His broad, brawny shoulders overhung
a form that was as low in stature as it was athletic in build; you
looked on him and saw the sinews of a giant strung in the body of a
dwarf. And yet this deformed Hercules was no solitary error of Nature--
no extraordinary exception to his fellow-beings, but the actual type of
a whole race, stunted and repulsive as himself. He was a Hun.
This savage people, the terror even of their barbarous neighbours,
living without government, laws, or religion, possessed but one feeling
in common with the human race--the instinct of war. Their historical
career may be said to have begun with their early conquests in China,
and to have proceeded in their first victories over the Goths, who
regarded them as demons, and fled at their approach. The hostilities
thus commenced between the two nations were at length suspended by the
temporary alliance of the conquered people with the empire, and
subsequently ceased in the gradual fusion of the interests of each in
one animating spirit--detestation of Rome.
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