peopled after the Deluge, and its antediluvian records preserved. Some relate a story of persons drowned in the Flood and brought to life again; but others, professing to be less credulous, say that a person of the name of Bith was preserved by being hidden in the ark. Since the country appears so early in history, we are of course not surprised to find the lives of ninety-one kings who are said to have successively ruled over Ireland before the Christian era. There are undoubtedly some very curious and ancient remains in the country, such as the celebrated round towers, raised to a great height, and a number of large stones with curious and rude sculpture on them. Some antiquaries of the present day have not hesitated to assert that these are thousands of years old, and that Ireland was highly civilized when all the rest of the earth, except Egypt and Judea, was sunk in barbarism.

So much for the fables to which implicit belief was given less than two centuries ago, and which are not yet wholly discredited. We shall now proceed to tell briefly what is really known of the British Islands in ancient times.*

CHAPTER I.

THE BRITONS AND THE ROMANS.

1. THE earliest account that we have of the two islands of Britain and Ireland is from the writings of the Romans; but even their statements cannot be entirely depended upon. The Roman government did not, like ours, make inquiries about the habits and customs of barbarous nations. We cannot find in the Roman works that have descended to our day any particulars of the language of the countries they overran. We have no reason indeed to believe that the Roman governors were at the trouble of learning the language of the people over whom they ruled. It is always

*The Introductory Chapter being intended rather to illustrate our early fabulous history than to convey any practical information, it is not followed by Exercises.

a difficult thing to acquire a knowledge of the character and manners of a people who are strangers to us in every respect; and the carelessness of the Roman writers about matters in which modern travellers would take a lively interest, makes us doubt the accuracy even of what they do tell. Thus, it is not easy to form a conception of the state in which the Romans found the island, except from our knowledge of the condition of barbarous nations at the present day, and the remains of antiquity that have come down to us.

2. In England and Scotland, where there are now about twenty millions of inhabitants, it is probable that when Cæsar landed there were not half a million, or a fourth part of the present population of London. It is known that at the Norman conquest, more than a thousand years afterwards, the population of England was not much above a million. All barbarous countries are thinly peopled; and New Zealand, which is of the same size as Great Britain, is supposed not to have so many as 200,000 inhabitants. Young persons should not make the mistake of supposing that Britain was inhabited by a united people, who had one system of government and laws, and a common notion of patriotism and of resistance to the invaders; neither should they imagine that there was any national disgrace in a scanty barbarous population being overpowered by the highly disciplined legions of the Romans. Indeed, such accounts as the Romans give of their combats with the natives would be called foolish boasting at the present day, if employed by any of our military commanders in reference to uncivilized people. Wherever the Romans went they were opposed courageously, but only by the inhabitants of the place. Those at a distance could scarcely know of their coming. Indeed, it is probable, that when the southern part of the island was conquered by the Romans, the tribes north of the Tweed were ignorant of their existence. one must imagine that the surface of the country at that time had any resemblance to its present appearance. What are now corn-fields and gardens were then pathless morasses, and people incurred the risk of drowning where the plough now passes through dry soil.

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Where the land was not covered with moisture, it was overgrown with heath and furze, or with great forests. There could scarcely be said to be any cultivation, and the natives fed on wild animals and the precarious produce of partly cultivated lands. There were no made roads, or bridges over the wide rivers; and we have no reason to presume that there was a single building of stones or bricks cemented with lime in any part of the island. If such had existed, there would probably have been some remnants of them at the present day.

3. Indeed, we know more about the original inhabitants of the country from the remains of their works, than from anything that books can tell. These show them to have possessed considerable mechanical skill. Their great circles of stone, commonly called druidical circles, still strike the beholder with astonishment even in this age of wonders. Some of the stones at Stonehenge rise more than twentyone feet above the surface of the earth, and as they require to have nearly the same depth below it, to keep them steady, those who erected them must have been able to move solid stones about forty feet long, and weighing hundreds of tons. At Constantine, in Cornwall, one many stone, thirty-three feet long and eighteen broad, had been lifted up by them, and balanced on two points of rock, where it may still be seen. They had the art of balancing stones of hundreds of tons weight so nicely on a point, that a child may move them to and fro; and some of them still exist vibrating in the wind desolate moors: they are commonly called rocking stones. These rude but surprising works are to be found in every part of the British Isles. While the largest druidical circle is in Wiltshire, in the south of England, the next in eminence is the circle of Stennes, in the Orkney Islands, seven hundred miles distant from it. They raised barriers or cairns, that is, artificial hills of stone or earth, either as commemorations of great events, or as the tombs of the departed. They had some curious chambers like cellars underground, the ceiling of which consisted of large stones as long as the whole width of the chamber. They built circular forts on the tops of conical hills, sometimes of stone, sometimes of earth. By some of these a large area on

upon

the summit of the hill is encircled with three or four great ramparts, which give us a high idea of the skill and perseverance of those who raised them. Among the

smaller remains of the handiwork of the ancient Britons are spear and arrow heads made of flint. These are of the most exquisite shapes, and it would be impossible to cut them neater or sharper in metal than these primitive people cut them from the hard flint. When the ploughman of the present day turns up these tiny and beautifully shaped arrow heads, he is loath to believe them to be the work of human hands, and looks on them with dread, as the deadly weapons of the elves or fairies. The natives of Britain were not quite ignorant of the use of metals before the arrival of the Romans. The Phoenician merchants, who had discovered the value of the tin with which part of England abounded, had probably shown the natives how to use that metal; and bracelets and armlets, with ornaments for the head and neck, have been found of gold and silver, the most remarkable of them having been dug up in Ireland. It is generally believed that these gold ornaments were priestly decorations, which imparted dignity to the ceremonials of the Druids.

The subject of native British money is still involved in considerable obscurity. Cæsar positively states that the ancient Britons had no coined money; but in its stead made use of metal rings of a certain weight. These have been found in iron, bronze, gold, and silver, and on examination prove, it is said, to be exact multiples of a standard unit (twelve grains troy).

4. The religion of the Britons was that variety of Pagan superstition known by the name of Druidism. The Druids were both priests and lawgivers, and from their oral instructions the British youth derived what knowledge they possessed. According to the accounts we have received of them, they are said to have been divided into three classes-Druids proper, Vates or soothsayers, and Bards. They taught the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and believed in one God, although in later times the objects of their adoration were numerous, including the serpent and the heavenly bodies. Traces of their superstitions still remain in the bonfires of May-day and

Midsummer-eve, and in the ceremonies of All-Hallowmas. The oak was a special object of veneration among the Druids: they took up their abode beneath its spreading branches, and their sacred rites were never performed without some of its leaves. The mistletoe, when found growing upon it, was cut by the arch-druid with a golden knife, and the day of its gathering was kept as a solemn religious festival. Besides their natural temples in the oak-groves, the large stone circles already mentioned are believed to have furnished them with a sort of con

secrated temples. Within these remarkable structures it is believed that the Druids annually assembled, to celebrate their orgies, and offer up human sacrifices upon the altars. But it would appear that the ordinary mode of immolation often proved too tedious, for we are informed by Cæsar that on some occasions gigantic images of wickerwork were filled with men, women, and children, and being set on fire, the miserable victims were consumed in the flames. The whole subject of the rites and religion of Druidism is, however, involved in the deepest mystery. 5. JULIUS CÆSAR.-In the year 55 B. C., Caius Julius Cæsar, whose conquests in Gaul had brought him within sight of our coasts, resolved to cross over into Britain; for, in order to be master of Gaul, it was necessary to intimidate the warlike inhabitants of that island, who maintained a continual communication with their brethren on the continent. A fleet of eighty transports was accordingly prepared, and a Roman army, about 12,000 in number, after a vigorous opposition, landed on the coast of Kent. But this expedition nearly proved fatal to the invaders: on the fourth night after the disembarkation a violent storm arose, which almost entirely destroyed their fleet, and cut off all hope of immediate return to Gaul. The natives, gaining confidence by this disaster, prepared to drive the strangers into the sea; but Cæsar easily dispersed the undisciplined barbarians, and having repaired a portion of his damaged vessels, returned to the continent after an absence of seventeen days.

This return was so like a flight, that Cæsar felt the necessity of attempting another expedition in the follow