the coast, sailed round the north of Scotland, and discovered that Britain was an island. Agricola also constructed a rampart of earth, from the Tyne to the Solway, to keep back the Picts and Scots of Caledonia. In 120 A.D., the Emperor Hadrian raised a new wall along the course of the first; and in 138 A.D., Lollius Urbicus, the governor, fixed the Roman frontier at the isthmus between the firths of Clyde and Forth, by the construction of a strong wall and line of forts. These walls, in some places, remain to this day, and their course is easily traced.

Gradually the whole country south of the Cheviot Hills and west of the Severn submitted to the Roman authority. Roads were made, towns built, and colonies of Roman soldiers founded in different parts of the country. Thus Britain, became like Gaul, a province of Rome, and quietly obeyed. About the year 288

A.D., a piratical chief, named Carausius, succeeded for some years in separating Britain from Rome; but he was murdered at York by Alectus, one of his own soldiers, who then assumed the government for three years, till Constantius put down the revolt.

In 306 A.D., the Emperor Constantius died at York, and his son Constantine was proclaimed in England. Under this first Christian emperor and his sons, Britain enjoyed peace for fifty years. The aggressions of the northern barbarians were repressed, and industry and commerce encouraged.

But the Roman power was now fast declining, and the removal of the seat of empire to Constantinople hastened its downfal. The Britons, however, through long custom, remained faithful to Rome, amidst the

various changes of emperors, and looked to it for protection. But Rome was now no longer able to defend herself. When the Goths, under Alaric, ravaged Italy, and the empire was dismembered, all the Roman troops were recalled, and in 420 A.D., nearly five centuries after Cæsar's first invasion, Honorius formally released Britain from its allegiance to Rome.

For some years it seems that the country fell under the government of a multitude of military chiefs, some of British, others of Roman origin, who combined together against their common enemies the Scots, and, when there was peace with them, turned their arms against each other; and it seemed as if Britain was about to relapse into the barbarism from which the Romans had rescued it. The country was depopulated by the levies of young men which had for years been made by competitors for the Roman throne, and the internal quarrels increased the misery of the country; till Vortigern, it is said, invited the Saxon chiefs, Hengist and Horsa, to assist him against his enemies. The Saxons, after rendering assistance against the Picts and Scots, turned their arms against the Britons, and gradually subjugated the country.

Before giving an account of the Saxons, we must take a retrospective view of the influence and extent of the Roman government of Britain, and the civilisation introduced by them.

The governor was called the Prefect or Proprætor of Britain. His power was supreme, but dependent on the will of the Emperor. He commanded the army, Under him was the Quæstor,

and administered justice.

whose duty it was to collect the taxes and administer the revenue.

Throughout the country were scattered numerous towns or military posts, inhabited by Roman colonists and such of the natives as were admitted to share in the privileges of a colony. These privileges were great, and eagerly sought after. The principal towns were. Londinium (London), Eboracum (York), Camalodunum (Colchester), Durovernum (Canterbury), Venta Belgarum (Winchester), Isca (Exeter), Aquæ Solis (Bath), Luguvallum (Carlisle), Deva (Chester), Mancunium (Manchester), Lindum Colonia (Lincoln), and Uriconium (Wroxeter).

These towns contain, in the present day, many remains of their Roman inhabitants: portions of walls, arches, pavement, urns and coins, are from time to time discovered, which give us some notion of the domestic life of the Britons under the Roman government.

But more durable than these towns or walls, were the great Roman roads, leading from station to station; they were cut through hills, thrown across valleys and streams, and paved with solid stones. The principal of these were Watling-street (as the Saxons called it), from Dover, through London, to Chester; Ermyn-street, from Pevensey, in Sussex, to York; and Iknield-street, from Norfolk to South Wales.

The Romans were of the greatest service in clearing the country of its forests, cultivating the soil, and introducing many kinds of fruit and vegetables.

Christianity too came in the track of the Roman conquests. At the distance of so many ages it is impossible to discover by whom Christianity was first preached in England. Some have asserted that St. Paul was the first missionary to our country; but it is most

probable that the Christian soldiers in the Roman army, and the Christian merchants and traders who followed it from Italy, were the means of first making known the Gospel to the heathen Britons.

The number of Christians in Britain, in spite of the opposition of the Druids and the persecutions of the Roman emperors, rapidly increased; and at the close of the second century Christianity had penetrated to Scotland and Ireland.

There is no reason to suppose that the Britons laid aside their native language and spoke Latin. The inhabitants of the towns, who came more in contact with their and imitated their manners, may also conquerors, have assumed their language; and there can be no doubt but that all who approached the Roman governor to demand justice, or entreat his favour, were compelled to use the Latin tongue; but the use cannot have been general, and the Latin exercised so trifling an influence on the British language, that there is hardly a word now in use in English that can be traced with certainty to the Latin spoken in England during this period.

Though many of the provincials of Gaul and Spain became celebrated as Latin poets and orators, no writer of British birth is mentioned as having been thus distinguished.

13

CHAP. III.

THE SAXONS.

We have now to trace the history of a new people,— the Anglo-Saxons, who are the ancestors of the great bulk of the English people.

These Saxons were not a Celtic but a Teutonic or German people, speaking a language which is the mother tongue of the English, and akin to the present language of Germany. It cannot be known with certainty from what particular spot of Germany the Saxon invaders of England came; their numbers must have been considerable, and the area consequently extensive. From various considerations, we shall not be far wrong if we say, that the Anglo-Saxons came from the north coast of Germany, between the mouths of the Oder and Rhine, from the country occupied by the present kingdom of Hanover, the duchy of Oldenburg, parts of Westphalia and Holstein; and from the province in the north of Holland called Friesland, or Frisia.

The invaders probably belonged to various tribes or clans, among whom the principal was the tribe of the Angles, while Saxons seems to have been a general name for the whole.

Many of them were bold and daring pirates, and as such they had been long too well known on the coasts of France and Britain.