_Lower_ Saxony was the country on the _Lower_ Elbe, and also of the _Lower_ Weser, and until the extension of the name to the parts about Leipsic and Dresden, was simply known as _Saxonia_, or the Land of the _Saxones_; at least, the qualifying adjective _Lower_ made no part of the designation. _Saxony_ was what it was called by the Merovingian Franks, as well as the Carlovingians who succeeded them. Whether, however, any portion of the _indigenæ_ so called itself is uncertain. In the latter half of the eighth century it falls into three divisions, two of which are denoted by geographical or political designations, and one by the name of a native population. The present district of _West_-phalia was one of them; its occupants being called _West_-falahi, _West_-falai, _West_-fali. These were the Saxons of the Rhine. Contrasted with these, the _East_-phalians (_Ost_-falai, _Ost_-falahi, _Ost_-fali, _Oster_-leudi, _Austre_-leudi, _Aust_-rasii), stretched towards the Elbe. Between the two, descendants of the _Angri_-varii of Tacitus, and ancestors of the present Germans of the parts about _Engern_, lay the _Angr_-arii, or _Ang_-arii. An unknown poet of the eighth century, but one whose sentiments indicate a Saxon origin, thus laments the degenerate state of his country: "Generalis habet populos divisio ternos, Insignita quibus Saxonia floruit olim; Nomina nunc remanent virtus antiqua recessit. Denique _Westfalos_ vocitant in parte manentes Occidua; quorum non longe terminus amne A Rheno distat? regionem solis ad ortum Inhabitant _Osterleudi_, quos nomine quidam _Ostvalos_ alii vocitant, confinia quorum Infestant conjuncta suis gens perfida Sclavi. Inter predictos media regione morantur _Angarii_, populus Saxonum tertius; horum Patria Francorum terris sociatur ab Austro, Oceanoque eadem conjungitur ex Aquilone." The conquest of Charlemagne is the reason for the language being thus querulous; for, unlike Upper Saxony, the Saxony of the Lower Weser, the Saxony of the Angrivarii, Westfalii, and Ostfalii, was truly the native land of an old and heroic _German_ population, of a population which under Arminius had resisted Rome, of a population descended from the Chamavi, the Dulgubini, the Fosi, and the Cherusci of Tacitus, and, finally, the land of a population whose immediate and closest affinities were with the Angles of Hanover, and the Frisians of Friesland, rather than with the Chatti of Hesse, or the Franks of the Carlovingian dynasty. How far are these the Saxons of Sus-_sex_, Es-_sex_, and Middle-_sex_? Only so far as they were Angles; and, except in the parts near the Elbe, they were other than Angle. This we know from their language, in which a Gospel Harmony, in alliterative metre, a fragmentary translation of the Psalms, and a heroic rhapsody called Hildubrant and Hathubrant have come down to us.