awed; the weak taken into protection. Thus an alliance being formed, always the first step of the Roman policy, and not only a pretence, but a means, being thereby acquired of entering the country upon any future occasion, he marched back through Gaul to execute a design of much the same nature and extent in Britain. The inhabitants of that island, who were divided into a great number of petty nations, under a very coarse and disorderly frame of government, did not find it easy to plan any effectual measures for their defence. In order, however, to Ante Ch. 55. gain time in this exigency, they sent ambassadours to Cæsar with terms of submission. Cæsar could not colourably reject their offers. But as their submission rather clashed than coincided with his real designs, he still persisted in his resolution of passing over into Britain; and accordingly embarked with the infantry of two legions at the port of Itium.* His landing was obstinately disputed by the natives, and brought on a very hot and doubtful engagement. But the superiour dispositions of so accomplished a commander, the resources of the Roman discipline, and the effect of the military engines on the unpractised minds of a barbarous people, prevailed at length over the best resistance, which could be made by rude numbers and mere bravery. The place, where the Romans first entered this island, was somewhere near Deal; and the time fifty-five years before the birth of Christ. The Britains, who defended their country with so much resolution in the engagement, immediately after it lost all their spirit. They had laid no regular plan for their defence. Upon their first failure they seemed to have no resources left. On the slightest loss they betook themselves to treaty and submission; upon the least appearance in their favour they were as ready to resume their arms, without any regard to their former engagements;-a conduct, which demonstrates, that our British ancestors had no regular polity with a standing coercive power. The ambassadours, which they sent to Cæsar, laid all the blame of a war, carried on by great armies, upon the rashness of their young men; and they declared, that the ruling people had no share in these hostilities. This is exactly the excuse, which the savages of America, who have no regular government, make at this day upon the like occasions; but it would be a strange apology from one of the modern states of Europe, that had employed armies against another. Cæsar reprimanded them for the inconstancy of their behaviour; and ordered them to bring hostages to secure their fidelity, together with provisions for his army. But whilst the Britains were engaged in the treaty, and on that account had free access to the Roman camp, they easily observed, that the army of the invaders was neither numerous nor well provided; and having about the same time received intelligence, that the Roman fleet had suffered in a storm, they again changed their measures, and came to a resolution • Some think this port to be Witsand, others Boulogne. of renewing the war. Some prosperous actions against the Roman foraging parties inspired them with great confidence. They were betrayed by their success into a general action in the open field. Here the disciplined troops obtained an easy and complete victory; and the Britains were taught the errour of their conduct at the expence of a terrible slaughter. Twice defeated, they had recourse once more to submission. Cæsar, who found the winter approaching, provisions scarce, and his fleet not fit to contend with that rough and tempestuous sea in a winter voyage, hearkened to their proposals, exacting double the number of the former hostages. He then set sail with his whole army. In this first expedition into Britain, Cæsar did not make, nor indeed could he expect, any considerable advantage. He acquired a knowledge of the sea-coast, and of the country contiguous to it; and he became acquainted with the force, the manner of fighting, and the military character of the people. To compass these purposes, he did not think a part of the summer ill bestowed. But early in the next he prepared to make a more effective use of the experience he had gained. He embarked again at the same port, but with a more numerous army. The Britains on their part had prepared more regularly for their defence in this than the former year. Several of those states, which were nearest and most exposed to the danger, had, during Cæsar's absence, combined for their common safety; and chosen Cassibelan, a chief of power and reputation, for the leader of their union. They seemed resolved to dispute the landing of the Romans with their former intrepidity. But when they beheld the sea covered, as far as the eye could reach, with the multitude of the enemy's ships, (for they were eight hundred sail,) they despaired of defending the coast; they retired into the woods and fastnesses; and Cæsar landed his army without opposition. The Britains now saw the necessity of altering their former method of war. They no longer therefore opposed the Romans in the open field; they formed frequent ambuscades; they divided themselves into light flying parties; and continually harassed the enemy on his march. This plan, though in their circumstances the most judicious, was attended with no great success. Cæsar forced some of their strongest intrenchments; and then carried the war directly into the territories of Cassibelan. The only fordable passage which he could find over the Thames, was defended by a row of palisadoes, which lined the opposite bank; another row of sharpened stakes stood under water along the middle of the stream. Some remains of these works long subsisted; and were to be discerned in the river down almost to the present times. The Britains had made the best of the situation; but the Romans plunged into the water, tore away the stakes and palisadoes, and obtained a complete victory. The capital, or rather chief fastness, of ↑ Coway stakes, near Kingston on Thames, Cassibelan was then taken, with a number of cattle, the wealth of this barbarous city. After these misfortunes the Britains were no longer in a condition to act with effect. Their ill success in the field soon dissolved the ill-cemented union of their councils. They split into factions, and some of them chose the common enemy for their protector. Insomuch that, after some feeble and desultory efforts, most of the tribes to the southward of the Thames submitted themselves to the conqueror. Cassibelan, worsted in so many encounters, and deserted by his allies, was driven at length to sue for peace. A tribute was imposed. And as the summer began to wear away, Cæsar, having finished the war to his satisfaction, embarked for Gaul. The whole of Cæsar's conduct in these two campaigns sufficiently demonstrates, that he had no intention of making an absolute conquest of any part of Britain. Is it to be believed, that, if he had formed such a design, he would have left Britain without an army, without a legion, without a single cohort, to secure his conquest; and that he should sit down contented with an empty glory, and the tribute of an indigent people, without any proper means of securing a continuance of that small acquisition? This is not credible. But his conduct here, as well as in Germany, discovers his purpose in both expeditions; for by them he confirmed the Roman dominion in Gaul; he gained time to mature his designs, and he afforded his party in Rome an opportunity of promoting his interest, and exaggerating his exploits, which they did in such a manner, as to draw from the senate a decree for a very remarkable acknowledgment of his services, in a supplication or thanksgiving of twenty days. This attempt, not being pursued, stands single, and has little or no connexion with the subsequent events Therefore I shall in this place, where the narrative will be the least broken, insert from the best authorities which are left, and the best conjectures which, in so obscure a matter, I am able to form, some account of the first peopling of this island; the manners of its inhabitants; their art of war; their religious and civil discipline. These are matters not only worthy of attention, as containing a very remarkable piece of antiquity; but as not wholly unnecessary towards comprehending the great change made in all these points, when the Roman conquest came afterwards to be completed. we must be contented to remain in ignorance, for we have no monuments. But we may conclude, that it was a very ancient settlement, since the Carthaginians found this island inhabited, when they traded hither for tin; as the Phoenicians, whose tracks they followed in this commerce, are said to have done long before them. It is true, that when we consider the short interval between the universal deluge and that period, and compare it with the first settlement of men at such a distance from this corner of the world, it may seem not easy to reconcile such a claim to antiquity with the only authentick account we have of the origin and progress of mankind; especially, as in those early ages the whole face of nature was extremely rude and uncultivated; when the links of commerce, even in the countries first settled, were few and weak; navigation imperfect; geography unknown; and the hardships of travelling excessive. But the spirit of migration, of which we have now only some faint ideas, was then strong and universal; and it fully compensated all these disadvantages. Many writers indeed imagine, that these migrations, so common in the primitive times, were caused by the prodigious increase of people beyond what their several territories could maintain. But this opinion, far from being supported, is rather contradicted, by the general appearance of things in that early time, when in every country vast tracts of land were suffered to lie almost useless in morasses and forests. Nor is it, indeed, more countenanced by the ancient modes of life, no way favourable to population. I apprehend, that these first settled countries, so far from being overstocked with inhabitants, were rather thinly peopled; and that the same causes, which occasioned that thinness, occasioned also those frequent migrations, which make so large a part of the first history of almost all nations. For in these ages men subsisted chiefly by pasturage or hunting. These are occupations, which spread the people without multiplying them in proportion; they teach them an extensive knowledge of the country; they carry them frequently and far from their homes, and weaken those ties, which might attach them to any particular habitation. It was in a great degree from this manner of life, that mankind became scattered in the earliest times over the whole globe. But their peaceful occupations did not contribute so much to that end, as their wars, which were not the less frequent and violent, because the people were few, and the interests for which they contended of but small importance. Ancient history has furnished us with many instances of whole nations, expelled by invasion, falling in upon others, which they have entirely overwhelmed; more irresistible in their defeat and ruin, than in their fullest prosperity. The rights of war were then exercised with great inhumanity. A cruel death, or a servitude scarcely THAT Britain was first peopled from Gaul, we less cruel, was the certain fate of all conquered are assured by the best proofs; proximity of people; the terrour of which hurried men from situation, and resemblance in language and man-habitations, to which they were but little attached, Of the time, in which this event happened, to seek security and repose under any climate, CHAP. II. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN. ners. that, however in other respects undesirable, might afford them refuge from the fury of their enemies. Thus the bleak and barren regions of the north, not being peopled by choice, were peopled as early, in all probability, as many of the milder and more inviting climates of the southern world; and thus, by a wonderful disposition of the Divine Providence, a life of hunting, which does not contribute to encrease, and war, which is the great instrument in the destruction of men, were the two principal causes of their being spread so early and so universally over the whole earth. From what is very commonly known of the state of North America, it need not be said how often, and to what distance, several of the nations on that continent are used to migrate; who, though thinly scattered, occupy an immense extent of country. Nor are the causes of it less obvious; their hunting life, and their inhuman wars. Britain was in the time of Julius Cæsar, what it is at this day in climate and natural advantages, temperate, and reasonably fertile. But destitute of all those improvements, which in a succession of ages it has received from ingenuity, from commerce, from riches and luxury, it then wore a very rough and savage appearance. The country, forest or marsh; the habitations, cottages; the cities, hiding-places in woods; the people, naked, or only Such migrations, sometimes by choice, more covered with skins; their sole employment, pasfrequently from necessity, were common in the turage and hunting. They painted their bodies ancient world. Frequent necessities introduced a for ornament or terrour, by a custom general fashion, which subsisted after the original causes. amongst all savage nations; who being passionFor how could it happen, but from some univer- ately fond of show and finery, and having no obsally established publick prejudice, which always ject but their naked bodies, on which to exercise overrules and stifles the private sense of men, that this disposition, have in all times painted or cut a whole nation should deliberately think it a wise their skins, according to their ideas of ornament. measure to quit their country in a body, that they They shaved the beard on the chin; that on the might obtain in a foreign land a settlement, which upper lip was suffered to remain, and grow to an must wholly depend upon the chance of war? extraordinary length, to favour the martial appearYet this resolution was taken, and actually pur-ance, in which they placed their glory. sued, by the entire nation of the Helvetii, as it is were in their natural temper not unlike the Gauls; minutely related by Cæsar. The method of rea- impatient, fiery, inconstant, ostentatious, boastful, soning, which led them to it, must appear to us at fond of novelty; and like all barbarians, fierce, this day utterly inconceivable; they were far from treacherous, and cruel. Their arms were short being compelled to this extraordinary migration javelins, small shields of a slight texture, and great by any want of subsistence at home; for it ap-cutting swords with a blunt point, after the Gaulish pears, that they raised, without difficulty, as much fashion. corn in one year, as supported them for two; they could not complain of the barrenness of such a soil. This spirit of migration, which grew out of the ancient manners and necessities, and sometimes operated like a blind instinct, such as actuates birds of passage, is very sufficient to account for the early habitation of the remotest parts of the earth; and in some sort also justifies that claim, which has been so fondly made by almost all nations to great antiquity. Gaul, from whence Britain was originally peopled, consisted of three nations; the Belge towards the north; the Celta in the middle countries; and the Aquitani to the south. Britain appears to have received its people only from the two former. From the Celta were derived the most ancient tribes of the Britains, of which the most considerable were called Brigantes. The Belge, who did not even settle in Gaul until after Britain had been peopled by colonies from the former, forcibly drove the Brigantes into the inland countries, and possessed the greatest part of the coast, especially to the south and west. These latter, as they entered the island in a more improved age, brought with them the knowledge and practice of agricul They Their chiefs went to battle in chariots, not unartfully contrived, nor unskilfully managed. I cannot help thinking it something extraordinary, and not easily to be accounted for, that the Britains should have been so expert in the fabrick of those chariots, when they seem utterly ignorant in all other mechanick arts: but thus it is delivered to us. They had also horse, though of no great reputation, in their armies. Their foot was without heavy armour; it was no firm body; nor instructed to preserve their ranks, to make their evolutions, or to obey their commanders; but in tolerating hardships, in dexterity of forming ambuscades, (the art military of savages,) they are said to have excelled. A natural ferocity, and an impetuous onset, stood them in the place of discipline. It is very difficult, at this distance of time, and with so little information, to discern clearly what sort of civil government prevailed among the ancient Britains. In all very uncultivated countries, as society is not close or intricate, nor property very valuable, liberty subsists with few restraints. The natural equality of mankind appears, and is asserted; and therefore there are but obscure lines of any form of government. In every society | of this sort the natural connexions are the same as in others, though the political ties are weak. Among such barbarians, therefore, though there is little authority in the magistrate, there is often great power lodged, or rather left, in the father; for, as among the Gauls, so among the Britains, he had the power of life and death in his own family, over his children and his servants. But, among freemen and heads of families, causes of all sorts seem to have been decided by the Druids: they summoned and dissolved all the publick assemblies; they alone had the power of capital punishments, and indeed seem to have had the sole execution and interpretation of whatever laws subsisted among this people. In this respect the Celtick nations did not greatly differ from others, except that we view them in an earlier stage of society. Justice was in all countries originally administered by the priesthood; nor indeed could laws in their first feeble state have either authority or sanction, so as to compel men to relinquish their natural independence, had they not appeared to come down to them enforced by beings of more than human power. The first openings of civility have been every where made by religion. Amongst the Romans, the custody and interpretation of the laws continued solely in the college of the pontiffs for above a century.* They were much devoted to solitude, and thereby acquired that abstracted and thoughtful air, which is so imposing upon the vulgar. And when they appeared in publick, it was seldom, and only on some great occasion; in the sacrifices of the gods, or on the seat of judgment. They prescribed medicine; they formed the youth; they paid the last honours to the dead; they foretold events; they exercised themselves in magick. They were at once the priests, lawgivers, and physicians of their nation; and consequently concentred in themselves all that respect, that men have diffusively for those, who heal their diseases, protect their property, or reconcile them to the Divinity. What contributed not a little to the stability and power of this order, was the extent of its foundation, and the regularity and proportion of its structure. It took in both sexes; and the female Druids were in no less esteem for their knowledge and sanctity than the males. It was divided into several subordinate ranks and classes; and they all depended upon a chief or Arch-Druid, who was elected to his place with great authority, and pre-eminence for life. They were further armed with a power of interdicting from their sacrifices, or excommunicating, any obnoxious persons. This interdiction, so similar to that used by the ancient Athenians, and to that since practised among Christians, was followed by an exclusion from all the benefits of civil community; and it was accord ample authority was in general usefully exerted; by the interposition of the Druids differences were composed, and wars ended; and the minds of the fierce northern people, being reconciled to each other under the influence of religion, united with signal effect against their common enemies. The time in which the Druid priesthood was instituted, is unknown. It probably rose, like other institutions of that kind, from low and ob-ingly the most dreaded of all punishments. This scure beginnings; and acquired from time, and the labours of able men, a form, by which it extended itself so far, and attained at length so mighty an influence over the minds of a fierce, and otherwise ungovernable, people. Of the place where it arose, there is somewhat less doubt: Cæsar mentions it as the common opinion, that this institution began in Britain; that there it always remained in the highest perfection, and that from thence it diffused itself into Gaul. I own I find it not easy to assign any tolerable cause, why an order of so much authority, and a discipline so exact, should have passed from the more barbarous people to the more civilized; from the younger to the older; from the colony to the mother country but it is not wonderful, that the early extinction of this order, and that general contempt, in which the Romans held all the barbarous nations, should have left these matters obscure and full of difficulty. The Druids were kept entirely distinct from the body of the people; and they were exempted from all the inferiour and burdensome offices of society, that they might be at leisure to attend the important duties of their own charge. They were chosen out of the best families, and from the young men of the most promising talents; a regulation, which placed and preserved them in a respectable light with the world. None were admitted into this order but after a long and laborious novitiate, which made the character venerable in their own eyes by the time and difficulty of attaining it. Digest. lib. I. tit. ii. De origine et processu juris, 2. There was a class of the Druids, whom they called Bards, who delivered in songs (their only history) the exploits of their heroes; and who composed those verses, which contained the secrets of druidical discipline, their principles of natural and moral philosophy, their astronomy, and the mys tical rites of their religion. These verses in all probability bore a near resemblance to the golden verses of Pythagoras; to those of Phocylides, Orpheus, and other remnants of the most ancient Greek poets. The Druids, even in Gaul, where they were not altogether ignorant of the use of letters, in order to preserve their knowledge in greater respect, committed none of their precepts to writing. The proficiency of their pupils was estimated principally by the number of technical verses, which they retained in their memory: a circumstance, that shews this discipline rather calculated to preserve with accuracy a few plain maxims of traditionary science, than to improve and extend it. And this is not the sole circumstance which leads us to believe, that among them learning had advanced no further than its infancy. The scholars of the Druids, like those of Pythagoras, were carefully enjoined a long and religious silence; for if barbarians come to acquire any knowledge, it is rather by instruction, than examination; they must therefore be silent. Pythagoras, in the rude times of Greece, required silence in his disciples; but Socrates, in the meridian of the Athenian refinement, spoke less than his scholars; every thing was disputed in the Academy. The Druids are said to be very expert in astronomy, in geography, and in all parts of mathematical knowledge. And authors speak, in a very exaggerated strain, of their excellence in these, and in many other sciences. Some elemental knowledge I suppose they had; but I can scarcely be persuaded, that their learning was either deep or extensive. In all countries where Druidism was professed, the youth were generally instructed by that order; and yet was there little either in the manners of the people, in their way of life, or their works of art, that demonstrates profound science, or particularly mathematical skill. Britain, where their discipline was in its highest perfection, and which was therefore resorted to by the people of Gaul, as an oracle in Druidical questions, was more barbarous in all other respects than Gaul itself, or than any other country then known in Europe. Those piles of rude magnificence, Stonehenge and Abury, are in vain produced in proof of their mathematical abilities. These vast structures have nothing, which can be admired, but the greatness of the work; and they are not the only instances of the great things, which the mere labour of many hands united, and persevering in their purpose, may accomplish with very little help from mechanicks. This may be evinced by the immense buildings, and the low state of the sciences, among the original Peruvians. The Druids were eminent, above all the philosophick lawgivers of antiquity, for their care in impressing the doctrine of the soul's immortality on the minds of their people, as an operative and leading principle. This doctrine was inculcated on the scheme of transmigration, which some imagine them to have derived from Pythagoras. But it is by no means necessary to resort to any particular teacher for an opinion, which owes its birth to the weak struggles of unenlightened reason, and to mistakes natural to the human mind. The idea of the soul's immortality is indeed ancient, universal, and in a manner inherent in our nature but it is not easy for a rude people to conceive any other mode of existence than one similar to what they had experienced in life; nor any other world as the scene of such an existence, but this we inhabit, beyond the bounds of which the mind extends itself with great difficulty. Admiration, indeed, was able to exalt to heaven a few selected heroes: it did not seem absurd, that those, who in their mortal state had distinguished themselves as superiour and overruling spirits, should after death ascend to that sphere, which influences and governs every thing below; or that the proper abode of beings, at once so illustrious Cic. Tusc. Quest. lib. 1. and permanent, should be in that part of nature, in which they had always observed the greatest splendour and the least mutation. But on ordinary occasions it was natural some should imagine, that the dead retired into a remote country, separated from the living by seas or mountains. It was natural, that some should follow their imagination with a simplicity still purer, and pursue the souls of men no further than the sepulchres, in which their bodies had been deposited; whilst others of deeper penetration, observing, that bodies, worn out by age, or destroyed by accidents, still afforded the materials for generating new ones, concluded likewise, that a soul being dislodged did not wholly perish, but was destined, by a similar revolution in nature, to act again, and to animate some other body. This last principle gave rise to the doctrine of transmigration; but we must not presume of course, that where it prevailed it necessarily excluded the other opinions; for it is not remote from the usual procedure of the human mind, blending, in obscure matters, imagination and reasoning together, to unite ideas the most inconsistent. When Homer represents the ghosts of his heroes appearing at the sacrifices of Ulysses, he supposes them endued with life, sensation, and a capacity of moving, but he has joined to these powers of living existence uncomeliness, want of strength, want of distinction, the characteristicks of a dead carcass. This is what the mind is apt to do; it is very apt to confound the ideas of the surviving soul and the dead body. The vulgar have always, and still do confound these very irreconcilable ideas. They lay the scene of apparitions in church-yards; they habit the ghost in a shroud; and it appears in all the ghastly paleness of a corpse. A contradiction of this kind has given rise to a doubt, whether the Druids did in reality hold the doctrine of transmigration. There is positive testimony, that they did hold it. There is also testimony as positive, that they buried, or burned with the dead, utensils, arms, slaves, and whatever might be judged useful to them, as if they were to be removed into a separate state. They might have held both these opinions; and we ought not to be surprised to find errour inconsistent. The objects of the Druid worship were many. In this respect they did not differ from other heathens; but it must be owned, that in general their ideas of divine matters were more exalted than those of the Greeks and Romans; and that they did not fall into an idolatry so coarse and vulgar. That their gods should be represented under a human form, they thought derogatory to beings uncreated and imperishable. To confine, what can endure no limits, within walls and roofs, they judged absurd and impious. In these particulars there was something refined, and suitable enough to a just idea of the Divinity. But the rest was not equal. Some notions they had, like the greatest part of mankind, of a Being eternal and infinite; but they also, like the greatest part of |