tants of the plains. These latter were denominated Vecturiones-pronounced by the Romans Wecturiones-a word smoothed down from the Gaelic Uachtarich, that is, the people of the part of the country called Uachtar, the name given to the Lowlands, and still preserved in the appellation of the mountainous ridge Drumuachtar, from which the descent of the country towards the east commences. Some antiquaries have held the Roman term Picti to be merely a corruption of Uachtarich, and therefore to be in point of fact the same with Vectu riones. Others conceive it to be the common Latin word signifying painted, applied by the South Britons after they had themselves fallen under the yoke and acquired the language of the Romans-to their unconquered brethren of the north, who, with their liberty, still preserved their ancient savage customs, and that one among others, of adorning their bodies with figures formed of colours daubed upon or impressed into the skin,—the tattooing of the modern South Sea islanders. However this may be, nothing can be more certain, notwithstanding the special pleading by which another theory has been attempted to be supported, than that the people called by our historians Picts, and who inhabited the level country along the east coast of Scotland, were a Gaelic or British race, and spoke a dialect of the common Gaelic tongue of the rest of their countrymen. We incline, for our own part, to consider the term Picts-or rather Pechts, for so it is still generally pronounced in Scotland-as not a Latin but a Gaelic word, whether the same with Uachtarich, or not. But in this brief sketch we can only attempt to state the leading results to which those have arrived who have, in our opinion, most successfully investigated this extensive, dark, and intricate subject. The reader has now before him as complete a view as our limits will permit us to give, of the manner in which the British islands were originally peopled, and the import of the several names by which both the country and its earliest inhabitants were distinguished. The sum of the whole is, that the primitive colonists and possessors both of Great Britain and Ireland, the Britons, the Caledonians, the Scots, and the Picts, were all equally Gaelic tribes. We prefer the term Gael, or Gauls, to that of Celts, or Kelts, who in fact were only a particular division of the Gauls. The Celts were the Caoiltich, or the inhabitants of the woody country, so called from caoill, a wood, the same element which enters into the composition of the epithet Caledonii, as already noticed.

With the exception of these general facts, the whole of British history is nearly an impenetrable night, till we come down almost to within half a century of the birth of Christ. In the year 55 before that event, the troops of the Mistress of the world first landed upon this remote isle, led by the invincible Cæsar. This memorable invasion is calculated to have taken place about five o'clock in the afternoon of the 26th of August. Cæsar's pretence for thus attacking the Britons was, that they had been in the habit of sending over assistance to their kindred, the inhabitants of Gaul, with whom he was then at war. is likely enough that there may have been some truth in this accusation; but there can be no doubt that the real motive which impelled the great Roman leader to carry his arms to Britain, was merely the same ambition of conquest which mainly led him on in every part of his brilliant but destructive career. The Britons, however, opposed a

It

bold resistance to the enemy; and although they did not succeed in preventing the landing of the Roman legions, they speedily convinced the commander that their subjugation was not likely to be effected quite so easily as he had probably anticipated. After having remained in the country for three or four weeks, and granted a peace to the natives, on receiving from them a number of hostages, he again set out for Gaul, without even leaving any portion of his troops behind him to maintain the nominal conquest which he had made. In the following spring, however, he again landed with a much more powerful armament than before. The Britons, also, were this time better prepared to meet their formidable invaders. Having wisely and patriotically made up, or at least agreed to forget for the present, the differences that had hitherto divided them into so many hostile tribes, they united their forces under the command of the most celebrated warrior of their nation, Cassibelaunus, king of the Trinobantes, who inhabited the territory immediately to the north of the Thames. But all their bravery was vain against the experience and consummate discipline of the Roman soldiers. After a war of a few months, in the course of which several pitched battles were fought, almost uniformly terminating in the defeat of the Britons, Cassibelaunus and several of the other chiefs found themselves compelled to sue for peace on the hard condition of acknowledging the sovereignty of Rome, and thus surrendering the liberties of their country. The conqueror was satisfied with this measure of submission, and after the imposition of a tribute, again withdrew with all his troops to Gaul. His stay in the country on this second occasion, is supposed to have been about four months in all, or from the middle of May to that of September.

Cæsar, as Tacitus remarks, rather showed the Romans the way to Britain, than actually put them in possession of it. For twenty years after his time, no tribute was derived from the nominally van. quished barbarians. Augustus then threatened to punish them for their disobedience; but although he advanced as far as Gaul for that purpose, he returned without actually visiting the country, upon the Britons sending ambassadors to meet him with a renewed offer of their allegiance. For many years after this they remained undisturbed. It was not till the 43d year of our era, in the reign of the emperor Claudius, that any thing like an attempt was made to effect a real conquest of the island. In that year the Roman general, Plautius, landed from Gaul at the head of a considerable force. Several engagements ensued; but although the Britons fought courageously, the advantage was generally on the side of their assailants. The commander-in-chief of the British forces in this war, was the famous Caractacus, one of the successors of Cassibelaunus in the sovereignty of the Trinobantes. The following year, the emperor himself joined his lieutenant; and, after his arrival, the war was prosecuted with so much vigour, that in the course of a few weeks all resistance on the part of the natives was almost at an end. Claudius then returned to Rome, leaving Plautius to maintain and extend the conquests of the imperial That general is said to have fought thirty pitched battles with the Britons before he was recalled in the year 50. Only a very small part of the country, however, had yet been subjugated, or even entered,

arms.

by the Roman troops Plautius was succeeded by Ostorius Scapula,

in the first year of whose government, the people inhabiting a large district of country to the north of the Thames, headed by Caractacus, again took up arms, with the determination, if possible, to expel the invaders. But the result was the same as on former occasions; the insurgents were defeated with great loss, and Caractacus himself, with his wife and children, fell into the hands of the victors. This unfortunate prince was sent to Rome, where the multitude of that proud capital had the gratification of beholding him led in chains, along with his family, to the feet of their emperor, although not that of exulting over his drooping aspect or dejected air. Caractacus, even in captivity, did not forget what he had been, but bore himself still with the dignity of a king, and addressed the emperor in a short oration-which Tacitus has preserved-full of philosophy and noble sentiment. Nor did Claudius show himself incapable of appreciating the demeanour of his illustrious prisoner. He immediately ordered the badges of servitude to be removed from the persons of the British prince and his unhappy companions. Meanwhile, in Britain, the still unsubdued spirit of the people opposed a formidable barrier to the further progress of their invaders, and even made it necessary for Ostorius to employ all his skill and vigilance in order to retain the ground of which he was already in possession. In the year 53, that general died of vexation, it is said, at the little impression he was able to make on his barbarian enemies. He was succeeded by Aulus Didius, under whom, and his successor Veranius, the war was carried on for about five years longer, without any decided success.

In the year 58, Suetonius Paulinus arrived to assume the government. He immediately resorted to much stronger measures than had been ventured upon by his predecessors, and having made himself master of the sacred island of Mona-now Anglesey-endeavoured to strike terror into the natives by the relentless destruction of their altars and their consecrated groves. The effect of this severity was, probably, only to kindle in their hearts a keener indignation than ever against the insolent invaders of their country. While they were in this mood, an incident occurred which at once exasperated them to the highest pitch of fury. This was the brutal usage inflicted upon Boadicea, the widow of one of their princes, Prasutagus, king of the Iceni, by the officers of the Roman emperor, who seized upon the whole property of the deceased chief, under the pretence that he had left it to their master by his wife. Prasutagus, in fact, had, at the time of his death, been in alliance with the Romans, and had left the one half of what he possessed to the emperor, and the other to his daughters. The rights of the latter, however, were entirely disregarded by the rapacious foreigners. Boadicea, a bold and high-minded woman, remonstrated with spirit; but her courage only brought down upon herself and her children additional and more cruel injuries. A general attack by the enraged Britons, upon all the Roman settlements, was the immediate consequence; and such was the sanguinary impetuosity with which this grand explosion of national vengeance was directed, that seventy or eighty thousand of the unfortunate Romans, of every age and sex, are asserted to have fallen, almost without resistance, un. der the swords of their merciless assailants. But this terrible massacre was destined to be soon as terribly expiated. The Roman general

hastening back from Mona, without losing a moment, proceeded to meet the insurgents, who were drawn up not far from London, to the number of a hundred thousand, under the command of Boadicea. Α battle ensued, in which the Britons were routed with immense slaughter. Tacitus says that eighty thousand of them were slain. Boadicea herself only escaped falling into the hands of the victors, by swallowing poison. This was the last great effort which the South Britons made to recover their liberty. Paulinus was recalled two years afterwardsin the year 62—and was followed in the government by Petronius Turpilianus, under whom, and his several immediate successors, nothing memorable occurred.

The true conqueror of Britain arrived in the year 78, about the end of the reign of the emperor Vespasian, in the person of the famous Julius Agricola. This able commander continued governor of Britain for above six years, during which he gradually fought his way almost to the northern extremity of the island, and if he did not actually subdue the whole country, at least carried to its utmost borders, the fame and the terror of the Roman arms. It was in the year 84, in the course of what is called his 7th campaign, that Agricola encountered and defeated the Caledonian general, Galgacus, at the foot of the Grampians. Ten thousand of the Caledonians are said to have fallen in this action.2 Agricola, however, did not attempt to preserve the conquest of these remote wilds, but contented himself with endeavouring to secure the southern part of the island, by building a series of forts along the narrow neck of land between the friths of Forth and Clyde. Agricola was the great civilizer as well as the conqueror of Britain; and wisely perceiving that the surest way of maintaining the tranquillity and obedience of the newly vanquished province was to inspire the inhabitants with a love for the arts as well as with a dread for the arms of Rome, he spared no pains to diffuse among them a knowledge of letters and the other blessings of an advanced state of social refinement.3 One of the consequences of this policy was to establish between the inhabitants of the southern and those of the northern part of the island, a separation much more complete than even that which the fortified wall that divided them would of itself have effected. They were separated from each other by a wide discordance in tastes, habits, manners, acquirements, in all that makes up the difference between civilization and barbarism. The Caledonians, therefore, now began to look upon the Britons who resided within the Roman province as equally with the Romans themselves their national enemies. The first irruption, however, which we read of as having been made by these unsubdued savages of the north, happened in the year 117, in the beginning of the reign of the emperor Adrian.

Tac. 34-37.-Dio. Nic. apud Xiphil. in Ner. p. 176. "Dio. has described this British heroine as a woman of lofty stature and severe countenance. Her yellow hair reached almost to the ground. She wore a plaited tunic of various colours, round her waist a chain of gold, and over these a long mantle, p. 173."-Lingard.

Tac. Agric. 24-38.

"At his instigation the chieftains left their habitations in the forests, and repaired into the vicinity of the Roman stations. There they learned to admire the refinements of civilization and acquired a taste for improvement. The use of the Roman toga began to supersede that of the British mantle: houses, baths, temples, were built in the Roman fashion: children were instructed in the Roman language; and with the manners were adopted the vices of the Romans.". Lingard.

Adrian himself came over to repel this attack; but, upon his arrival, instead of endeavouring to drive back the invaders of the province into their native wilds, he judged it more prudent to endeavour to render the province more defensible by contracting its limits; and, accordingly, relinquishing altogether the northern part of it, he erected at its utmost boundary in that direction a rampart from the mouth of the Tyne to the Solway frith. This fortification-of which the traces are still very visible in many parts-was formed entirely of earth, and consisted principally of a mound and a ditch. Although of considerable strength, however, it was found insufficient to prevent the inroads of the Caledonians. They soon broke through it in various places. In the year 140, therefore, in the reign of Antoninus Pius, the Roman governor Lollius Urbicus resolved to reassume the possession of the part of the province which had been abandoned by Adrian, and for this purpose he again erected a very strong wall nearly on the line of the series of forts originally built by Agricola. This wall-the same of which the remains are still popularly known by the name of Graham's Dike-was built of turf on a foundation of stone, and was four yards in breadth. On the north side of it was a very wide ditch, and on the south a magnificent military way. This fortification appears to have effectually barred out the Caledonians for many years. But at last in the year 205, in the reign of the emperor Severus, they renewed their incursions. Two years after, Severus himself, accompanied by his two sons, Caracalla and Geta, came over to repel the barbarians; and, in order to put an end for ever to their troublesome hostility, he resolved if possible to effect the subjugation of the whole island. He did accordingly succeed in penetrating to its northern extremity; but having lost the immense number of fifty thousand men in the expedition, he abandoned his design of conquest, and contented himself with raising a new wall of freestone along the line of Adrian's earthen rampart between the Tyne and the Solway, thus contracting the limits of the province instead of enlarging them as he had originally intended. This wall of which fragments still remain-appears to have been about eight feet thick and about twelve in height. It was fortified along its whole length by a series of towers disposed at equal distances. Shortly after its completion Severus died at York, on which his two sons, who succeeded him, both returned to Rome.

The history of Britain for more than a century and a half after this time merges in that of the empire of which it formed a part. We cannot here attempt to detail the disputes and commotions which are recorded to have taken place among the Roman soldiery, although the contest for the dignity of Master of the world was sometimes fought and decided in this distant dependency. Meanwhile, however, the Roman occupation of South Britain was gradually changing the aspect of the country as well as the manners and the minds of the inhabitants. The wilderness and the untilled desert were every where giving place to towns and cultivated fields. About the middle of the third century, the planting of vines is said to have been introduced under the auspices of the emperor Probus. This long course of quiet and prosperity, however, was at length interrupted about the year 364, in the reign of Valentinian I., by the renewed attacks of the northern barbarians; but after a war which lasted for some years they were at last driven back