GERMANY is divided among such a number of sovereigns, native and foreign, and its natural boundaries are so ob scurely marked, that it is difficult, and at first sight seems improper, to describe it as a single country. But when it is considered, that, in respect to name, language, and in habitants, it possesses a unity of character, from which it derives a fair and solid claim to occupy a separate place among the divisions of Europe, and that although its ex treme limits are not easily ascertained, the great mass of which it is composed is sufficiently identified, we trust we shall be justified in making it the subject of a separate though short article.
In order, hoWever, that this article may not repeat or an ticipate what the reader will naturally look for under the heads of AUSTRIA, BAVARIA, HANOVER, PRUSSIA, SAXO NY, and the other states of Germany, we shall confine it to the three following points: I. A brief description of an cient Germany, and of thc manners, &c. of its inhabitants; II. The principal revolutions and events of the Germanic empire, as separate and distinguished from the respective histories of Austria, Prussia, &c. ; and lastly, an outline of the statistics of Germany.
I. Ancient Germany was divided on the west by the Rhine, from the Gallic provinces of the Roman empire ; and on the south by the Danube, from the Illyrian pro vinces of the same empire. It was divided and protected from Dacia or Hungary, by a ridge of hills called the Car pathian mountains, which rose from the Danube. The Hercynian Forest, at that time reckoned impenetrable, and a frozen ocean, described by the ancients as lying beyond the Baltic, if by it they did not mean the Baltic itself, were the limits of Germany on the north and north-west. On the cast the boundary was still more faintly marked, or rather, it was frequently varying and confounded, by the mixture of the wavering and confederate tribes of the Germans and Sarmatians. From this description of the boundaries of ancient Germany, it will be seen, that, inde pendently of the province westward of the Rhine, which appears to have been a colony of Germans settled within the limits of Gaul, it extended itself over a third part of Europe.
Our most accurate, full, and important information respect ing ancient Germany, is derived from Tacitus. This author first mentions two colonies, the Helvetii and Boii, which had returned from Gaul into Germany. The Vangiones he describes as living on the west side of the Rhine ; and the Batavi, in the isle formed by the outlets of that river. Beyond the people between the head of the Danube and the Rhine, he places the Catti ; and further up on the Rhine, the Usipii, &c.; next the 13ructeri ; ,behind them
the Dulf2;uhini ; and in front the Frisii. After this he men tions, that the coast of Germany turns to the north, which it does at Friezeland and Groningen. This circumstance sufficiently determines the positions of the tribes hitherto mentioned. Next he mentions the Chattel ; then the Che russi and Fosi ; the remains of the Cimbri, so formidable and numerous before the dote of Tacitus, but when he wrote ncrva civitas, seem to have inhabited the country near the mouth of the Elbe. The Suevi, divided into many tribes, occupied the greatest part of Germany, viz. all from the Danube to the ocean, south and north; and from the Elbe to the Vistula, west and east. The first tribe were the Semitones, who inhabited Brandenberg ; the Longobardi, in Lunenberg. Seven small tribes follow next, who seem to have occupied the peninsula of Jutland. Among these were the Angli. Having thus pro ceeded to the utmost north of the west parts of Germany, Tacitus proceeds to the description of the nations along the banks of the Danube : the principal of which were the Hermundurii ; then the Narisci about Nuremberg ; the Marcomarmi, whose country anciently reached from the Rhine to the head of the Danube, and to the Necker, but who afterwards went and settled in Bohemia and Moravia, and some of them in Gaul, whence they forced the Boii to return into Germany. The Quad' were situated next to Bohemia, extending from the Danube to Moravia, and the northern part of Austria. After mentioning the remotest nations in this direction, Tacitus returns northward, in forming us that a large chain of mountains divided Suevia, beyond which were the Lygii, consisting of many nations. They inhabited the present Silesia ; above these were the Gotthones, at the mouth of the Vistula ; next from thence, on the ocean, were the Rugii, in Rugen ; then the Lemovii, who appear to have dwelt to the west of the Rugii, and hence probably near Lubec. After this Tacitus proceeds to the Stiones, who, by most geographers, are considered as the Swedes, but as Pinkerton contends, more probably the inhabitants of the Danish islands in the Baltic. After the Suiones, Tacitus passes to the Estii, whom he describes as situated on the right hand, as you sail up the Suevicum. Mare, or probably in the peninsula beyond the present Dantzic. The Sitones seem to have been the present Swedes; and the Fermi, the inhabitants of Livonia. Such, according to Tacitus, were the principal tribes that inha bited ancient Germany in his time.