140 HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY. 



extends upwards on the Eder, Fulda. and Werra, and downwards on the Lahn, 

 and penetrates like a wedge into Franconia. It includes, however, also the 

 districts of the Westerwald-Taunus (Nassau), the Bavarian Palatinate of the 

 Rhine, Birkenfeld, Nahland, Saarland, and Luxemburg. The political 

 boundary lines, indeed, cut in the midst the natural division lines of the 

 people. On the whole, the Middle Germans inhabit a beautiful, large, and 

 favored territory. 



The Saxons received their name only at a late date. LTntil the tenth cen- 

 tury, Slavonic stocks (the Sorben Wendes) inhabited the land of Saxony. 

 Conquered by Henry L, a portion became converted to Christianity, part 

 of them adopting German manners and intermingling with the Germans ; 

 others remained unmixed, as we find even now in Saxony, especially in 

 Upper Lusatia, near 50,000 Slavonians (Wendes), who retain their peculiar 

 customs and language. The name Saxony was first given to their posses- 

 sions upon the Middle Elbe by the Ascanians when, at the fall of Henry the 

 Lion (1180), the great old Saxon duchy was dismembered. From the 

 Ascanians, through Frederick the Warlike, the Margraves of Meissen received 

 the Ascanian electoral dignity, the Ascanian coat of arms, and the name 

 Saxony. '• They are," says Duller, " a lively, sociable race, exceedingly capa- 

 ble of improvement, in whom a transition from the corporeal structure 

 of the North to that of the South is perceptible. They possess great 

 industry and aptitude ; are careful as to Avhat they do and what they 

 leave undone ; upright in their intentions and actions ; respecters of the 

 laws ; brave in war ; conscious of their own powers, without presumption or 

 vanity ; of yielding disposition, without weakness ; tractable and civil ; 

 obliging and agreeable, without being inclined to yield what is due to them- 

 selves." 



Gotzinger remarks with reference to the Upper Saxon dialect: "It 

 prevails in Thuringia and the old Margraviate of Meissen, and has also 

 been spread over Upper Lusatia and Silesia. With very immaterial altera- 

 tions, it appears to be the same everywhere, great as is the extent of 

 the country throughout which it is spoken, and presents, at all events, fewer 

 variations and changes than the Franconian. Only in the modulation 

 of the voice, and the high and deep utterance of the vowels, do the Thurin- 

 gians, the people of Meissen, the Lusatians, and the Silesians differ from each 

 other ; the relation of sounds and grammatical structure are essentially alike 

 everywhere." Whether, however, an original Thuringian dialect forms the 

 basis of this Upper Saxon, or whether the entire idiom has arisen from an 

 intimate union of the Franconian with the Lower Saxon, Gotzinger leaves 

 undecided ; he thinks, however, that Thuringia, at all events, appears to be 

 the native place of this dialect, since German stocks always lived here ; 

 whilst, on the other hand, Meissen was wrested from the Slavonians, 

 and peopled with Thuringians and Saxons. Gotzinger de'signates the 

 Upper Saxon dialect, moreover, as an intermediate one between the 

 high and low German ; the skeleton being hii^h German, the idiom and 

 construction a low German dialect. The Saxons are attached with ex- 

 traordinary fervor to the land of their birth, and are less inclined to 

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