In Italy, the peace of society was disturbed by the iconoclastic heresy and the disorders which accompanied the foundation of a republic, commotions destined soon to provoke the interference of the Lombards and the subsequent impolitic alliance with those perfidious barbarians. The stern and uncompromising character of Gregory the Great had established the Church upon a basis so solid that the efforts of all its enemies have to this day been unable to prevail against it; and the sagacity of this distinguished pontiff had vindicated the policy of a system prompted by the inspiration of almost superhuman wisdom, sanctified by the precepts of antiquity, strengthened by the enthusiasm of its saints and martyrs, and confirmed by the prescription of centuries. No country in Europe during the eighth century exhibited such a picture of unredeemed barbarism as Britain. The Romans had never been able to more than temporarily establish their institutions in that island. The legions with difficulty held in subjection a people whom neither force nor the arts of persuasion could make amenable to the benefits of civilized life. The cruel rites which characterized the worship of the Druids had been abolished, but the elegant mythology of Italy obtained no hold upon the minds of the degraded aborigines, who welcomed with delight the savage ceremonies which were performed around the altars of the Scandinavian Woden. Upon this uncongenial soil the refining genius of Rome left no permanent traces of its occupancy, no splendid memorials of its art and culture. The nature of the transitory impressions emanating from the possession of Britain by the masters of the world was disclosed by the crushing misfortunes which befell the empire in the fifth century. Unable to sustain the cares of government, hostile chieftains abandoned the island to all the woes of anarchy, and partisan jealousy invoked the perilous aid of the pirates of Germany, whose dominion was finally established only by a war of extermination involving both ally and foe. The obscurity of the British annals concerning the period under consideration, dense of itself, is increased by the popular acceptance of myth and legend as historic truth. The chroniclers of Western Europe, however, have made us acquainted with the national character of the Saxons. We know that in Britain the customs of the aborigines and the laws of the empire were alike abrogated; that no worship prevailed but the basest form of idolatry; that every vestige of Roman institutions was swept away; that the religion whose maxims had been proclaimed by the eloquence of Augustin was extirpated; and that the voice of faction which had evoked this barbarian tempest was silenced in the convulsions which preceded the foundation of the Saxon Heptarchy. The island, whose name is now the most familiar one known to mankind, became more mysterious than it had been in the remotest ages of antiquity; the country whose