was seen to pass from time to time in front of the fire like a bat before a candle."-p. 83.

"A silence of terror fell upon the army of Vagabonds, during which might be heard the cries of the canons shut up in their cloister, more uneasy than horses in a stable on fire, together with the stealthy-opened noise of windows, the bustle of the interior of the houses, and of the Hotel-Dieu, the wind in the flame, the last rattle in the throats of the dying, and the pattering of the lead-rain on the pavement."

This formidable mode of resistance rendered a council of war necessary, at which the Vagabonds resolved upon an escalade-it failed; the prowess of Quasimodo was again successful, he shook the besiegers off the ladder and hurled them into the depths below. The contest was thus protracted till the arrival of a very considerable troop of gendarmerie and archers, acting under the immediate orders of the king. The unlucky Vagabonds were utterly routed, and either driven from the field, or left upon it. The description of the siege is continued at great length; it is utterly impossible for us to carry on our report of it on the same scale as the preceding scenes, the spirit and animation of which have induced us to enter upon the translation of some considerable passages. Notre Dame, however, is not a work likely to figure in English, so that, probably, our notice of it may be the only form in which it will be presented to the reader who is not also a general purchaser of foreign publications.

ART. IX.-Bücherkunde der Sassisch-Niederdeutchen Sprache, hauptsächlich nach den Schriftdenkmälern der Herzogl. Bibliothek zu Wolfenbuttel entwerfen, von Dr. Karl Scheller. (Book-lore of the Saxon-Low-German Language, compiled principally from the Documents in the Ducal Library at Wolfenbuttel. By Dr. Karl Scheller.) Brunswick. 1826. Large 8vo. 2. Reinecke de Fos fan Henrek fan Alkmer, upt nye utgegeven unde forklared dorg Dr. K. Scheller (Reynard the Fox. By Henry of Alkmar. Published anew with explanatory Remarks, by Dr. K. Scheller.) Brunswick. 1825. 8vo.

3. Willküren der Brockmänner, eines freien Friesischen Volkes, übersetzt und erläutert von Dr. Wiarda. (The Statutes of the Brockmänner, a free Frisian Nation. Translated and explained by Dr. Wiarda.*) Berlin. 1825. 8vo.

ACCORDING to the method usually adopted by historians, the reader's attention is drawn to the actions and fortune of the par

* An account of several other works by Dr. Wiarda, on the Language and Laws of Friesland, will be found in our VIth Number, Art. IX.

ticular hero of the day. With him we embark in wars and adventures, that usually take the colour of justice or injustice from the way in which they bear upon his interests; and after we have followed him to the field of victory, we accompany him to his capital, and like him repose in the triumphant consciousness of all that has been achieved, or busy ourselves with the festivities and gaieties that hail the conqueror's return. Seldom, very seldom, is a look cast upon the state of the conquered land; much less is it thought necessary to institute a minute inquiry as to how far the real influence obtained by the victors extends, whether to the advantage or disadvantage of the old inhabitants; or whether they do not, on the contrary, by indirect means, assume, after a while, an ascendancy over their subduers. Neglected, as this branch of historical inquiry has for the most part been, it is the only way in which the many anomalies in the actual state of the civilized world can be accounted for. Most nations, too, are apt rather to discover the remissness of their neighbours in this as well as other respects, than to detect the errors of the same kind which they have committed themselves. Thus it is matter of constant wonder to the Germans, and other continental nations, how England, taking the lead of other nations as she does in point of intellectual and practical improvement, should possess provinces and districts so backward in civilization as parts of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales unquestionably are. Englishmen, on the other hand, are not less astonished at finding in North Germany so great a difference between the state of improvement at which the inhabitants of the cities and towns have arrived, when compared with the peasants or inhabitants of the open country. In genteel society in North Germany one is accustomed to hear the most liberal opinions respecting government and social institutions expressed and canvassed freely. Young men who seek for situations under government are expected to be acquainted with the rudiments of political economy, and to possess a general knowledge of the institutions of other countries, in addition to the acquirements which belong especially to their departments. The advantages which all classes possess for obtaining a general education surpass those of other countries in a surprising degree. And yet with all this, the bauer, or peasant, is looked upon, not only by the adel, or noblesse, but even by the greater part of the bürgers, or citizens, as a person of an inferior caste; their feelings towards him being not many degrees removed from those entertained by the early English settlers in Ireland towards the natives of that country. The bauer, according to law, can make no claim for reparation for injured honour in cases of assault; it being a

received axiom that the countryman has no honour to lose. What would our English yeoman say to a law like this?

Remarkable as is this coincidence between the situation of the German, the Irish and the Welsh peasant at the present day, it is no less interesting to find that these phenomena can all be traced to the same cause-the forced introduction of a foreign language into these countries, which the strangers were neither numerous nor powerful enough to cause to be universally adopted. Few wars or conquests have been exterminating ones, as history sufficiently proves. The most striking instances of the extermination of a people are perhaps those of the Celtic inhabitants of Gaul and of Britain, circumstances which seem to argue both a thin population and a determined resistance to the invaders; the remnant of the nation probably preferring banishment from their native land to the chains imposed by arrogant conquerors. In most cases, the ancient inhabitants submitted on finding resistance ineffectual, and in proportion to their numbers adopted the new laws and customs of their conquerors with greater or less modifications. England furnishes a remarkable instance of a subdued nation, warmly attached to its own institutions, language and customs, gradually forcing these upon its conquerors. The Norman invaders were as essentially different from the Saxons of England as the French of the present day are from their German neighbours on the Rhine. A greater appearance of polish, arising from a more constant mixture with the southern nations of Europe, and something of that attention to fashions in dress and manners that still distinguishes the nation they came from, tended to give the Norman knights an appearance of superiority, which, supported by their own bravery and the dissensions among the Saxons, enabled them to secure the prize they had gained. After a comparatively short interval however from the Conquest, we find the Saxons requiring a confirmation of their ancient laws, and thus laying the first stone of our present constitution. Their language too, more harmonious than the barbarous mixture of Frankish and Latin introduced by the conquerors, began to assert its superiority, and the peasant, at the same time and in the same proportion, rose in the estimation of his superiors. The final banishment of the French tongue from the court and the courts of justice was, however, that which completed the foundation on which our constitution was to be raised; and by ensuring to Englishmen the certainty that no foreign customs or laws, that eventually might favour tyranny, could be introduced unknown to them, reduced all questions of government and policy to the simple standard of right and common sense.

With the continental nations affairs took a different and less

favourable course. The powerful empire founded by the Franks, and the subsequent rise of the Swabian and Austrian Houses in Germany, caused the Frankish or High-German dialect to be the language preferred, not only in the south and the centre of Germany, but even among the higher classes in the more northern districts. The Saxon, or Low-German, which was and still remains the vernacular tongue of the peasants inhabiting the countries between the Elbe and the Weser, Westphalia, and up the Rhine as far as Cologne, was gradually compelled to make way for the more fashionable, but in other respects inferior, Frankish dialect. Its decline had been already prepared by the religious zeal of Charlemagne, whose eulogists praise the ardour with which he collected the songs of the bards, &c. in the countries he overran, while the impossibility of discovering a vestige of these productions at the present day seems to confirm the suspicion that they were sought for only to be destroyed. Some few relics of poems in this language, which mark an unusual degree of cultivation for their age, may, perhaps, belong to the period of the Saxon Emperors in the twelfth century, and seem to justify the bold assertion of the author of the works mentioned at the head of this article-that many of the poems now extant in the old High-German or Frankish dialect are merely translations from the Sassisch or Low-German. To this point we intend to take an opportunity of recurring.

The prominent part which the Saxon cities took in the Hanseatic League was doubtless one great means of preserving the Saxon language from total decay, and, accordingly, we find that in those cities which preserved their independence longest, the Sassisch is most used at the present day; a fact of which all English travellers who have visited Hamburgh and Bremen must be aware. Every means was, however, adopted to bring it into disrepute, and the introduction of the Roman law tended very much to the furtherance of this object. The principal places of education were situated in Upper Germany, and as all situations about the judicial courts were filled with their scholars, the Frankish soon became the dialect of the clerks and lawyers, and both judges and advocates found their advantage in the use of a language not understood by the peasantry. This yoke the inhabitants of North Germany have never been able to shake off, and indeed they are themselves now half persuaded of the truth of the assertion of the lawyers, that twelve upright men, chosen from among the people, are incapable of deciding what is right or what is wrong; so long have they been accustomed to look upon law as a matter above their capacities, and a necessary but incomprehensible evil.

The natural consequence of the lawyers and clergy seeking their education in Upper Germany was, that no literary productions appeared in the Saxon tongue, while the efforts of Hans Sachs and Martin Opitz are justly celebrated for the improvements they effected in the Frankish. At that period, indeed, it was too much the fashion for learned men to write in Latin and even in Greek for the language of the country to make much progress, and even High-German received its present polish and copiousness but at a very recent date; so that when at the Reformation the controversial works were translated into Sassisch for the benefit of the inhabitants of North Germany, they were so badly executed, that the people preferred studying the originals in the less familiar dialect; and as a proof of the difficulty they found in the undertaking, it is worthy of remark, that a Dictionary of the strange words used in Luther's translation of the Bible was published at that time, to assist the Saxon reader.

Thus, the two classes of men who might be expected to contribute most to the improvement of their native language, the clergy and the lawyers, were induced, from an affectation of learning and the influence of fashion, to despise it, and to look upon the peasantry, who still clung to it with a natural fondness, as on persons of an inferior cast of intellect. A noble language has by this means sunk gradually into decay; as the deficiency of literary productions naturally prevented its cultivation according to one fixed standard, until at length every district formed a peculiar dialect for itself, more or less corrupted by the introduction of foreign words and idioms. For the Saxons themselves, viz. the countries lying between the Elbe, the Saale, and the German Ocean, (for the inhabitants of what now is called the kingdom of Saxony belong to the High Germans, and cannot even pronounce the Sassisch) this loss is irreparable. The old Sassisch united most of the advantages possessed at the present day by the Eng→ lish and High-German tongues, rivalling the first in softness and fulness of intonation, and actually surpassing the latter in the number of its transposable particles and the power of creating compound words. Had Goethe and Schiller written in Sassisch, they would have raised it to the rank of one of the leading dialects of Europe. But they were both natives of Upper Germany: the muses have not been liberal of their favours to the inhabitants of the North.

An interest, however, of a different kind attaches to the study of the Sassisch dialect, and is especially attractive to Englishmen. This is the importance of the historical documents preserved in the language. When we recollect that the seat of our Saxon ancestors in Germany was in the countries that lie between the