and ends with a story of Stromboli having broken out just as Hannibal poisoned himself at the court of Prusias;--information which may have been interesting, though not consoling, to poor Jovinus, in the prospect of living there; but of which one would like to have had king Dietrich's opinion. Did he felicitate himself like a simple Teuton, on the wonderful learning and eloquence of his Greek-Roman secretary? Or did he laugh a royal laugh at the whole letter, and crack a royal joke at Cassiodorus and all quill-driving schoolmasters and lawyers--the two classes of men whom the Goths hated especially, and at the end to which they by their pedantries had brought imperial Rome? One would like to know. For not only was Dietrich no scholar himself, but he had a contempt for the very scholarship which he employed, and forbade the Goths to learn it--as the event proved, a foolish and fatal prejudice. But it was connected in his mind with chicanery, effeminacy, and with the cruel and degrading punishments of children. Perhaps the ferula had been applied to him at Constantinople in old days. If so, no wonder that he never learnt to write. 'The boy who trembles at a cane,' he used to say, 'will never face a lance.' His mother wit, meanwhile, was so shrewd that 'many of his sayings (says the unknown author of the invaluable Valesian Fragment) remain among us to this day.' Two only, as far as I know, have been preserved, quaint enough: 'He that hath gold, or a devil, cannot hide it.' And 'The Roman, when poor, apes the Goth: the Goth, when rich, apes the Roman.' There is a sort of Solomon's judgment, too, told of him, in the case of a woman who refused to acknowledge her own son, which was effectual enough; but somewhat too homely to repeat. As for his personal appearance, it was given in a saga; but I have not consulted it myself, and am no judge of its authenticity. The traditional description of him is that of a man almost beardless--a rare case among the Goths--with masses of golden ringlets, and black eyebrows over 'oculos caesios,' the blue grey eyes common to so many conquerors. A complexion so peculiar, that one must believe it to be truly reported. His tragic death, and the yet more tragic consequences thereof, will be detailed in the next lecture. LECTURE V--DIETRICH'S END.