OP THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

haps instructive, to contemplate the rude pic- chap.tures of Germany, France , and England, whose LXVIancient and modern state are so familiar to ourminds. I. Germany (says the Greek Chalcon- ofGenna-dyles) is of ample latitude from Vienna to the ny ’ocean; and it stretches (a strange geography)from Prague in Bohemia to the river Tartessus ,and the Pyrenaean mountains/ The soil, ex-cept in figs and olives, is sufficiently fruitful; theair is salubrious; the bodies of the natives arerobust and healthy; and these cold regions areseldom visited with the calamities of pestilenceor earthcpiakes. After the Scythians or Tartars ,the Germans are the most numerous of nations;they are brave and patient, and were they unitedunder a single head, their force would be irre-sistible. By the gift of the pope, they have ac-quired the privilege of choosingthe Roman em-peror;” nor is any people more devoutly attachedto the faith and obedieuce of the Latin patriarch.

The greatest part of the country is dividedamong the princes and prelates; but Strasburgb,

Cologne, Hamburgh, and more than two hun-dred free cities, are governed by sage and equallaws, according to the will, and for the advan-

* X shall not animadvert on the geographical errors of Chalcoudyles*

In this instance he perhaps followed, and mistook, Herodotus (1. ii,c. 33), whose text may be explained (Herodote de Lareher, tom. ii,p. 219, 220), or whose ignorance may be excused. Had these modernGreeks never read Strabo , or any of the lesser geographers ?

* A citizen of new Koine , while new Home survived, would have

scorned to dignify the German P r \ with the titles of 0 r a*t«-

p Mfxu-.uy: but all pride was extinct in the bosom of Chalcondylcajand he describes the Byzantine prince, and his subjects by the proper,though humble names of *EXX>m?> aud B«nXiy; ‘EXXijvav.

VOL. XII.

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