It would be an interesting work, to trace out the causes and the course of civilization, in the case of particular nations compared one with another. Some nations have been civilized by conquering, others by being conquered. The moral and social advancement of Spain, Gaul, and South Britain under the Roman yoke is an instance of the latter process; but more commonly the victorious people has been the pupil, not the teacher, and has voluntarily placed itself at the feet of those, whom it began by treading under its own. This appears from the nature of the case: the more favoured countries of the earth are the natural seats of civilization; and these are the very objects of the cupidity of northern or eastern races, who are at once more warlike and less refined. Accordingly, the rude warrior quits his icebound crags, his desolate steppes, or his burning sands, for the sunny hills or the well-watered meadows of the temperate zone; and when he has made good his footing in his new abode, what was the incentive of his conquest becomes the instrument of his education. Thus it was that Goths and Lombards put off their national fierceness; thus it was that the fanatic Arab was transmuted into the polished knight of Seville or Granada: and thus the Northman also softened both his name and his nature, and over his characteristic qualities,—the cruelty, the cunning, and romantic ambition of his barbarism,—threw the fantastic garb of Christian chivalry.
The ordinary course of barbarian invasion is such as this:—Certain tribes are in the advance of the rest, being the van-guard of a large host or the fugitives of unsuccessful war; they come down upon the country which is to be their prey in successive expeditions; like billows tumbling one over the other, they sweep through it; then, like waves, they retire, and then again, after an interval, they return. Next, they exact contributions, and are again and again bought off. Next, either by violence or by treaty, they gain possession and occupation of some territory, and take their place as landed proprietors amid the old tenants and institutions of the soil. This turns out to be a more politic bribe than gold; it is a gift once for all; it puts them under teaching, and imposes on them responsibilities. In a while they are found to be happily influenced by the civilization, be it greater or less, into which they have thrust themselves. They imitate the customs and manners of their new country; they acquire a moral perception and a standard of judgment to which before they were utter strangers; they give up their old idolatry. They trade and make money; they grow conservative; they learn to be ashamed of the savage habits of their forefathers; they make common cause with the old inhabitants in repelling the fresh invasions of their own kindred. Perhaps they even act a charitable part towards the latter, sending them missionaries, or returning the captives or hostages whom they have taken, to teach them a purer faith and the arts of life.
These successive steps in the course of civilization took a character of their own in the remarkable race whose history has so intimate a bearing on the two islands of the North; and as we have enlarged above upon the terrible and revolting features of the Scandinavian character, so it is to our purpose now to speak of the singular alleviations with which its enormities were, as time went on, accompanied, till it changed into the chivalrous Norman. Though of the same stock as the Saxons, the Northmen were gifted with a more heroic cast of soul. Perhaps it was the peculiar scenery and climate of their native homes which suggested to them such lofty aspirations, and such enthusiastic love of danger and hardship. The stillness of the desert may fill the fierce Arab with a rapturous enjoyment 1, and the interminable forests of Britain or Germany might breathe profound mystery; but the icy mountains and the hoarse resounding waves of the North nurtured warriors of a princely stature, both in mind and body, befitting the future occupants of European thrones. Cradled in the surge and storm, they were spared the temptation of indolence and luxury: they neither worshipped the vivifying powers of nature with the Greek, nor with the Sabean did they kiss the hand to the bright stars of heaven; but, while they gave a personal presence and volition to the fearful or the beautiful spirits which haunted the mountains or lay in ambush in the mist, they understood by daily experience that good could not be had by the mere wishing, and they made it a first article in their creed that their reward was future, and that their present must be toil.
2.
The light and gloom, the nobleness, the sternness, and the fancifulness, of the Northman character are admirably portrayed in the romantic tales of Fouqué. At one time he brings before us the honour-loving Froda, the friend of the Skalds, who had been taught in the book of a learned Icelander how the Lady Aslauga, a hundred years and more before, had in her golden veil of flowing hair won the love of King Ragnar Lodbrog, and who, smit with devotion to her, saw from time to time the sudden apparition of his bright queen in the cloudy autumn sky, animating him to great and warlike deeds. At another time, it is the Lady Minnetrost, the good Druda, far up upon the shores of the Baltic, on her high moonlit tower, with her long white finger lifted up and pointing to the starry sky. Then, again, we have the tall slim form of the beautiful Sigrid, with her large blue eyes, singing her charm, gathering witch-herbs, and brewing her witch-draught, which makes heroes invincible in fight, and works in the banquet a black mysterious woe. Then we have the gigantic form of men on the islands of the lake, with massive breastplates, and huge brazen bucklers, and halberts so high that they seemed like the masts of vessels. And then the vessel comes in sight, ready for the use of the sea-knights in their pirate expeditions; and off they go over the bounding waves, on their terrible errands of blood and fire, to gain immortal glory by inflicting untold pain. And suddenly appears one of them at a marriage feast in Normandy, the sea-king Arinbiorn; one of those warriors in the high-coast country who own little or nothing on the mainland, but who sail round the earth in their light barks in the company of brave and devoted followers, passing from one side of the North Cape, nay, even from distant Iceland, down to imperial Constantinople, or along the coast of blooming Asia or of burning Africa, where almost all other seamen are at fault. And at another time we are shown the spectres of remorse and death and judgment, and the living forms of pride, passion, and temptation, in the history of the troubled child of the fierce warrior of Drontheim; and, on the other hand, the pattern knight and his lady bright coming back to their old country from the plains of Frank-land, and presenting to the savage northern race the very ideal which they vaguely sought after, but could not adumbrate; and the pale dark-haired Sintram, calmed and vanquished by the voice and lute of the fair Gabrielle.