B.C. 56.]

FIRST OCCUPANTS.

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rights of property, for no one would begin to improve and cultivate what did not belong to him, and a knowledge of the rights of property implies all the rest-security of life, and the supremacy of law.

§ 2. It will be seen from this that it is necessary to bear in mind the geography of a country in order to understand its people. Fancy pictures have been drawn of the antehistoric appearance of what is now the best cultivated and most beautiful land in Europe; but there is no use in appealing to the fancy. We have only to turn to the books of travel of every day, and we see ourselves reflected in the savages, who excite alternately the fear and the pity of their visitors. In the same way as "'tis always morning somewhere in the world," there is always existent on some part or other of the earth's surface a population representing the degrees of civilization through which we have passed. The inhabitants of Terra del Fuego, on the shores of the Straits of Magellan, may enable us to see our predecessors as they probably would have been found in the period of the original settlement. "Their very attitudes were abject," says a recent traveller, "and the expression of their countenances distrustful, surprised, and startled. The language of these people, according to our notions, scarcely deserves to be called articulate. Captain Cook has compared it to a man clearing his throat, but certainly no European ever cleared his throat with so many hoarse, guttural, and clicking sounds." The early Gaels who succeeded those shadowy populations were, perhaps, in the state of advancement attained by the Caffres and Hottentots of the Cape at the present time. For a parallel to the Saxon principalities, with uneasy submission to a central power, we must look to some of the half-formed territories and states belonging to the American Union; and an exact reproduction of the Normanfeudal period is shown to us in the military and territorial

organization of Oude, with turbulent nobles and a debased and dependent peasantry. Whatever point, therefore, we reach in these sketches of our own land and people, we may rest assured that there is some living exemplification of it at this very day; that we who, with other nations, lead the van in the march of improvement, are only at the head of an unnumbered array of all climes and kindreds who follow closely in our steps; and that the ground we now occupy with a feeling of gratification at the progress we have made, will hereafter be occupied by the rearmost rank of our still advancing army, till knowledge, arts, and religion, the nurse and conservator of them all, shall be as universally diffused as the sunlight or the air.

§ 3. The soft breezes of the Atlantic encouraged the vegetation of the early woods till the whole land was shadowed over with a covering of trees. Sole obstacle to the universal spread of foliage were the immense tracts of lakes and marshy land formed by the overflow of the untended rivers. North and south, and east and west, were equally given up to the rude energies of teeming soil and moderate temperature; and for ages of uncounted length the sun rose and the moon shone down in beauty on a land where no human sound was heard, and where only the waving of the forest replied to the roaring of the river and the stormy waves on the sea-shore. Some day when the waves were calm, a fleet of boats must have sailed or paddled into a sheltered haven, and the Gaels leapt forth upon the soil. Chased by some domestic commotion from the opposite coast, where their countrymen had for some time been established, the new settlers must have brought with them their wives and children, the leaders of their tribe, and the arms which were necessary to defend them from attack. They must also have brought over cattle, and the precious metals, and some knowledge of agriculture and of the mechanical arts from their ancient seats; for we find, when their authentic history begins in the pages of Julius

B.C. 56.]

JULIUS CESAR.

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Cæsar, that they had among them warlike, enterprising, commercial and political populations, with scythed chariots of great ingenuity and power; with an established religion and a patriotic love of their native country, which could only spring from an appreciation of the blessings they enjoyed. Intercourse was kept up with the tribes they had left behind by a constant commerce and the community of their faith; for the products of England were sent over in strong, though small-sized vessels, to all the Atlantic and Channel coasts of Gaul, and Gaul in return sent its youth to study science and religion under the Druids or priesthood of the favoured isle.

How long this state of affairs had lasted, or how long it might have continued, no man can venture to guess; but an incident occurred in the year 56 before Christ, which lifted the partition veil between this island and the civilized portions of the world, and changed the fortunes of warrior and Druid, of Roman and of Briton, for all future time. This was a quarrel between Julius Cæsar, the greatest of Roman generals, and a small tribe occupying the land near the present Morbihan in France. The Veneti, though situated in the northern part of the Bay of Biscay, on the stormiest part of the Atlantic, sent for their friends and customers, the Gaels of Britain, to come to their aid; and though the channel was broad, and the great promontory where Brest now is had to be passed, the barks of the gallant islanders risked all the dangers of the voyage, and sailed into the Bay of Vannes filled with armed men. Our first interference with continental politics had not a very favourable termination. Cæsar learned with surprise and anger who his new opponents were; made many inquiries about their island, and determined to go over and take signal vengeance on the innocent inhabitants of Kent for the insult offered to the majesty of Rome by the inhabitants most probably of Hampshire or Dorset.

§ 4. The first invasion of England took place from the small creek above which the column of Boulogne commemorates the preparation for the last projected attempt at the same operation under the great Napoleon. The Britons had heard of the collection of vessels and men on the opposite coast, and in all probability the heights of Dover were lined with watchers to announce the direction of the hostile squadron. Bearing boldly across towards the South Foreland, the Roman galleys ran upon the sandy beach, and armed warriors sprang from the decks with the eagles in their hands. Breast high in the water, shouting their war-cries, and brandishing their swords and axes, the Britons met their invaders before they touched the land, and for a while the issue was doubtful. But discipline and superiority of weapon prevailed, and Julius encamped that night (26th Aug., B.C. 55) on British ground, and added a new country to the curious geographies of Rome, and a new dependency, eventually, to its power. It was not, however, till the following year that he advanced into the interior. His course can still be traced by the description he gives of the streams and hills, but the minute fcatures are undiscoverable; for what was a swamp in those days is now a rich and cultivated plain; the gloomy wood in which the awful rites of the Druidic worship were celebrated, is now an open green, with a village church raising its spire above the landscape, and the dubious path by which the legions marched towards the Stour is now exchanged for a railway conveying its passengers at forty miles an hour. When they came to the Thames, the invaders saw on the other side all the tribes who had had time to collect since the intelligence of the landing had reached them. The river was deep and the fords uncertain; but Cæsar had in his camp an elephant of prodigious size, and clothing it in armour, and placing a tower upon its back filled with archers, he sent the moving monster into the stream, with its trunk in the air and its tusks shining in the sun, and the boldest hearts

B.C. 55—A.D. 43.] THE ISLAND LITTLE KNOWN.

7

among the Trinobantes, Dobuni, and all the dwellers of the east and north, were struck with such terror and amazement that no opposition was made. Delighted with his success, and skilfully determined to make use of his expedition in advancing his interests at home, Julius retired to the coast once more, and sent such accounts of his victories to his adherents in Rome, that games and illuminations were ordered by the senate for twenty days in honour of the conquest of Britain. The conquest of Britain, however, was as far off as ever, for the pride of the native warriors and their power of boasting were as great as those on the other side; and when a few years went by without any repetition of the assault, the chroniclers of national deeds must have easily persuaded themselves and their hearers that the victory was with the unconquerable islanders, and that Julius's precipitate retreat from the scene of his adventure was a tacit admission of his defeat.

§ 5. For ninety years from this time the island lay unknown, and had grown at Rome into a name representing the wild and wonderful. The intention had from time to time been entertained of renewing the attempt to subdue and colonize the great and mysterious land, at the very extremity of the globe, with fogs and darkness settling on its northern portion, and the sea impassable by reason of the hardness of its waves, which grew to marble, and resisted the stroke of the oar. With these vague imaginings about a frozen ocean and cloudy atmosphere the Roman rulers were forced to be content; for great things were occupying them at home In the interval the Great Name became known, in a small village in Judea, which was to unite the Roman and Briton in a closer bond than conquest could effect-for nearly midway between the repulse of Cæsar and the aggression of Claudius, Jesus Christ was born.

§ 6. Ninety years is not a long space in the history of a nation; but it must have been filled with great political changes