It will thus be seen he lauds the one in order to disparage the other. He compliments Mr. Seebohm and spits contemptuously in M. du Chaillu’s face. I am Jupiter, and by contrast in the scale of intelligence, you, M. du Chaillu, are only a black beetle. “The strife in its new form,” he tells us, “has become more deadly.” M. du Chaillu threatens to wipe out entirely Professor Freeman’s antiquated conception of a Saxon invasion, and the latter is constrained to worship in secret the divinity he pretends to despise. Professor Freeman’s views will be found in _The Teutonic Conquest in Gaul and Britain_. He has had his say, and “if anybody cares to know what that say is, he may read it for himself.” Professor Freeman has written what he has written, and woe to him who reads to controvert. It does not, however, follow that what Professor Freeman has written is necessarily the gospel of English history. Both theories alike, it would appear--Mr. Seebohm’s and M. du Chaillu’s--throw aside the recorded facts of history! What are the recorded facts of history in relation to the so-called Saxon invasion? The Saxon invasion was doubted in the days of Bishop Nicolson, who refers to the short and pithy despatch Sir William Temple makes of the Saxon times, and the contempt with which he speaks of its historians. The good Bishop himself is constrained to admit he does not know what has become of the book written by King Alfred against corrupt judges, nor of that gifted King’s collection of old Saxon sonnets.[1] The late J. M. Kemble taught the learned world to believe that, “the received accounts of the Saxon immigration, and subsequent fortunes, and ultimate settlement are devoid of historical truth in every detail.” Here is an eminent scholar who, having examined the subject with perfect historical candour, regarded the Saxon invasion as fiction and fabrication from beginning to end, and who surely may be accepted as a valuable witness. To the same purpose we have the statement of Mr. James Rankin, F.R.A.S., “Who the Saxons were, or when they arrived, or where they settled, is a subject on which tradition is entirely silent, for of written history there is none.” Professor Freeman says that M. du Chaillu has put forth two very pretty volumes with abundance of illustrations of Scandinavian objects. He contemns the pictures but admires the frames. Most of them, however, he adds, will be found in “various Scandinavian books,” but he does not suggest that the “various Scandinavian books” are not readily accessible to the English reader.