Yet we have their history but partially, in an indistinct, confused manner; so that I shall only throw the strong point of light upon that part which coincides with Roman history, and of that part only on the point of time when they received the great and final stroke which made them, no more a nation; a stroke which is allowed to have cut off little less than two millions of that people.

I say nothing of the loppings made from that stock whilst it stood; nor from the suckers that grew out of the old root ever since.

But if, in this inconsiderable part of the globe, such a carnage has been made in two or three short reigns, and that this great carnage, great as it is, makes but a minute part of what the histories of that people inform us they suffered; what shall we judge of countries more extended, and which have waged wars by far more considerable?
Instances of this sort compose the uniform of history.

But there have been periods when no less than universal destruction to the race of mankind seems to have been threatened.

Such was that when the Goths, the Vandals, and the Huns, poured into Gaul, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Africa, carrying destruction before them as they advanced, and leaving horrid deserts every way behind them.