still the scene of a struggle between the contending races for supremacy. It was here that the provincial Britons had mainly to contend under the Guledig against the invading Picts and Scots, succeeded by the resistance of the native Cymric population of the north to the encroachment of the Angels of Bernicia. Throughout this clash and jar of contending races, a body of popular poetry appears to have grown up, and the events of this never-ending war, and the dim recollections of social changes and revolutions, seem to have been reflected in national lays attributed to bards supposed to have lived at the time in which the deeds of their warriors were celebrated, and the legends of the country preserved in language, which, if not poetical, was figurative and obscure. It was not till the seventh century that these popular lays floating about among the people were brought into shape, and assumed a consistent form. . . . I do not attempt to take them farther back. The principal poem in the Four Books, supposed to possess historical value, is entitled 'Gododen,' by Aneurin, in which the bard laments the inglorious defeat of his countrymen by the Saxons. This war ode or battle-piece is in ninety-four stanzas. One of them -the twenty-first-has been paraphrased by Gray, and the reader may be interested by seeing together, the literal translation in Mr. Skene's book, and the version of the English poet: The men went to Catraeth; they were renowned; Wine and mead from golden cups was their beverage; That year was to them of exalted solemnity; Three warriors and three score and three hundred, wearing the golden torques. But three escaped by the prowess of the gashing sword, The two war-dogs of Aeron and Cenon the dauntless And myself from the spilling of my blood, the reward of my sacred song. Gray renders the passage thus: To Cattraeth's vale in glittering row, Or the grape's ecstatic juice. Flushed with mirth and hope they burn: The Celtic Scotland' of Mr. Skene is, like his Welsh work, designed to ascertain what can be really extracted from the early authorities. He adopts the conclusion of Professor Huxley, that eighteen hundred years ago the population of Britain comprised peoples of two types of complexion, the one fair and the other dark-the latter resembling Aquitani and the Iberians; the fair people resembling the Belgic Gauls. An Iberian or Basque people preceded the Celtic race in Britain and Ireland. The victory gained by Agricola, 86 A.D., is said by Tacitus to have been fought at Mons Grampius.' The hills now called the Grampians were then known as Drumalban, As to the scene of the struggle. Mr Skene says: It is plain from the poem that two districts, called respectively Gododen and Catraeth, met at or near a great rampart; that both were washed by the sea, and that in connection with the latter was a fort called Eyddin. The name of Eyddin takes us to Lothain, where we have Dunedíu, or Edinburgh, and Caredin on the shore. so that we cannot identify the scene of action with that noble mountain range. But it appears that the latest editor of the Life of Agricola has discovered from some Vatican manuscripts that Tacitus really wrote Mons Graupius,' and thus the word Grapius is, as Mr. Burton says, 'an editor's or printer's blunder, nearly four hundred years old. The name of the Western Islands, it may be mentioned, originated in a similar blunder. The printer of an edition of Pliny in 1503 converted Hebudes' into 'Hebrides,' and Boece having copied the error, it became fixed. Mr. Skene prefers reading Granpius' to 'Graupius.' It is hardly possible, he says, to distinguish u from n in such manuscripts; but the point is certainly of no importance. The old fabulous Scotch narratives Mr. Skene traces to the rivalry and ambition of ecclesiastical establishments and to the great national controversy of old excited by the claim of England to a feudal superiority over Scotland. The attempt made by Lloyd and Stillingfleet in the seventeenth century to cut off King Fergus and twenty-four other Scotch kings chronicled by Hector Boece, filled the Lord Advocate of that day, Sir George Mackenzie, with horror and dismay. Precedency,' he said, 'is one of the chief glories of the crown, for which not only kings but subjects fight and debate, and how could I suffer this right and privilege of our crown to be stolen from it by the assertion which did expressly substract about eight hundred and thirty years from its antiquity? Sir George would as willingly have prosecuted the iconoclasts, had they been citizens north of the Tweed, as he prosecuted the poor Covenanters. But King Fergus and his twenty-four royal successors were doomed. They have been all swept off the stage into the limbo of vanity, and Scotland has lost eight hundred and thirty years of her imaginary but cherished sovereignty. Battle of Mons Granpius, 86 A.D. On the peninsula formed by the junction of the Isla with the Tay are the remains of a strong and massive vallum, called Cleaven Dyke, extending from the one river to the other, with a small Roman fort at one end, and inclosing a large triangular space capable of containing Agricola's whole troops, guarded by the rampart in front, and by a river on each side. Before the rampart a plain of some size extends to the foot of the Blair Hill, or the mount of battle, the lowest of a succession of elevations which rise from the plain till they attain the full he ght of the great mountain range of the so-called Grampians; and on the heights above are the remains of a large native encampment called Buzzard Dykes, capable of containing upwards of thirty thous and men. Certainly no position in Scotland presents features which correspond ɛo remarkably with Tacins description as this.... Such was the position of the two armies when the echoes of the wild yells and shouts of the natives, and the glitter of their arms as their divisions were seen in n.0tion and hurrying to the front, announced to Agricola that they were forming the line of battle. The Roman commander immediately drew out his troops on the plain. In the centre he placed the auxiliary infantry, amounting to a out eight thousand men, and three thousand horse formed the wings. Behind the main line. and in front of the great vallum or rampart. he stationed the legions, consisting of the veteran Roman soldiers. His object was to fight the battle with the auxiliary + Burton's History of Scotland, 2d edit. i. 3. troops, among whom were even Britons, and to support them, if necessary, with the Roman troops as a body of reserye. The native army was ranged upon the rising grounds, and their line as far extended as possible. The first line was stationed on the plains, while the others were ranged in separate lines on the acclivity of the hill behind them. On the plains the chariots and horsemen of the native army rushed about in all directions. Agricola, fearing from the extended line of the enemy that he might be attacked both in front and flank at the same time, ordered the ranks to form in wider range, at the risk even of weakening his line, and placing himself in front with his colours, this memorable action commenced by the interchange of missiles at a distance. In order to bring the action to close quarters, Agricola ordered three Batavian and two Tungrian cohorts to charge the enemy sword in hand. In close combat they provel to be superior to the natives, whose small targets and large unwieldy swords were no match for the vigorous onslaught of the auxiliaries; and having driven back their first line, they were forcing their way up the ascent, when the whole line of the Roman army advanced and charged with such impetuosity as to carry all before them. The natives endeavoured to turn the fate of the battle by their chariots, and dashed with them upon the Roman cavalry, who were driven back and thrown into confusion; but the chariots becoming mixed with the cavalry, were in their turn thrown into confusion, and were thus rendered ineffectual as well by the roughness of the ground. The reserve of the natives now descended. and endeavoured to outflank the Roman army and attack them in the rear. when Agricola ordered four squadrons of reserve cavalry to advance to the charge The native troops were repulsed, and being attacked in the rear by the cavalry from the wings, were completely routed, and this concluded the battle. The defeat bcan general; the natives drew off in a body to the woods and marshes on the west side of the plain. They attempted to check the pursuit by making a last effort and again forming, but Agricola sent some cohorts to the assistance of the pursuers; and surrounding the ground, while part of the cavalry scoured the more open woods, and part dismounting entered the closer thickets, the native line again broke, and the flight became general, till night put an end to the pursuit. Such was the great battle at Mons Granpins, and such the events of the day as they may be gathered from the concise narrative of a Roman writing of a battle in which the victorious general was his own father-in-law. The slaughter on the part of the natives was great, though probably as much overstated, when put at onthird of their whole army, as that of the Romans is underestina ed; and the siguificant silence of the historian as to the death of Calgacus, or any other of sufficient note to b mentioned, and the admission that the great body of the native army at first drew off in good order, shew that it was not the crushing blow which might otherwise be inferred On the succeeding day there was no appearence of the enemy; silence all around, desolate hills, and the distant sinoke of burning dwellings alone met the eye of the victor. A series of historical memoirs by LUCY AIKIN (1781-1864), daughter of Dr. John Aikin,* and sister of Mrs. Barbauld, enjoyed a considerable share of popularity. These are-Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth,' 1818; Memoirs of the Court of Charles I.,' 1833; and Memoirs of the Court of James I.' Miss Aikin also wrote a 'Life of Addison,' 1843 (see ante), which, besides being the most copious, though often incorrect, memoir of that English classic, had the merit of producing one of the most finished of Macaulay's critical essays. Dr. John Aikin (1747-1822) was an industrious editor and compiler. Besides several medical works, he published Essus on Song Writing. 1772, and was editor successively of the Monthly Magazine, the Athenæum (1807-1809), a General Biographical Dictionary, Dodsley's Annual Register from 1811 to 1515, and Select Works of the British Poets (Johnson to Beattie). 1820. PICTORIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND: PROFESSOR CRAIK C. MACFARLANE. The Pictorial History of England,' planned by Mr. Charles Knight, in the manner of Dr. Henry's History, is deserving of honourable mention. It was commenced about the year 1840, and was continued for four years, forming eight large volumes, and extending from the earliest period to the Peace of 1815. Professing to be a history of the people as well as of the kingdom, every period of English history includes chapters on religion, the constitution and laws, national industry, manners, literature, &c. A great number of illustrations was also added; and the work altogether was precisely what was wanted by the general reader. The two principal writers in this work were Mr. Craik and Mr. Macfarlane. GEORGE LILLIE CRAIK was born in Fife in 1798. He was educated for the church, but preferred a literary career, and was one of the ablest and most diligent of the writers engaged in the works issued by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Mr. Craik was editor of the Pictorial History of England,' and parts of it he enlarged and published separately-as, 'Sketches of Literature and Learning from the Norman Conquest,' 1844; and History of British Commerce,' 1844. His first work was a series of popular biographies, entitled The Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties,' 1831. He contributed numerous articles to the Penny Cyclopædia.' In 1849 he was appointed to the chair of English History and Literature in Queen's College, Belfast, which he held till his death in 1866. Mr. Craik was author of The Romance of the Peerage,' 1849; 'Outlines of the History of the English Language,' 1855; The English of Shakspeare,' 1857; History of English Literature and the English Language,' two volumes, 1861; &c. MR. CHARLES MACFARLANE was a voluminous writer and collaborateur with Mr Craik and others in Mr. Charles Knight's serial works. He wrote ' Recollec tions of the South of Italy,' 1846; and 'A Glance at Revolutionis d Italy,' 1849. The elaborate account of the reign of George III., in thePictorial History,' was chiefly written by Mr. Macfarlane. He died in the Charter House in 1858. To render the History still more complete, Mr. Knight added a narrative of the Thirty Years' Peace, 1816-1846. This History of the Peace' was written by MISS HARRIET MARTINEAU, whose facile and vigorous pen and general knowledge rendered her peculiarly well adapted for the task. The 'Pictorial History,' and the History of the Peace,' have been revised and corrected under the care of Messrs. Chambers, in seven volumes, with sequels in separate volumes, presenting Pictorial Histories of the Russian War and Indian Revolt.' MR. FROUDE. The research and statistical knowledge evinced by Lord Macaulay in his view of the state of England in the seventeenth century, have been rivalled by another historian and investigator of an earlier period. The History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth,' by JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, twelve volumes, 1856-1869, is a work of sterling merit, though conceived in the spirit of a special pleader, and over-coloured both in light and shadow. Mr. Froude is a son of Dr. Froude, archdeacon of Totness, and rector of Dartington, Devonshire. He was born in 1818, and educated at Westminster and at Oriel College, Oxford. In 1842 he carried off the chancellor's prize for an English essay, his subject being Political Economy, and the same year he became a Fellow of Exeter College. Mr. Froude appeared as an author in 1847, when he published Shadows of the Clouds, by Zeta,' consisting of two stories. Next year he produced The Nemesis of Faith,' a protest, as it has been called, against the reverence entertained by the church for what Mr. Froude called the Hebrew mythology. Such a work could not fail to offend the university authorities. Mr. Froude was deprived of his Fellowship, and also forfeited a situation to which he had been appointed in Tasmania. He then set to periodical writing, and contributed to the Westminster Review' and 'Fraser's Magazine:' of the latter he was sometime editor. His reputation was greatly extended by his History, as the volumes appeared from time to time; and he threw off occasional pamphlets and short historical dissertations. One of these, entitled The Influence of the Reformation on the Scottish Character,' being an address delivered before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, in 1865, attracted much attention, especially on account of its eulogy on John Knox, who, according to Mr. Froude, 'saved the kirk which he had founded, and saved with it Scottish and English freedom.' Another of these occasional addresses was one on Calvinism, delivered to the university of St. Andrews in 1869, which was given by Mr. Froude in his capacity of rector of that university. Previous to this (1867) he had issued two volumes of Short Studies on Great Subjects.' The fame of Mr. Froude, however, rests on his History of England,' so picturesque and dramatic in detail. The object of the author is to vindicate the character of Henry VIII., and to depict the actual condition, the contentment and loyalty of the people during his reign. For part of the original and curious de tail in which the work abounds, Mr. Froude was indebted to Sir Francis Palgrave, but he has himself been indefatigable in collecting information from state-papers and other sources. The result is, not justification of the capricious tyranny and cruelty of Henry-which in essential points is unjustifiable-but the removal of some stains from his memory which have been continued without examination by previous writers; and the accumulation of many interesting facts relative to the great men and the social state of England in that transitionary era. Life was then, according to the historian, unrefined, but colored with a broad rosy English health.' Personal freedom, |