or who has had other motives for enlarging upon, the wonderful career of Cæsar, has pointed the moral of his story with no stinted hand by the qualities he showed and the obstacles he overcame in this very British campaign. meant. Let us remember what Cæsar's invasion of Britain really Until he began this conquest but three years before, all Gaul, except the Provincia, was in the hands of its primitive inhabitants, a race so brave and martial that 2,000,000 lives are supposed to have been sacrificed in subduing it, and yet so effectually subdued, that the Romans in subsequent days had nowhere a more submissive province. It was in the very midst of his conquests in Gaul, with the population still hostile or uncertain, far away from Italy, far away from his proper base in the Rhone valley, that Cæsar determined to attempt a maritime campaign of which the dangers and difficulties were indeed immense. He had to build his transports, to prepare a new commissariat, and to secure workmen and materials in the very country where he had just fought a succession of critical campaigns. He had then to launch out into unknown waters, where the navigation was complicated by tides such as were quite unknown in the Mediterranean, and by weather which in those latitudes is generally uncertain. All this would have been more or less practicable to a seafaring and nautical race; to the English or Dutch, for example, whose folk along the seaboard are mostly mariners by profession; but the Romans at this time were not a nautical race, they had had but small experience of the sea. It was on land and with their famous legionaries that they had won their way. Notwithstanding all these drawbacks, Cæsar, on two occasions, succeeded in landing a large force in Britain and in taking it back again, apparently without any casualties among his men. This alone was assuredly a wonderful feat of naval capacity. Again, the resistance he met with from the islanders has been much exaggerated. It is true he confesses that his men. were thrown somewhat into confusion by the very arducus forcing of a landing when weighed down by heavy armour and waist-deep in the water; it is true also that when scattered over the fields reaping and in fancied safety some of them suffered the natural losses which follow from a sudden surprise under such circumstances; and further that the unusual tactics of the British charioteers seem to have greatly disconcerted the efforts of his cavalry; but all these are mere minor incidents of a campaign in which candour must allow there doubt about the result. It is futile to suppose that the tactics and weapons of the Britons could avail at all never was any against the magnificent infantry which Rome commanded after the civil wars; that defeat brought much shame to the vanquished, or victory much glory to the conquerors in such an unequal fight. The real victories of Cæsar were not over the Britons but over the elements, and his most critical dangers arose not from British spears but from the north-east wind. It was this that broke his transports to pieces and dispersed his fleet on two occasions, and which enabled him to show his extraordinary vigour by refitting it again in the enemy's country; and it was this double disaster, proving how dangerous the navigation was and how easily a sudden catastrophe might overwhelm an army, that doubtless had much to do with his eventual abandonment of the island and with the postponement of any active campaign there until the days of Claudius. Lucan, in a passage which has been quoted more than once, has put his finger on the real issue:- Oceanumque vocans incerti stagna profundi Even as a feat of military engineering it was surely no slight matter to march through the whole length of Kent, force the passage of the Thames, capture the metropolis of the country, and compel a peace from its Imperator in little more than two months. The rapidity and completeness of the victory remind one of the recent campaigns of Prussia (whose infantry is in many respects so like that of the Romans) in France. Lastly, a great deal of rhetoric has been wasted upon the small gains of Cæsar's campaigns in Britain. What writers like Strabo and Plutarch mean when they speak of there being small results is, no doubt, small tangible results in the shape of booty or conquest. Strabo says he twice passed over to the island, but quickly returned, having effected nothing of consequence nor proceeded far into the country. Nevertheless, he adds, he gained two or three victories over the Britons, although he had transported thither only two legions of his army, and brought away hostages and slaves, and much other booty. Plutarch sums up the results in very fair and judicial language: Caesar's expedition against the Britons,' he says, was one of singular boldness, for he was the first who proceeded with a fleet to the Western Ocean and sailed over the Atlantic Sea, conducting an army to war, and being desirous of possessing an island, for its size hardly believed in, and "giving occasion for much controversy to various writers, as if a ii. 571; M. II. B. xci. 'name and a tale had been invented of a place which never had 'been nor was yet in existence; he advanced the dominion of 'the Romans beyond the limits of the known world, and having 'twice sailed over to the island from the opposite coast of Gaul, and having rather worsted his enemies in many battles than 'advantaged his own soldiers, for there was nothing worth taking 'from men who had a bare subsistence and were poor, he termi'nated the war, not in the way he wished, but taking hostages from the king, and appointing tributes, he departed from the island.' The actual booty was doubtless small. Cæsar would no doubt take back with him some of those essedons which had so embarrassed his men, to be exhibited, as Zulu assegais and Ghoorka knives are exhibited by our soldiers on their return. He perhaps carried away some tin, one of the few valuable commodities produced on the island, and some of the ornaments and weapons decorated with the so-called late Celtic scrolls, which still move the enthusiasm of archeologists; while of the British pearls, which Suetonius tells us were one of the main inducements for the journey, we are expressly told by Pliny that he dedicated a corslet which he would have men believe was made from British pearls in the temple of Venus Genetrix at Rome.* Solinus, who mentions the same fact, adds that it was attested by an inscription on the thing itself, Sub'jecta inscriptione testatus est.' Cæsar tells us that he imposed a tribute upon the Britons. It has very generally been argued that this is a mere rhetorical expression, and that no tribute was actually paid. We confess we see no grounds for this view. Those who will study the condition of Britain between the time when Cæsar was here and the time of Aulus Plautius will see reason to confess that the influence of Rome during this period was very marked and wide-felt in the island; and it seems very likely that tribute was actually paid, and that it was the intermission of its payment which led to the more than once threatened invasion of the island by Augustus. Those who argue that on Cæsar's departure he had no means of enforcing his will, and that the Britons might laugh at him behind their wide ditch, the Channel, forget that the Roman practice, like the practice of the Russians in their dealings with the tribes of Central Asia in our own day, was to exact hostages from their beaten neighbours. When the eldest son of the chief and the sons of his principal men are held as a gage for good behaviour, and remorselessly hanged if there is * Pliny, ix. 57. VOL. CLIV. NO. CCCXV. F 101 35 treachery, there is not much room for ambiguous dealings except by running great risks. Cæsar expressly tells us he carried off hostages from Britain. The result of a fair examination is to show that his cnpaigns on this side of the Channel were conducted with his usual skill, foresight, and perseverance; that, as a feat of engineering and of soldiering, they were eminently successful; and that, if the immediate fruits were not very valuable, it was due to the comparative poverty of the Britons rather than to any lack of good fortune or skill on the part of the invaders. ART. III.-Gustave III. et la Cour de France. Par IT bloody and victorious battle-field the great cause of civil and religious liberty, that large numbers of Englishmen and Scotchmen fought in its ranks, and that they brought back with them the political principles as well as the party colours which it has been the glory of this Journal to profess, the pride of this Journal to wear. But the fact is that from the days when Charles V. waged war with France and threatened the German provinces of Sweden, these two countries had entertained friendly relations with each other, which were strengthened during the continuance of the Thirty Years' War. Whilst Roundheads and Cavaliers were here settling their own differences in their own way, the Protestant armies in Germany found assistance from France, and the policy of Richelieu cemented the old alliance. There was thus in England, as years rolled on, and war with France assumed an almost chronic form, a possible distrust of the friends of our enemies; whilst the exertions of the great regenerator of the Russian power, which drew large numbers of English into his service, and utilised their naval skill in the capture of Swedish ports or in the destruction of Swedish fleets, did not tend to promote feelings of love amongst the Swedes. And in this way the intercourse--social, political, or diplomatic-between England and Sweden, during the eighteenth century, was extremely slight; what little there! was was neither cordial nor friendly; and the restraint has extended into the nineteenth century, not perhaps unmixed with a semi-contemptuous idea that the history of a country now of such little weight in the councils of Europe is not worth the reading, is certainly not worth the studying. This estimate is, we conceive, altogether erroneous. The recent visit of the King and Queen of Sweden to this country has revived and strengthened our interest in the Swedish Court, and constitutional questions have been raised in Sweden not very unlike some that have excited stormy passions even here. The danger of anarchy has been exemplified with nearly as fatal effect in Sweden as in Poland; and the proof that, in a critical period, a country has derived safety from the simple fact of having a king born to the title, may convey a lesson to the most enthusiastic republican. We think, therefore, that we shall be doing yeoman service to the cause of constitutional government in bringing more prominently to the notice of an English public some important passages in the constitutional history of Sweden, as illustrated by the recent investigations of French writers, and more especially of M. Geffroy, whose work has in France already taken the high position to which, by its author's industry, judgment, and literary skill, it is properly entitled. When the evil fortunes of Charles XII. culminated in his death, the Swedish nobles, seizing on the opportunity presented by the want of a direct heir to the throne, claimed the old right of election; and Charles's sister, Ulrica, was declared queen only after renouncing the prerogatives which, during the last two reigns, had made the king absolute in all except the name. They thus imposed on her and on the kingdom a constitution which, nominally liberal, secured the Government for the special advantage of the aristocracy. The merel form of it was, indeed, sufficiently plausible. There were the Crown, the Senate, and the Diet, in which last, the popular |