as fresh as if they had just come from under the artist's hand. Most likely every town had its temples dedicated to the gods, as well as other public buildings.

Many traces of Roman worship, in the form of altars and inscriptions, have been found. Their laws and religion were blended together, and every day was dedicated to some deity. Their system of idolatry was a very tolerant one. They admitted the gods of the nations they overcame to a fellowship with their own, requiring only that the latter should be acknowledged by all subject to Rome. The lesser divinities which they recognised would be easily accepted by the Britons; such as the nymphs who watched over mountains, woods, rivers, and fountains. Then there were the genii. Every country, province, and city was thought to have its genius, who especially cared for it. Hence a man beginning business would seek the protection of the genius of the place. Of these different forms of worship relics are discovered in Britain, and also of the little images which represented the household gods of the Romans.

Their burial-places, too, have been made known to us: stone tombs, sepulchral chambers, and large barrows. They sometimes burned, sometimes buried, the remains of their dead. In the former case, the ashes were enclosed in an urn. Numerous Roman tombstones have been brought to light in Britain, with their tales of long past love and sorrow. One such is erected by a soldier in memory of his little girl-"A most innocent thing, who lived ten months." In another, parents record the loss of "their most sweet daughter." Then we find a centurion raising a memorial-"out of affection to his most holy wife, who lived thirty-three years without any stain." One slab tells how, in fulfilment of a dying request, the remains of a son had been brought all the way from Galatia in Asia to be laid in his father's grave in Britain.

The Romans worked our mineral treasures extensively: iron, lead, tin, and copper; and they used coal, though

they did not go to any depth for it. Beyond all the other nations of antiquity, they understood the science of government. All modern municipal institutions are

derived from them.

Christianity was very early introduced into Britain, though its history here is involved in obscurity; but it is thought that it came from the East, and not by way of Rome.

By A.D. 400, the Roman empire was tottering to its fall. Hordes of barbarians rushed down upon its borders; and in Britain, the northern tribes ravaged the country as far south as London. In later tumults, Magnus Maximus seized the island, and for a while held Gaul and Spain as well. He met his death in Italy; and three more usurpers in Britain are mentioned.

Already had she seen upon her shores some of the wild Anglo-Saxon rovers, who were soon to take and keep the sceptre dropped by Rome; for in the earlier part of the fifth century, the reigning emperor told the Britons that he gave up all claim to their allegiance; and bidding them protect themselves as best they could, he withdrew the legions which were needed to shield Rome herself,

as

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From the frozen forests of the north,
The sons of slaughter poured in myriads forth."

CHIEF DATES OF THE ROMAN PERIOD.

Landing of Julius Cæsar...

Return of the Romans under Claudius

B.C 55

A.D. 43

QUESTIONS.-Name some of the benefits conferred on Britain by the Romans. What traces of the Roman occupation still remain? Describe a Roman dwelling. What walls were built in the north? What purpose were they intended to serve? When and why did the Romans leave Britain?

THE ANGLO-SAXON CONQUEST.

WHEN the Teutonic races, like a resistless flood, inundated the Roman empire, one wave of that rising tide reached the coast of Britain. Long before it was deserted by the Romans, we hear of an officer, styled Count of the Saxon Shore, who commanded on the east side of the island to ward off the attacks of those whom we now call Anglo-Saxons.

Journeying from their first eastern home, the kindred tribes-of whom they formed one-had found a fitting abode in Scandinavia. It was a region that suited them well. They laughed at the rigour of the winters, and rejoiced in hunting and fighting. They loved the sea with a fierce, wild love, and scoffed at storms and shipwrecks, wounds and death. They were as pitiless as they were fearless; and wherever they landed from their small light barks they ravaged and destroyed.

It has been said that the rugged, gloomy grandeur of their Scandinavian religion seemed to take its colour from the scenery of the land. Bold, lofty mountains, rushing waterfalls, the untamed sea, deep fiords, and dark pine forests, through which the wind wailed in the storm, were objects familiar to them from their cradles.

They held that their chiefs were descended from the mighty Odin, who had gone hence to be a god; and that those who were brave, or who died in battle, went to the hall of Valhalla, where every day was spent in warfare, and every night the wounds of the warriors were healed before they sat down to feast. A miserable place, called

Niflheim, was the abode of the dead who had been cowardly or idle. But this was not to be the end. They thought that after countless ages Valhalla and Niflheim and the world, with all that they contained, would pass away. But out of their ruin should rise a new earth, and a new and more glorious heaven, with a more terrible place of doom. Then bravery would not be the highest virtue, nor want of it the worst crime; and over all should reign for evermore the eternal God-He whom they called the Good.

Such were the blue-eyed, fair-haired giants, who in the fifth century made up their minds to take Britain to themselves. Long before, they had travelled further down in Europe, and had settled near the mouth of the river Elbe, in that district which now contains Jutland, Schleswick, and Holstein. In Germany, they, and other branches of the great Teutonic family, encountered the power of Rome. From the sea, they threatened her widely-scattered colonies; and when the empire was torn by internal convulsions, these new nations seized and divided her outlying provinces.

There was a time in the earlier history of Rome, when the love of home and country, of justice and of honour, had clothed her with a moral greatness which made her worthy to be the mistress of the world. But by degrees she had fallen from her high estate, and corrupted by unspeakable vices and cruelties she was brought down to the dust at last. The dominion of the Teutons was built upon her ruin; and it is well to bear in mind that in the midst of their untameable pagan ferocity, they yet jealously guarded the sanctities of domestic life, and were honest and true according to their light; so that their invasion was like a terrific storm, which destroying. on the right hand and on the left, yet clears and purifies the air.

When Britain was abandoned by Rome, the inhabitants quarrelled among themselves. There seems to have been a Roman party and a British party, and, fight

ing with each other, troubled by the Picts and Scots from Caledonia, and the Saxons from the sea, they were in evil case.

The old story is, that two Saxon ealdormen or chieftains, were invited by Vortigern, head of the British party, to help him; but it is thought now to be more likely that they came without any invitation. At any rate, there they were in the Isle of Thanet, determined not to go away again. After years of cruel warfare, their standard of the white horse waved over the whole of Kent, of which Eric the son of Hengist appears to have been the first king.

Shiploads of Anglo-Saxons followed these early settlers, and continued a desperate conflict with the Britons. The latter were very different from the ignorant, halfsavage people described by Cæsar. They had mingled and intermarried with the Roman troops drawn from all parts of the world, had learnt many things, and knew how to use the weapons with which they were well supplied. But though the Saxon conquest was a slow and difficult one, the disunion of the Britons was fatal to them in the end.

Towards the close of the fifth century, a Saxon chief, named Cerdic, arrived, and after much bloodshed, set up the kingdom of Wessex, or West Saxony. In withstanding him, the legendary fame of the British king Arthur surpasses that of all his rivals, and wonderful are the tales of his victories, and of the mighty deeds wrought by his magic sword Excalibur. Tradition tells how at last he had to turn his arms against an unworthy nephew, and how he fought with him in Cornwall, while

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All day long the noise of battle rolled
Among the mountains, by the winter sea;"

until Arthur fell mortally wounded, though still his people hoped that he was only gone to be healed, and would come back when their need was the sorest.