THE PEOPLE OF BRITAIN.

she was destined to attain."* our own day. It has been too

[B.C. 56.

Thus writes the most eloquent historian of hastily supposed that mere savages peopled this Britain in her early existence. The Britons, as known to the Romans, were a people of high courage, disciplined and obedient to authority, and yet impatient of subjection; not unacquainted with some important arts of life; exchanging commodities for money of copper and iron; mining and smelting their native tin; possessing an agriculture not wholly un

British Weapons of bronze.

scientific, for they understood the process of marling, and raised cattle in great numbers:-a naval people, with boats, and probably vessels of burden, sailing far away into a tempestuous sea;

a warlike people, with swords and shields
and chariots, that could not be fabricated
without some mechanical knowledge; a
religious people, building temples of
gigantic proportions, and raising me-
morials of the dead in earth-works that
rival the wonders of modern engineering.
Their priests were their lawgivers, and
the great ministers of whatever moral or
material civilisation they possessed; and
we see that the most perfect element of
the learning of the priests was considered
to exist in Britain. Were these teachers
and lawgivers surrounded by few votaries
and subjects? "The population is very great,

numerous," says Cæsar. All merely savage nations never replenish a land,

1. Long barrow. 2. Bowl-barrow. 3. Bell-barrow. 4. Variety of Druid barrow. 5. Cone-barrow. 6. Broad-barrow. 7. Silbury Hill.

because they never subdue it to their use.

"The system of Druidism has been minutely described by Cæsar. The Druids were the ministers of sacred things. The

young resorted to them for instruction. They were the arbiters of disputes, the judges of crime; and men under their interdict were held accursed, and were banished from human intercourse. Macaulay, History of England, chap. i.

*

B.C. 56.]

THE PEOPLE OF BRITAIN.

5

Over this body one chief Druid presided. The Druids were exempt from military service, and from the payment of taxes. Their instructions were oral. They held that after death the soul does not perish. Their sacrifices were brutal; for they offered up criminals to propitiate the gods, and if criminals were wanting they sacrificed the innocent. Their teaching was not confined to their own worship. They discoursed of the heavenly bodies and of their motions,-of the extent of the world, and the people of distant climes. But there was another Order with power and privilege-the Equestrian. The Knights had armed followers, as the Druids had studious disciples. There were Bards also who sang the praises of their heroes, even as Sir Philip Sidney heard the old song of Percy and Douglas sung by some blind crowder-for the crowd, or rote, a wheel striking on strings, was the instrument of these our ancestral lyrists. But the great mass of the people were dependent upon the two privileged Orders, at least in Gaul, and were oppressed by grievous exactions-the vassals of hard task-masters. The land, however, being divided amongst many tribes, under chieftains with royal authority and military command, there was probably a species of clanship, in which there was servitude on one hand, and protection on the other. Diodorus Siculus, a contemporary of Cæsar, says that the Britons, whom he describes as simple in their manners, and frugal in their modes of living, "have many kings

and princes, and for the most part live peaceably together." However brave, and however cruel in the debasing custom of human sacrifice, their passions were under subjection to their intellectual leaders. Diodorus says of the Gauls, "not only in the concerns of peace, but even of war, not friends alone, but even enemies also, chiefly defer to them [the Druids] and to the composers of verses. Frequently, during hostilities, when armies are approaching each other

Roman Standard Bearers.

with swords drawn and lances extended, these men rushing between them put an end to their contentions, taming them as they would tame wild beasts." Ptolemy, the Geographer, who flourished about a century and a half after the Romans had become acquainted with Britain, describes its

* Hist., lib. v. c. 31.

*

[B.C. 55.

inhabitants as "impatient of restraint, and fond of liberty; warlike, laborious, fierce and imperious, ingenious and high-spirited." The Roman writers. who have told the stirring story of their conquest, have exhibited, with a just admiration, some heroic examples of this national character.

Upon the shores, then, of this our Britain, in the latter part of the summer of the year 55 before the birth of the Redeemer, appeared a mighty fleet crossing the narrow sea from a port between Calais and Boulogne. Nineteen hundred years ago, on those chalk cliffs whence the coast-guard now watches the steam-boat threading its rapid way over the channel, stood the solitary fisherman, amazed at the sight of eighty ships of burden, and vessels with oars, bearing upon a land whose natural harbours had as yet given shelter but to the petty barks of foreign traffickers,-the exchangers of copper for tin, and of ornaments for oysters. He might know that ambassadors and hostages had been sent to Cæsar; he might know that his countrymen had fought against the Roman, and that vengeance was threatened. It was now at hand. The alarm went inland through many a tribe. The four princes of the Cantii, or men of Kent, rapidly gathered their followers. Nearer and nearer came the galleys. And now the gazers from the cliff's could descry the legionaries and their ensigns. The armed natives crowded to the heights, shouting defiance from their natural defences. There was risk in encountering a fierce people at such a point. Cæsar had acquired some information of the character of the coast; and he turned his prows northward. Between Walmer and Sandwich the flat beach offered a safer place to plant the foot of a conqueror. The ten thousand soldiers on board the ships saw the beach crowded with horses and chariots, and skin-clothed and painted infantry, with great pointless swords, and small shields, howling in contempt, or encouraging each other with songs of battle. The Romans hesitated; but the standard-bearer of the tenth legion leaped from one of the galleys into the water, with the cry of "Follow me." Then met the British and the Roman arm in mortal conflict;-but discipline made good a landing against obstinate courage.

The Britons retreating before the legions, Cæsar advanced into the interior, and encamped, according to some writers, on Barham Downs. The great Consul had no desire to remain in the country, and he contemplated wintering in Gaul. He was ready, therefore, to conclude a treaty with the invaded tribes. But a storm arose, and scattered the ships which were bringing the Roman cavalry to these shores; and a heavy spring tide-an unfamiliar phenomenon to the people of the Mediterranean-dashed the transports on the beach, and swamped the lighter galleys. The Britons, encouraged by these misfortunes of their enemy, broke the peace. Cæsar says the Britons were signally defeated. He hastily repaired his ships, and sailed to the opposite shore, even without hostages. But early in the next year he returned, with a greater armament, to a sterner conflict. Again he landed on the flat shores of Kent, now undefended; and he marched forward to meet those whom he describes as the inland people, who, "for the most part, do not sow corn, but live on milk and flesh, and have their clothing of skins." The people of Cantium either left his passage free, or made no effectual

* De Judiciis, lib. ii. c. 3.

B.C. 56.]

THE PEOPLE OF BRITAIN.

5

Over this body one chief Druid presided. The Druids were exempt from military service, and from the payment of taxes. Their instructions were oral. They held that after death the soul does not perish. Their sacrifices were brutal; for they offered up criminals to propitiate the gods, and if criminals were wanting they sacrificed the innocent. Their teaching was not confined to their own worship. They discoursed of the heavenly bodies and of their motions,-of the extent of the world, and the people of distant climes. But there was another Order with power and privilege-the Equestrian. The Knights had armed followers, as the Druids had studious disciples. There were Bards also who sang the praises of their heroes, even as Sir Philip Sidney heard the old song of Percy and Douglas sung by some blind crowder-for the crowd, or rote, a wheel striking on strings, was the instrument of these our ancestral lyrists. But the great mass of the people were dependent upon the two privileged Orders, at least in Gaul, and were oppressed by grievous exactions-the vassals of hard task-masters. The land, however, being divided amongst many tribes, under chieftains with royal authority and military command, there was probably a species of clanship, in which there was servitude on one hand, and protection on the other. Diodorus Siculus, a contemporary of Cæsar, says that the Britons, whom he describes as simple in their manners, and frugal in their modes of living, "have many kings

and princes, and for the most part live peaceably together." However brave, and however cruel in the debasing custom of human sacrifice, their passions were under subjection to their intellectual leaders. Diodorus says of the Gauls, "not only in the concerns of peace, but even of war, not friends alone, but even enemies also, chiefly defer to them [the Druids] and to the composers of verses. Frequently, during hostilities, when armies are approaching each other

Roman Standard Bearers.

with swords drawn and lances extended, these men rushing between them put an end to their contentions, taming them as they would tame wild beasts.' Ptolemy, the Geographer, who flourished about a century and a half after the Romans had become acquainted with Britain, describes its

Hist., lib. v. c. 31.

CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY.

[A.D. 37.

the Cenimagni of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridge; the Segontiaci, the Ancalites, and the Bibroci of Hants, Berks, and Wilts; and the Cassi. Cæsar represents his second landing as a conquest, and that the tribes one by

one submitted. But the invaders quitted the country the same year, and went back to Gaul. Hostages he carried with him. Captives he might have taken to adorn his triumph. But he is recorded to have exhibited no trophies beyond a corslet of British pearls. Cæsar did not conquer Britain, says Tacitus, but only showed it to the Romans. It was ninety-seven years before another invasion was attempted. In the course of that period there was peaceful communication with Rome; and the whole island, according to Strabo, became "intimate and familiar to the Romans." But the people were as free as if Cæsar had never landed.

British and Roman weapons.

In this interval of our History, which it would be useless as well as tedious to attempt to fill up with any of the apocryphal annals of British princes, let us imagine a Roman peacefully traversing the island, and making himself "intimate and familiar" with the face of the country and the customs of the people. Let us take the period of Cunobelin, the Cymbeline of Shakspere, who was brought up at the court of Augustus, and lived at the time of the accession of Caligula.

In passing from the coast to the interior, and traversing the island, it is not easy to believe that before the Roman dominion this was a country without roads. "King Dunwallo," says Fabyan, the chronicler, "called also Molmucius or Mulmutius, began the four highways of Britain," These, according to the same authority, were perfected by Belinus, his son, "who caused workmen to be called, and set them to pave with stone the said ways, that they might sufficiently be known to all way-goers or travellers." This is tradition-always doubtful and uncertain. The learned Camden has no faith in roads before the Romans. But the celerity of Cæsar's own military movements; the four thousand chariots which Cassivelaunus is recorded to have opposed to his progress, render it impossible to imagine that the country could have been so penetrated without roads. The marshy nature of the coast lands rendered roads absolutely necessary for communication; and some lands of the interior continued marshy when the Romans had been settled in Britain for a century. The British roads and the Roman roads alike indicate the character of the country. The British generally run along the chain of hills, throwing out lateral branches, as if to adjacent. towns. The Roman, often elevated by great labour like a modern railway, run for the most part in a direct line from station to station. The natives availed themselves of the natural advantages of an undulating country to pass from place to place; the Romans saw that art and industry would convert the marshy places into firm causeways. Thus, then, following the