandt. II. BOOK site to Hesum, and above Eiderstede, from both which it is separated by intervals of sea. The Hever, a bay which flows below it, and washes the northern shore of the Eiderstede, is favourable to commercial navigations. This island was formerly about twenty miles long, and in most parts seven miles broad. It once contained twenty-two parishes, and was noted for its agricultural produce, as well as its fish.2 The raging of the sea has materially damaged it since the time of the Saxons. Four calamitous inundations are recorded to have happened, in 1300, 1483, 1532, and 1615; but the most destructive of all began in the night of the 11th October, 1634; the island was entirely overflowed; 6408 persons, 1332 houses, and 50,000 head of cattle were washed away into the sea. Such devastations have almost annihilated the place. There is now remaining of Nord-strand only the small parish of Pelworm, which derives its safety from the height of its situation. Busen. 3 BUSEN lies north of the mouth of the Elbe, to the westward of Ditmarsia, and looks towards Meldorp; in breadth, it is above two miles, in length near three. It is situated close upon the main land, of which it is suspected to have once formed a part. Being one even plain, the stormy ocean around makes the island a perilous habitation; it has therefore been surrounded by a strong dyke. It contains three or four parishes, with about as many villages; and though boasting no pre-emi 2 Chrytæus, 65. Pontanus, p. 741. Ubbo Emmius, p. 30. 158. 3 The destruction extended to other parts of Jutland. In the Eyderstede, 664 houses, 2107 persons, and 12,000 cattle and sheep were swept off. Busching's Geography. |