It is true that the
language spoken over a large portion of this place is not predominantly
German; but even in France and Italy, and Spain, the influence of the
Franks, Burgundians, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Lombards while it has
colored even the language, has in blood and institutions left its mark
legibly and indelibly. Germany, the Low Countries, Switzerland, for the
most part Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, and our own islands are all in
language, in blood, and in institutions German most decidedly. But all
South America is peopled with Spaniards and Portuguese; all North
America and all Australia with Englishmen. I say nothing of the
prospects and influence of the German race in Africa and in India; it is
enough to say that half of Europe and all America and Australia are
German, more or less completely, in race, in language, or in
institutions, or in all."
By the middle of the fifth century Germanic nations had settled
themselves in many of the fairest regions of the Roman Empire, had
imposed their yoke on the provincials, and had undergone, to a
considerable extent, that moral conquest which the arts and refinements
of the vanquished in arms have so often achieved over the rough victor.
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