Ch. vi. Inhabitants of the North of Europe. 113 



tions soon found vent by sea. Feared before the 

 reign of Charlemagne, they were repelled with 

 difficulty by the care and vigour of that great 

 prince; but during the distractions of the empire 

 under his feeble successors, they spread like a 

 devouring flame over Lower Saxony, Friezeland, 

 Holland, Flanders, and the banks of the Rhine as 

 far as Mentz. 



After having long ravaged the coasts, they pe- 

 netrated into the heart of France, pillaged and 

 burnt her fairest towns, levied immense tributes 

 on her monarchs, and at length obtained by grant 

 one of the finest provinces in the kingdom. They 

 made themselves even dreaded in Spain, Italy 

 and Greece, spreading every where desolation 

 and terror. Sometimes they turned their arms 

 against each other, as if bent on their own mutual 

 destruction; at other times they transported co- 

 lonies to unknown or uninhabited countries, as if 

 they were willing to repair in one place the horrid 

 destruction of the human race occasioned by their 

 furious ravages in another.* 



The mal-administration and civil wars of the 

 Saxon kings of England produced the same effect 

 as the weakness which followed the reign of Charle- 

 magne in France;! and for two hundred years the 

 British isles were incessantly ravaged, and often 

 in part subdued, by these northern invaders. 

 During the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries, the 



* Mallet, Introd. a l'Histoire ile Dannemarc, torn. i. c. x. p. 22 1 , 

 223,224. 12mo. 1766. 

 -f Id. p. 226. 

 VOL. I. I 



