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 152 THE DECLINE AND FALL [Chap, xxxviii accused the universal and incurable corruption of the people. " No one," they said, « any longer fears or respects his king, his duke, or his count. Each man loves to do evil, and freely indulges his criminal inclinations. The most gentle correction provokes an immediate tumult, and the rash magistrate who presumes to censure or restrain his seditious subjects seldom escapes alive from their revenge." 128 It has been reserved for the same nation to expose, by their intemperate vices, the most odious abuse of freedom ; and to supply its loss by the spirit of honour and humanity, which now alleviates and dignifies their obedience to an absolute sovereign. The visi- The Visigoths had resigned to Clovis the greatest part of their Spain Gallic possessions ; but their loss was amply compensated by the easy conquest, and secure enjoyment, of the provinces of Spain. From the monarchy of the Goths, which soon involved the Suevic kingdom of Gallicia, the modern Spaniards still derive some national vanity ; but the historian of the Eoman Empire is neither invited nor compelled to pursue the obscure and barren series of their annals. 129 The Goths of Spain were separated from the rest of mankind by the lofty ridge of the Pyrensean mountains ; their manners and institutions, as far as they were common to the Germanic* tribes, have been already explained. I have anticipated, in the preceding chapter, the most important of their ecclesiastical events, the fall of Arian- ism and the persecution of the Jews ; and it only remains to ob- serve some interesting circumstances which relate to the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the Spanish kingdom. Legislate After their conversion from idolatry, or heresy, the Franks and of B ipain the Visigoths were disposed to embrace, with equal submission, the inherent evils, and the accidental benefits, of superstition. But the prelates of France, long before the extinction of the Merovingian race, had degenerated into fighting and hunting Barbarians. They disdained the use of synods ; forgot the laws 123 Gregory of Tours (1. viii. c. 30, in torn. ii. p. 325, 326) relates, with much indifference, the crimes, the reproof, and the apology. Nullus Begem metuit, nullus Ducem, nullus Comitem reveretur ; et, si fortassis alicui ista displicent, et ea pro longaevitate vita vestras emendare conatur, statim seditio in populo, statim tumultus exoritur, et in tantum unusquisque contra seniorem sseva intentione grassatur, ut vix se [om. se] credat evadere, si tandem [leg. tardius] silere nequiverit. 129 Spain, in these dark ages, has been peculiarly unfortunate. The Franks had a Gregory of Tours ; the Saxons, or Angles, a Bede ; the Lombards, a Paul Warnefrid, &<s. But the history of the Visigoths is contained in the short and imperfect chron- icles of Isidore of Seville and John of Biclar.