coalition sprung those principles and that spirit which governed, afterwards, almost all the states of Europe, and which, notwithstanding the differences of climate, of religion and particular accidents, do still visibly reign in them, and retain, to this day, more or less the traces of their first common original.
It is easy to see, from this short sketch, how greatly the nations of the north have influenced the different fates of Europe: And, if it be worth while to trace its revolutions to their causes, if the illustration of its institutions, of its police, of its customs, of its manners, of its laws, be a subject of useful and interesting inquiry; it must be allowed, that the Antiquities of the north, that is to say, everything which tends to make us acquainted with its ancient inhabitants, merits a share in the attention of thinking men. But to render this obvious by a particular example; Is it not well known that the most flourishing and celebrated states of Europe owe originally to the northern nations, whatever liberty they now enjoy, either in their constitution, or in the spirit of their government? For although the Gothic form of government has been almost everywhere altered or abolished, have we not retained, in most things, the opinions, the customs, the manners which that government had a tendency to produce? Is not this, in fact, the principal source of that courage, of that aversion to slavery, of that empire of honour which characterise in general the European nations; and of that moderation, of that easiness of access, and peculiar attention to the rights of humanity, which so happily distinguish our sovereigns from the inaccessible and superb tyrants of Asia? The immense extent of the Roman Empire had rendered its constitution so despotic and military, many of its Emperors were such ferocious monsters, its senate was become so mean-spirited and vile, that all elevation of sentiment, every thing that was noble and manly, seems to have been for ever banished from their hearts and minds: Insomuch, that if all Europe had received the yoke of
