36 History of the English Landed Interest. 



Jutes, Angles, aud Saxons, who had so savagely turned to rend 

 the allies that had called in their help? Let us for the present, 

 excluding from our minds the opinions of Seebohm, Stubbs, 

 Coote, and other theorists, proceed to the fountain-head of our 

 information, and examine carefully the earliest evidences on 

 German life. 



Ancient history, tradition, inference, all combine to afford 

 us ample evidence of a great sea of nomadic peoples, which in 

 three distinct waves swept over Europe from the eastward, 

 overwhelming the prehistoric aborigines, and tearing up the 

 forests in its onward rush. Each wave separated from the 

 other by different eras, flowed further westwards, as in its 

 wake there followed another and greater billow of humanity. 

 Finally, this vast flood of nationalities settled itself over the 

 face of Europe in the form of three strongly individualised 

 races, similar at first in their nomadic habits, but easily dis- 

 tinguishable in their three several languages. The first of 

 these tides of Oriental peoples, the Cimmerian or Celtic, settled 

 down on the uttermost lands westwards; the second, or Gothic 

 race, found a halting-place in central Europe, and the third, or 

 Slavonic, spent its violence no further eastwards than Russia 

 and parts of Turkey,^ 



Comparing the earliest "knowledge that we possess of all 

 these three races with that of the Babylonians and Egyptians 

 we find one great and universal distinction, namel}', that 

 whereas the former were all nomadic, the latter were all 

 stationary. "Whether civilisation had effected the change or 

 resulted from it does not concern our present purpose. It 

 is in the second-named and nomadic race that we are now 

 interested, and as long as historical data have established its 

 wandering instincts, when first appearing upon European 

 scenes, beyond the searching reach of modern scepticism and 

 theory, we may, at any rate for the present, shirk the question 

 whether those instincts were primeval or acquired. Nor is it 

 worth our while to seek to identify the .special tribes who 



' Mr. Sharon Turner, in the first volume of his Anglo-Saxons, has gone 

 deeply into this interesting subject. 



