At the memorable epoch of the overthrow of the Roman dominion in the West (476 A.D.), the seats of the Teutonic race extended from the banks of the Rhine and the Danube to the rock-bound coasts of Norway. The victorious invaders who occupied the southern provinces of Europe speedily lost their own forms of speech, which were broken down, together with those of the vanquished, into a jargon unfit for composition. But in Germany and Scandinavia, where the old language retained its purity, song continued to flourish. There, from the most distant eras described by Tacitus and other Latin writers, the favorite attendants of kings and chiefs were those celebrated bards who preserved in their traditionary strains the memory of great events, the praises of the gods, the glory of warriors, and the laws and customs of their countrymen. Intrusted, like the Grecian heroic minstrelsy, to oral recitation, it was not until the propitious reign of Charlemagne that these verses were collected. But, through the bigotry of his successor or the ravages of time, not a fragment of this collection remains. We are enabled, however, to form an idea of the general tone and tenor of this early Teutonic poetry from other interesting remains. The "Nibelungen-Lied" (_Lay of the Nibelungen_) and "Heldenbuch" (_Book of Heroes_) may be regarded as the Homeric poems of Germany. After an examination of their monuments, the ability of the ancient bards, the honor in which they were held, and the enthusiasm which they produced, will not be surprising. Equally distinguished were the Scalds of Scandinavia. Ever in the train of princes and gallant adventurers, they chanted their rhymeless verse for the encouragement and solace of heroes. Their oldest songs, or sagas, are mostly of a historical import. In the Icelandic Edda, however, the richest monument of this species of composition, the theological element of their poetry is shadowed out in the most picturesque and fanciful legends. Such was the intellectual state of Europe down to the age of Charlemagne. While in the once famous seats of arts and arms scarcely a ray of native genius or courage was visible, the light of human intellect still burned in lands whose barbarism had furnished matter for the sarcasm of classical writers. Charlemagne encouraged learning, established schools, and filled his court with men of letters; while in England, the illustrious Alfred, himself a scholar and an author, improved and enriched the Anglo-Saxon dialect, and exerted the most beneficial influence on his contemporaries.