THE HUMAN SPECIES. 405 



snce in the national manners. The characteristic temperament 

 vas ever stimulated by momentary objects, unsteady, factious, 

 :ften frivolous, always brave, witty, and improvident. This 

 great stem of nations could never permanently arrest the 

 steady progress of the Teutonic and Getic tribes, which 

 gradually forced them westward, then mixed with them, 

 became a privileged class of rulers, or adulterated the Celtic 

 blood and language ; such were the Gallic, the first and second 

 Belgic tribes, the Centomanni, the Boii, the Allobroges, and 

 lastly the Cymber or Friesonic, which were nearly pure Ger- 

 mans. The intermixture, in proportion as it increased, gave 

 firmness, and those enduring qualities which finally arrested 

 the pressure of the Getic races, and they resembled them ill 

 person and in language, as is proved by the Franks, the Si- 

 cambers and Frankonians, or east Franks on the German side 

 of the Rhine, and by the Saxons and Northmen in the British 

 Islands. After they had been subjugated by the Romans, the 

 Danube and the Rhine were both wrested from them by these 

 amalgamated tribes ; they sank before the Vandals, the Goths, 

 the Burgundians, the Franks, the Saxons, and the Northmen, 

 in every quarter except the Highlands of Scotland and a por- 

 tion of Ireland. These, with Wales, a small part of French 

 Bretagne, and the Alpine Vaudois, are now the sole portions 

 of the race which still retain the pride of their nationality, 

 their ancient language, and their traditions. 



That they all came from the east is perhaps sufficiently 

 shown. We have pointed out the routes followed by the migra. 

 tory columns, and their stations in Armenia and Western 

 Asia; their early blending with Finnic or Ural-Altaic tribes, 

 probably on the Caspian coast, constituting a portion of the 

 Illyrian branch of Eastern Europe. They seem still to retain 

 possession of a portion of territory on the Danube, under the 

 name of Wallachians (for the claim of that people to an Italian 

 or Roman origin is no other than that the Italians are denom- 

 inated Vfiches by the Southern Allemannic and Sclavonic 



