"Contra Langobardos paucitas nobilitat: plurimis ac valentissimis nationibus cincti non per obsequium sed præliis et periclitando tuti sunt. Reudigni, deinde, et Aviones, et Angli, et Varini, et Suardones, et Nuithones fluminibus aut sylvis muniuntur; neque quidquam notabile in singulis nisi quod in commune Hertham, id est, Terram Matrem colunt, eamque intervenire rebus hominum, invehi populis arbitrantur. Est in insula Oceani castum nemus, dicatum in eo vehiculum, veste contectum, attingere uni sacerdoti concessum. Is adesse penetrali deam intelligit, vectamque bobus feminis multa cum veneratione prosequitur. Læti tunc dies, festa loca, quæcunque adventu hospitioque dignatur. Non bella ineunt, non arma sumunt, clausum omne ferrum; pax et quies tunc tantum nota, tunc tantum amata, donec idem sacerdos satiatam conversatione mortalium deam templo reddat: mox vehiculum et vestes, et si credere velis, numen ipsum secreto lacu abluitur. Servi ministrant, quos statim idem lacus haurit. Arcanus hinc terror, sanctaque ignorantia, quid sit id, quod perituri tantum vident." Let us ask what we get from this passage _when taken by itself_, _i.e._, without the light thrown upon it by the present existence of the descendants of the Angli as the English of England. We get the evidence of a good writer, that six nations considered by him as sufficiently Germanic to be included in his _Germania_, were far enough north of the Germans who came in immediate contact with Rome to be briefly and imperfectly described and near enough the sea to frequent an island worshipping a goddess with a German name and certain remarkable attributes. This is the most we get; and to get this we must shut our eyes to more than one complication. _a._ Thus the country that can most reasonably be assigned to the _Varini_, is in the tenth century the country of the _Varnavi_, who are no Germans, but Slavonians. _b._ Another reading, instead of _Hertham_, is _Nerthum_, a name less decidedly Germanic. All we get beyond this is from their subsequent histories; and of these subsequent histories there is only one--the _Angle_ or _English_. Truly, then, may we say that the Angles of Germany are only known from their _relations to the Angles of England_. Let us inquire into the geographical and ethnological conditions of the Angli of Tacitus; and first in respect to their geography. 1. They must be placed as far north as the Weser; because the area required for the Cherusci, Fosi, Chasuarii, Dulgubini, Chamavi, and Angrivarii must be carried to a certain extent northwards; and the populations in question lay beyond these.