of the north as the stronghold and
fortress—the Sebastopol, so to speak—of the
Powers of Evil. Milton, perhaps, had some
kind of authority in certain symbolic phrases
of an ancient prophet. History, moreover,
speaks of the north with an amount of
irreverence that betokens a long and deep-seated
prejudice. To Homer, the countries beyond
the Haemus were regions of darkness,
subject to the unmitigated rule of the rugged
Boreas. And it is true that the arid table-
lands, the steppes, and the forests, of the
north, condemn man to a pastoral and hunting
life, and render him nomadic and barbarous.
Nor, in his barbarian state, has he remained
passive or forbearing, but has continually
acted on the more civilised man of the south
with impetuous self-determination. Multitudes
of savage peoples have issued from the
borders of the north; and, like their own
boisterous torrents and icy winds, have done the
work of sudden tempests and destructive
billows to the nations of the south. It has even
been surmised that the belief in two principles
—one good and one evil among the followers
of Zoroaster, and the ancient people of Zend,
was originally derived from the repeated
conflicts between Iran and Turan; that is,
between the good genius of the south or of
light and civilisation, and the evil genius of
the north or of darkness and barbarism.
Upon the plateau of Iran, full six centuries
before the Christian era, the Scythians swept
with the violence of the whirlwind through
the gate of the Khorasan; and, after
overrunning the nourishing kingdom of Media,
spread themselves as far as Egypt. Also, in
the eleventh century of our own era, the
Seldjouks or Turks, from the heights of
Bolor and Turkestan, contrived to lord it over
western Asia, after invading eastern Persia,
overturning the power of the Gaznevide
sultans, and finishing off that of the caliphs.
Then, there is the invasion of the whole of
Asia by the Mongolians under Gengis-Khan;
Russia subjected; Germany resisted; and
Europe generally menaced. The conquerors
of China, too, come from the north; and the
history of that country teems with instances
of the conflicts between that people and the
Manchou Tartars, who became its rulers.
Nor must we forget the Mongolian empire in
India, which so long opposed its power to
our own.

There have not been wanting theorists who
have recognised in the apparently constant
opposition of the north and south a kind of
natural law, by which both are destined to
be regulated, and to which the whole of
history may be made to bear witness. They
point to the Kelts migrating to Gaul, led by
Bellovese and Sigovese, and establishing
themselves in the smiling plains of the Po—
soon to be followed by other bands, who
founded a new Gaul beyond the Alps. Twice
these roving hordes assailed infant Rome;
and, having pillaged Greece, were in turn
assailed by Rome in her maturity, and thereby
won to civilisation. Still the mistress
of the world continued to be in danger from
the children of the north; and Rome herself
fell at length before their repeated assaults.

This interpenetration of the south and
north—this yielding of the more civilised to
the barbarian power—is to be historically
regarded as having been appointed for the
interest of humanity. It was needed that
the fresh vitality of the northmen should,
like new sap, circulate through the old and
enfeebled empires; while in modern Europe
the continued struggle of physical and
intellectual energy ended in the better culture of
both worlds. Conquerors and conquered—
the civilised and the barbarous—alike melted
down into one and the same people, and rose
to a far superior civilisation, uniting the free
and intelligent thinker of the north with the
artistic and impassioned superstitionist of
the south.

Writers who are disposed to the fullest
recognition of the law at which we have
above hinted, remark, that both in Asia and
in Europe there alike exist both a northern
and a southern world. The fields of
Lombardy answer to the tropical plains of India;
the Alps to the Himalaya; and the plateaus
of Bavaria to those of Tibet. The contrasts
are varied and numerous. Thus, the table-
land of the south is broken up into
peninsulas and islands: Greece and its archipelago,
Italy and its isles, Spain and its sierras, are
all individualised. For, in Europe, it is on the
peninsulas and the margin of the seas that
civilisation first shows itself; while in Asia
civilisation commenced in the great plains and
on the banks of rivers. In the latter, however,
it had its cradle; but in the former, having
overcome its early difficulties, it grows and
prospers with unprecedented vigour.
America, indeed, presents a third northern continent,
but under a different aspect. It is, says
a French traveller, evidently constructed, "not
to give birth and growth to a new civilisation,
but to receive one ready made, and to
furnish forth for man, whose education the
Old World has completed, the most
magnificent theatre, the scene most worthy of his
activity."

Such speculations as these are pregnant
with utility, because they are infinitely
suggestive. They give the mind a fillip, and an
impetus, and set it going with immense rapidity
and energy. The analogy between the
New World and the Old that exists in regard
to the relations of these opposite points of the
compass is at least remarkable. In North
America, we behold again the people of
North Europe, the Anglo-Saxons, the
Germans, and the French—in South America,
the Spanish and the Portuguese. The
contrasts of the Old are reproduced in the New
World, more strongly marked, and on a
grander scale. They are illustrated by those
between North America, with its temperate