Room for the Druids! Their solemn progress, their patriarchal beards, their white robes of office, and the chaplets of oak leaves on their brows proclaim them at once. Priests, judges, magicians, and instructors of youth, they rule the Britons with a rod of iron. Their altars and idols are set deep in the gloomy shades of dense forests amidst the gnarled and twisted stems of aged oaks. The secrets of their cruel creed are close locked in their bosoms, and over all their words and works they cast a dread mystery that chills the heart of the boldest Briton in the land. Their word is law, their curse is death. Their richest treasures go unguarded save for the awe which they inspire. Deep in their forest shades they offer their mysterious sacrifices; sometimes human beings, imprisoned in huge wicker-work images, are burnt to death to appease the angry gods. The Druids claim to hold sway even over the spirits of the departed, and the Briton trembles as he hears the voices of tormented souls wailing in the night wind. Every shadow is a terror; every flying cloud is an omen of good or ill; every spring, river, and fountain has its guardian deity. Fire is the element which the Druids hold in the highest reverence; the sacred flame on their altars never dies.

Four times a year solemn festivals are held. On Midsummer Eve, New Year’s Day, May Day, and Hallowe’en the great Beltane fires are lighted, and Britons from near and far assemble for worship. The mistletoe growing on an oak is held sacred in the highest degree, and on the sixth day of the moon a feast is prepared beneath the hallowed branches. White bulls are dragged to the tree, and their broad foreheads are bound to its stem, their loud bellowings mingling with the strain of the wild anthem which the worshippers raise. When the beasts have been slaughtered as sacrifices, the chief Druid, clad in his flowing white robes, his golden collar and bracelets, ascends the oak, treading on the backs and broad shoulders of blindfolded slaves. With a golden pruning-knife he severs the mistletoe, and beneath him attendant Druids receive it on a white linen cloth. It is then distributed to the awed and expectant multitude, who carry home and carefully preserve a sprig of the all-healing plant. The Christmas mistletoe beneath which youths and maidens now make merry at the most sacred season of the Christian year annually recalls this heathenish rite.

Much of the Druids’ lore is imposture, but they have wrested from Nature some of her secrets. They know the stars in their courses; they are skilled in the lore of plants and the healing properties of herbs and simples. They practise the arts of public speaking and poesy. Their bards sing the songs of heroes, and inflame warriors with the lust of battle. But over all broods the cruel shadow of death, and men tremble as they pray.

Dread and mighty as these Druids are, the day of their doom is coming. Even now the Roman galleys are on the sea, and their prows are rising and falling as they furrow the heaving waters towards the white cliffs of Albion. Centuries will elapse before the gospel of love and mercy sweeps away the blood-stained rites of the Druids’ creed. The gods of Rome will destroy the deities of the isle. Jupiter and Mars will dethrone them; and in their train, how or when we know not, the message of Christianity will be whispered, until at length the daystar rises, never to set, on the forests of Britain.

Gone are the Druids, but their name still survives in the mountains and valleys of Wales, where the ancient Britons found their refuge in a later age. Our modern Druids love letters and music, and the other beautiful arts which touch and kindle souls. Theirs it is to encourage men and women to build the lofty rhyme, to weave the golden strands of melody, and to limn the loveliness of earth and sea and sky. Thus transformed, the Druid is a prophet of sweetness and light, not an enslaver of souls.

THE COMING OF CÆSAR.

A king amongst men now draws near. As he strides by, a proud and majestic figure, you know that you are in the presence of one of the world’s greatest men. He bears himself like a conqueror, yet he is far more than a mere victorious general. Scholar, statesman, writer, orator, and architect, he is the “noblest Roman of them all.” Look at his stern, powerful face, his eagle-like nose, his thin, firm-set lips, his lofty brow, and his massive head crowned with a wreath of laurel. “Cæsar!” you cry, and it is none other than he.

He has subdued Gaul, and now he looks across the narrow strait towards the white, gleaming cliffs of Dover. A new arena opens before him, a land untrodden by Roman feet, an island of fabled wealth of pearl and tin, of waving cornfields and rich pastures, peopled by sturdy warriors worthy to cross swords even with him. He remembers the fiery charge of the British on many a Gaulish battlefield, and his wrath rekindles as he thinks of the havoc they have wrought amongst his legions, and of the welcome and shelter they have afforded his flying foes in their unconquered island only a few leagues away. Right well do they deserve to feel the weight of the Roman hand. He has received invitations, too. The tribes on yonder coveted island are ever at war with each other; ambitious chiefs are ever seeking to subdue their weaker neighbours. Refugees have fled to him beseeching his assistance against their enemies. Ambition, revenge, and the prospect of easy victory over a disunited foe, all urge him on to the new enterprise now shaping itself in his busy brain. “The die is cast.” He will invade and conquer Britain, and add another laurel to his wreath of fame.

He consults the chief merchants of the Gallic coast, and endeavours to learn the military strength, the resources, the landing-places of the island; but they are dumb, and only find their tongues when they secretly and hurriedly send off messengers to warn the islanders of the threatened invasion. Envoys from Britain speedily arrive, eager to appease the wrath of great Cæsar by humbly offering to submit. They are too late. “The die is cast.”

A Roman galley pushes out to survey the British coast and to fix upon a suitable landing-place. Meanwhile Cæsar masses his legions and hies him to Portus Itius, where his transports lie. The return of the scout is the signal for embarkation, and on the morning of August 26, in the year 55 B.C., anchors are weighed and the galleys stream out of the harbour. By ten o’clock they are under the cliffs of the British shore, and then they perceive that no easy victory awaits them. Heavy fighting must be done ere the legions form up on the British shore. The cliffs are black with warriors, chariots, and horsemen ready to oppose their landing.

With a favouring breeze and the tide in his favour, Cæsar skirts the shore eastward, until a shelving strand somewhere near Romney Marsh promises him convenient landing. As his galleys move eastward, the British on the cliffs move eastward too. There is a long pause; the transports containing the cavalry are still miles away. They have not appeared at three in the afternoon; the day is wearing on, and Cæsar determines to attempt a landing without them.

With difficulty his ships approach the shallow shore, only to find the full force of the island-army, with horsemen and chariots, drawn up in battle-array to receive him. The British horsemen spur their steeds into the waves; and many a half-naked footman, with sharp javelin, heavy club, or rough-hewn war-hatchet, presses on towards the galleys. For a few minutes the Roman soldiers are dismayed and dare not leap from their ships. Then Cæsar orders up his warships and stations them on the flank of the enemy. Slings and catapults open fire, and the Britons, assailed as they have never been assailed before, draw back in confusion. Still the Romans hesitate, but the situation is saved by the standard-bearer of the famous Tenth Legion. “Leap, fellow-soldiers,” he cries, “unless you wish to betray your Eagle to the enemy. I at least will do my duty to the Republic and to my general.” Roused by his example, the Romans leap from their ships, and immediately a fierce fight rages in the water.

The waves are red with blood; mailed Roman and naked Briton hack and hew at each other in confused combat; and slowly but surely the invaders gain the beach. There they form into ranks, shoulder to shoulder, and against that solid wall of disciplined valour nothing can stand. The scythe-wheeled chariots thunder towards the Roman array, the evening sun glinting from their outstretched blades; but the fiery horses are impaled on the iron points of the Roman spears. Step by step the Britons are forced from the strand; fainter and fainter sound the voices of the Druids singing their frenzied war-chants; and ere darkness has settled down the islanders have retreated, and the Roman victors remain on the beach which they have so hardly won.

Next day come chiefs with offers of submission; but four days later, when Cæsar’s cavalry transports are nearing the coast, a great storm arises. The anchored galleys are wrecked; the newcomers are driven back to Gaul. Cæsar is in perilous plight. He has no provisions for his soldiers, no materials with which to repair his shattered ships. The autumn storms have begun, and he is on a treacherous coast, harassed by a fierce, unrelenting foe.

These disasters give new hope to the Britons. They rapidly muster their men, and form an ambush in an uncut field of grain not far from the Roman camp. When the Seventh Legion comes out to reap the corn it is suddenly beset on all sides by a host of horsemen and charioteers. The cloud of dust raised by the chariot wheels betrays the fight to the sentinels of the camp. Cæsar hurries to the spot, and just manages to save the reapers from utter destruction and convey them back to his stronghold. The Britons follow, and make the grievous mistake of attacking the Romans in their trenches. Beaten back time after time, they again retreat to their fastnesses in the woods, and once more offer submission.

Cæsar is quite ready for peace. His troops are weary, for they have been seventeen or eighteen days on the island, and the struggle has never ceased. His twelve thousand men are all too few to overcome the obstinate Britons. He does not wait even to receive the promised hostages, but, taking advantage of the first fair wind that blows, he returns to Gaul, baffled and beaten, without a single token of conquest.

Next year he comes again. The warm spring days that bring the swallows bring the Roman galleys once more. This time he does not despise his enemy. Twenty-five thousand foot and two thousand horse, embarked on eight hundred ships, speed towards the threatened shore. He lands without striking a blow, and stray prisoners inform him that his advance is to be challenged at a ford on the Stour twelve miles away. He is determined not to lose an hour. Through the night his legions tramp over the unknown country, and in the cold gray of the early dawn they find themselves on the bank of a reedy river, with the foe drawn up on the opposite side.

The charge is sounded, and the Roman cavalry dash into the river with the utmost impetuosity. They break through and through the ranks of the British infantry, their bronze swords being no match for the tempered iron of the Roman brands and javelins. Again the Britons give way, and betake themselves to their woodland fortresses barricaded with the trunks of felled trees. Here Cassivellaunus, behind his stockade, holds out stoutly. But his fortifications are carried at last, and the four “kings” of Kent, who have failed in an attack on the Roman camp, come once more in humble guise to offer their submission. Cæsar is again ready for peace. Forest fighting is too perilous for his taste. Amidst the mazes of the woodland the Roman formations are broken up, and in hand-to-hand combats the Britons are the equals of his best and most highly-trained soldiers. So he yields to the inevitable. He receives hostages and empty promises of annual tribute. Again he departs, leaving nothing to mark his so-called conquest but the earthworks of his deserted camps.

Once more he has failed. He may not describe his campaign as he does a later victory—“I came, I saw, I conquered.” He is fain to confess that his usual good fortune has deserted the “eagles” in Britain. A few hostages, a girdle of British pearls for Venus, and a lordly triumph in Rome—these are the only fruits which Cæsar reaps from his toils and perils on this side of the Channel. He vanishes from the pageant to win plentiful laurels on other fields. He has failed in Britain, but elsewhere he becomes unchallenged master of the Roman world. Ten years later, having attained the very summit of his ambition, he falls beneath the daggers of his erstwhile friends.

Cæsar vanishes, and with his departure twilight once more settles down on the land. For nearly a hundred years no Roman soldier sets foot on the island. Nevertheless, Britain is nearer to the masterful city on the Tiber than she has been before. Roman gossips talk of the island in their streets. Adventurous Romans and equally adventurous Britons exchange visits. Trade increases between the far-off island and the heart of the world. Roman huntsmen prize their British hounds, and British slaves are fashionable in the patrician homes of Rome. Britain moves onward in the march of civilization, and ere the century of peace comes to an end she is a real prize of conquest—a laurel worthy of the imperial brow itself.

CARACTACUS.

HE real conqueror of Britain now approaches. We know that British “kings” in distress more than once appealed to Augustus, and that he seriously thought of invading the island. The real conqueror, however, was the Emperor Claudius, who in 43 A.D. sent an army under a trusted leader. On the road to Britain the troops mutinied. Where Cæsar had failed, how could they hope to succeed? Besides, the Britons were now united under Caractacus, a valiant and skilful warrior. The mutiny, however, was crushed, and again the Romans landed without opposition. They pushed across the Medway to the Thames, which was forded, and thence to the capital of Caractacus, deep in the Essex woods. The Roman legions stormed the British stronghold, and, flushed with victory, the Emperor Claudius proudly dubbed himself Britannicus. But the work of conquest had only begun. Britain was far from subdued, and probably she would never have been the prey of the forty thousand or fifty thousand Romans who accomplished the task had the Britons fully understood that “union is strength.” Their divisions were worth many legions to the Romans, who met and conquered various bands of islanders, and never met a united army. One Roman general is said to have fought three-and-thirty battles south of the Thames, and to have captured more than twenty stockaded towns. The gallant Caractacus could make no headway against his foes, and leaving a brother dead among the Essex swamps, he sought refuge in the trackless mountains of South Wales.

Here Caractacus rallied the broken tribes for a last stand. He chose his ground with great skill in the centre of steep and difficult hills, and raised ramparts of massive stones where an ascent was possible, while between his army and the road by which the Romans must approach there flowed a river deep and wide. As the terrible Romans drew near Caractacus addressed his men, bidding them remember how their sires had driven back great Cæsar himself, and encouraging them to strike for home and freedom. The Britons, however, were again conquered. Roman discipline, Roman armour, and Roman swords were too much for them. Caractacus escaped, and fled to the court of his step-mother, Cartismandua, who to her eternal shame basely betrayed him to the foe against whom he had waged an unceasing struggle for nine years. Roman chains fettered the limbs of the British champion, and his capture was a triumph. To Rome he must go, where his exploits were well known, and the citizens were agog to see him.

With his wife, brother, and child he “graced the chariot wheels” of the Roman general. Through the majestic city he strode, noble in his simple dignity, and still unconquered. While his companions in fear begged for mercy, he, proudly erect, and his eye, which had never quailed before a Roman brand, boldly bright, recked not of death, deeming honour a greater prize than life itself. As the triumphal procession passed along the Sacred Way he saw the stately temples, the massive arches, the beautiful statues, and the luxurious dwellings of the great city, and asked, “Why should these Romans, with all their grandeur, covet my poor hut at home?”

Brought before Claudius, he made a noble defence and a proud appeal for clemency. Claudius was moved. He bade his lictors strike off the Briton’s chains and set him free. His after-career is unknown. In his noblest hour he vanishes from the pages of history.

A WARRIOR QUEEN.

Now move we on. Roman arms triumph in the field, but there is no peace in the land while the Druids, amidst the shadowy groves of Mona (Anglesea), cease not to stir the Britons to “mutiny and rage.”

Suetonius Paulinus determines to extirpate them root and branch. He marches to the shores of Menai Strait, and at nightfall his men essay to cross in flat-bottomed boats. As they near the other side an awe-inspiring scene meets their eyes. The Britons are drawn up in dense array. To and fro run black-robed women, brandishing torches, “fierce as the Furies,” their long hair streaming in the sea breeze. Behind them the assembled Druids are lifting their hands to high heaven and calling down terrible curses on the invaders. Huge fires crackle and blaze, as though impatient of their victims. The frantic women, the cursing priests, the flaming torches, the roaring flames paralyze the Romans. They shudder at the sight, and hesitate to land. But discipline prevails; they answer to the appeals of their general, and sweep forward in resistless attack. The carnage is dreadful; the sacred groves are fired; the Druids perish in their own flames; and the setting sun sinks on a scene of desolation and death. As the gray embers die out, Druidism perishes.

But elsewhere the flame of freedom still burns in many a British breast. While Suetonius is slaughtering the Druids, Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, is rousing her followers to fury by the tale of her terrible wrongs. Her dying husband, to appease his conquerors, bequeathed half his wealth to them, in the hope that his wife and daughters might enjoy the rest in peace. He reckoned without his hosts. They seize the whole of the treasure; they scourge Boadicea with rods; they shamefully wrong her children, and goad her to madness.

See her now in her war-chariot, her long yellow hair unbound, and falling below the golden girdle that encircles her waist, her eyes flashing vengeance as she pours forth burning words and pleads for revenge. Her men arm themselves, and almost every hut on the wide plain east of the Chilterns sends forth its warrior sworn to vengeance. They swoop upon the feebly garrisoned town of Camulodunum, and every Roman in it—man, woman, and helpless infant—is put to the sword. The Ninth Legion, coming to the rescue, is cut to pieces, and the whole East of England is in a blaze of rebellion. London falls before the conquering tribes, and seventy thousand Romans are butchered by the bloodthirsty victors. At last it seems that the yoke of Rome is broken, and Britain is once more free.

The dread news at last reaches Suetonius. By forced marches he hastens to London. Too late to save the city, he turns north, and takes up a strong position, with woods and the sea behind and the open plain in front. The Britons are eager for the fight. So sure of victory are they that they have brought their women to the field as spectators, and have placed them in a row of wagons in the rear, so that their shrill cries of encouragement shall ring in their ears as they charge down on the foe.

Boadicea, spear in hand, her daughters by her side, hurries from tribe to tribe in her chariot, exhorting her followers to conquer or die. “This,” she cries, “is a woman’s resolve; as for men, they may live to be slaves.” Maddened by her words, the Britons charge the foe, only to be repulsed with awful slaughter. They recoil from the brazen wall, and the legions carve their way through the disordered ranks, while the masterless steeds of the chariots, dashing hither and thither, add to the slaughter. The Romans are pitiless; they spare not even the women.

The battle is over; Rome has triumphed, and Boadicea, heart-broken and hopeless, flies from the scene, and in shuddering horror at the fate which awaits her, ends her life and that of her children with poison. Cowper, in his well-known poem, represents a Druid in the hour of her death prophesying the fall of the Roman Empire and the far-off greatness of her stricken land,—

THE IRON HAND.

The next figure in our pageant to attract attention is again a Roman, but a man cast in a very different mould from the harsh and tyrannical Suetonius. In distant Rome the emperor has taken to heart the moral of the terrible rising led by Boadicea. He now knows that the Britons will never yield to severity. Consequently Agricola, the new governor, is a firm, just man, who strives by every means in his power to make the Roman yoke press as lightly as possible on British shoulders. He rules Britain much as a British Viceroy governs our Indian Empire to-day. He fosters the peaceful arts; he introduces the British nobles and their sons to the pastimes, the dress, the luxuries, and the manners of Rome. In course of time Britain sullenly submits to her bondage, though she is still held down by force of arms. The art and practice of war are now forbidden to the Britons, except to the flower of the youth, who are drafted into legions which garrison lands far from the call of home and kindred. The fiery Briton no longer wields the claymore; he becomes a skilled craftsman, a patient farmer, a delver in the mines.

Still, Agricola has his share of fighting. The Britons of North Wales are subdued in the first year of his governorship. In the second year several tribes in North Britain feel the weight of his hand; and in the succeeding year he pushes into Caledonia, and carries his “eagles” to the Tay. During the following summer he builds a chain of forts from the Clyde to the Firth of Forth, vainly hoping that by this means he will pen the fierce Caledonians in their northern fastnesses. His greatest campaign is undertaken in the year 84 A.D., when he pushes into what is now Forfarshire and inflicts a terrible defeat on a host of Caledonians under their doughty chief Galgacus.

Meanwhile his galleys are creeping northward along the coast. They touch at the Orkneys, they round Cape Wrath, run down the western coast with its maze of islands, see the Irish hills on the starboard, and follow the shores of South Britain until they espy Land’s End, and find themselves once more in the familiar waters of the Channel. This voyage proves without a doubt that Britain is an island.

Agricola’s government, wise, firm, and prosperous, comes to an untimely end. The emperor is jealous of him, and recalls him to Rome on a trumped-up charge. What befalls him we do not know, but probably he comes to a violent end. At all events, he fades out of our history, leaving behind him a fame which emperors cannot dim nor unjust tribunals take away. Farewell, Agricola! We salute thee as the greatest governor which Britain ever knew while Rome held sway.

And now the land is happy in having little history to record. A generation comes and goes, and all the time Rome is building up her government, carrying out her great military works, and bowing the neck of the enfeebled Briton to her yoke.

What, you ask, is the appearance of Britain during the long years when the Roman peace has settled down on the land? Let us suppose that we are suddenly planted down in the island during the period Britain is part and parcel of the Roman Empire. Our first impression is that a great change has taken place in the appearance of the country. In many places the dense woods have disappeared; broad fields have been carved out of the forests, and are being carefully tilled by gangs of British slaves. Britain has become one of the great granaries of the Empire. Cattle and sheep by the hundred feed on the hillsides; and in Rome they speak of this land as Britannia Felix, “Britain the Happy.”

With the disappearance of the forests the weather has improved. No longer is the island wrapped in steaming mists; no longer is the sky always clouded. Many of the rivers which formerly lost themselves in reedy marshes are carefully banked in, and now flow on as broad, fair streams. The morasses are crossed by causeways, the fens are drained, the rivers are bridged, the fords are easy, and the Britons loudly complain that their hands and bodies are worn out in the toilsome work.

Look at the road beneath your feet. Broad and straight, it runs over hill and valley, across stream and moor and bog. British labourers, under the eye of Roman road-engineers—never surpassed before or since—have dug down to the rocky crust, and upon this have built three or four layers of squared or broken stones mixed with gravel, lime, and clay. The upper surface is closely paved, especially in the middle, with large flag-stones. This is one of the military highways, all spreading out, as our modern railways do, from London, and enabling the legions to pass with speed through the length and breadth of the province. Watling Street, Fosse Way, Hermen Street, Ikenild Street—the chief military roads of the island—may still be traced, and in parts are used to-day.

While we are examining the road, we hear the tramp of armed men, and a legion swings by. Swarthy Italian, yellow-haired German, and dusky Moor march side by side armed with brazen shield, heavy javelin, and short, thick sword. In the midst is the glittering “eagle,” which the Roman would rather die than yield to a foe.

Let us follow the legion towards yonder city. On we go, traversing the broad, white road, now crossing a stream by a bridge, now wading waist-deep through the ford of a broad river. Here and there amidst the trees we see the white buildings of a villa, the residence of some Roman official. Notice the beautiful garden as you pass, and admire the orchards of apples, plums, pears, and cherries, and the south wall where the clustering grapes are ripening in the sun. Anon we skirt the fringe of a cemetery with its mounds of earth marking the hollow graves, each with its urn of dark clay containing the ashes of the dead.

On and on we march, swinging to the right or left as some mounted messenger bearing dispatches for his general spurs by. At last the roofs of the city are seen. Round about it is a great rampart of stone; and here and there we see a sentinel, who leans on his javelin and shades his eyes as he peers across the plain. We enter through one of the four gates, pass the guard, and are at once met with a civilization such as the Briton of old never dreamt of. We pass by rows of private dwellings of stone and coloured tiles, glorious with pavements and columns. Here we see the fluted or leaf-crowned pillars of a temple to Neptune; there a stately shrine to Minerva. Yonder are the public baths, with their marble halls and inlaid pavements—unequalled in design and workmanship outside Rome. Within these heated chambers the chilly Roman official may recall the comforting warmth of his Southern home, and dream of the day when he shall see the beloved City once more. Yonder is the court-house, and in front of it senators in flowing robes, with parchment scrolls in their hands, pace to and fro.

Make way for the governor! Before him march his lictors with the axe in its bundle of rods, and behind him follows a guard of honour. Now a gang of slaves is driven by; and here comes a shock-headed British chieftain who has been captured in border warfare, and anon will face the judgment seat.

Hard by is the amphitheatre, where the townsfolk throng to see plays performed, or better still to see the trained gladiators who fight to the death “to make a Roman holiday.” Here on the seats, tier above tier, sit the wealthier Britons of the town, aping their masters in dress, speech, and manner. No longer do they delight in the battle and the chase; they love the pleasures of the town. Their golden locks are shorn and their beards are trimmed in the Roman fashion; they vie with each other in the fold of a toga and the fit of a sandal; their days are spent in a weary quest of amusement. They bathe; they drink their wine; they feast; they dice; they go to the shows; and consider themselves fine fellows indeed, because they can lisp the tongue of their masters.

The gleaming marble portico of the governor’s residence invites us. Within, the ladies of his household sew and spin, while their lord directs the affairs of his town and sits on the judgment seat. On their dressing-tables are mirrors of polished steel, combs of boxwood, and pins of bone for their long tresses. They gird up their robes with brooches of gold and silver; they wear jewelled bracelets on their arms and dainty shoes of silk on their feet. Supper is at three. Then the gentlemen will join them, and they will recline on the couches and feast on the dainties of the island, which they will wash down with a favourite wine trodden out in the presses of the distant home-land.

Then we pass on to the “poor quarter,” where the workshops of the multifarious workers are situated and the huts of the humblest part of the population abound. Here there are squalor and misery in plenty, but still a touch of Roman manners.

Such is the life of a Brito-Roman town in the palmy days of the Romans in Britain.

And now let the pageant move on to the closing scenes of Roman sway. Rome is sinking fast. Within, her citizens have lost their old courage and genius for government. Without, the fierce Goths and Vandals are assailing her provinces. Rome’s grip on her Empire is being loosened more and more every day, and the wild hordes on her frontiers grow bolder and bolder as the Roman garrisons are withdrawn to defend the great city itself. So it is in Britain, where the Caledonians swarm over Hadrian’s Wall and fall upon the Britons of the south. The Roman troops mutiny, and set up their general as emperor, and even follow him to Gaul, where stout-hearted Severus, who now appears on the scene, makes short work of them and their leader.

Meanwhile the ravages of the Caledonians increase, and to save the province old Severus, now sixty-two years of age and racked with the gout, crosses the Channel, and, carried in a litter before his army, sets his face for the border, in the hope of teaching the northern tribes a terrible lesson. Through the trackless swamps, the woods, the moorlands, and the wild mountains beyond the Wall, the old general hews his way until he reaches the shores of the Moray Firth, where the tribes make peace. Severus has accomplished nothing. His victory is a disaster; a few more such victories and he will have no army left. When the watchers on the Wall greet his approach with shouts of welcome, the bleaching bones of fifty thousand Romans mark his long line of march. He repairs the Wall, and then, grievously sick, retreats to York, where, on his deathbed, he plans a new campaign which will never be made.

His death is the beginning of the end. Two hundred years of misery and constant strife set in. General after general makes himself emperor; they come and go in blood; and all the time Britain, despoiled of her youth to rot on foreign fields, is the prey of a pitiless foe. The Caledonians, who are now known as Picts and Scots, actually march on London and carry off its citizens as slaves. A new and even more dreaded foe, the terrible Saxon pirate, has also appeared; there are desperate attempts at defence, but they are one and all in vain. The hour of doom has struck, alike for Empire and Province. The Goth is thundering at the very gates of Rome. All the available troops of the Empire, wherever stationed, are called in to defend the city.

The last of the legions leaves British shores in the year 407 amidst the sighs and tears of the defenceless inhabitants, who are now as sheep without a shepherd. Pitiful appeals—“the groans of the Britons”—are sent to Rome; but the weak and indolent emperor merely pauses in the absorbing pastime of feeding his pigeons to tell the despairing islanders that they must provide for their own safety. Thus Britain is left to her fate, and for two long centuries darkness closes round her.

“The eagles have flown.” Their glory has departed, and they disappear from the pageant of our history. Rome found the natives warlike, though untrained; she left them helpless and feeble. True, she gave them the benefits of peace; she taught them arts and crafts; she gave them education, and a measure of comfort and prosperity. But she did not teach them how to defend themselves, and so, when overwhelmed by hardier foes, they perished miserably by fire and sword.

KING ARTHUR AND THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE.

HE light burns low on our pageant, and the scene grows dim and confused; yet we know only too well that a desperate struggle is going on. The battle-cries of warriors and the shrieks of the wounded are ever in our ears. The glare of blazing roof-trees lights up for a moment the ghastly scene, and reveals the pitiless work of slaughter. As it flickers out all is gloom and silence; it is the only peace that the stricken land knows.

The scene shifts, but the drama is ever the same. There seems to be no end to the hordes of attackers. They come by sea and they come by land; most terrible of all are they whose serpent-headed ships are now seen faintly on the strand. The tide of war sets in their favour, though they are beaten back from time to time before the despairing onset of the Britons.

Now you see amidst the press the noble form of that gallant British prince who is the very soul of the island defence. Arthur, the peerless knight, steps before us, “every inch a king.” He shines like a star in the gloom. Legend, song, and story have so woven themselves about his name and fame, so many fables have been told about him, so many wondrous deeds and miracles have been ascribed to him, that historians dispute his very existence.

What do the old chroniclers tell us of him? They tell us that he was the son of Uther Pendragon, a valiant British king, who kept the Saxons at bay through many hard-fought years. Arthur’s birth had been kept a secret, and the child had been placed by the great wizard Merlin in the care of a knight named Sir Ector, who brought him up as his son. The ruin of the country seemed to be at hand, when Merlin induced the Archbishop of Canterbury to summon a meeting of all the great barons and nobles in London on Christmas Eve, in order that a king might be chosen. To this meeting came Sir Ector, his son Sir Kay, and Arthur.

While they were at prayers a huge block of marble uprose in the churchyard. On the top of it was an anvil of solid steel, in which was embedded by the point a sword of marvellous brightness, bearing on its jewelled hilt these words, “Whoso pulleth me out of this stone and anvil is rightwise king born of England.” In vain did ambitious knights and squires, day after day, strive to draw forth the magic sword. All failed, and men despaired of discovering the rightful king. Now it chanced that on New Year’s Day a tournament was held, and amongst the knights who rode to take part therein was Sir Kay, who was accompanied by Arthur as his squire. As they rode towards the field, Sir Kay discovered that he had left his sword behind him at his lodging. He prayed Arthur to ride back for his sword, and Arthur, as a dutiful squire, obeyed. When, however, he came to the lodging he found it closed, for all who dwelt there had gone to the jousting.

On his way Arthur had passed the churchyard where the sword was upstanding in the anvil. Thither he rode, and, seizing the sword, easily pulled it out and carried it to Sir Kay, who did many warlike feats with it. Then he showed it to his father, who knew the secret of Arthur’s birth, and guessed what had taken place. The sword was replaced, but Arthur drew it forth as easily as before. On this the old knight and his son knelt before Arthur, and acknowledged him as “rightwise king born of England.”

On Twelfth Day, in the presence of all the kings and lords of the land, Arthur again drew the sword from the anvil, though no one else could move it. Still the great lords were loath to recognize the boy as king; and Merlin, seeing that Arthur’s right would not be admitted without bloodshed, gathered as many as he could of the best knights of the realm, and used all his magic arts to aid the good cause. On one occasion the kings and barons besieged Arthur in a strong tower, but when he was in the direst peril he sallied forth and attacked his besiegers. His horse was slain under him, and he was at the mercy of his foes. Then he drew the magic sword which he had taken from the anvil, and the fortune of war instantly turned in his favour. His sword—the far-famed Excalibur—gleamed like the radiance of thirty torches. Its flashing beams half-blinded Arthur’s foes—they could not see to strike; and so he vanquished them, and gained his first victory.

Battle after battle was fought before Arthur was acknowledged as king by all men in the land, but at length the hour arrived when no one dared to dispute his title to supremacy. Then he wedded the beauteous but false Guinevere, and set up again the Round Table which his father Uther had founded. Around it were a hundred and fifty seats, and on the seats sat Arthur’s knights, all of equal degree, none first and none last. The chronicle of their deeds is too long to tell: many were the brave deeds they did together, many were the battles they fought, many were the distressed ladies they succoured, and great was the fame and glory that enshrined them. “Britain for the Britons” was their cry, and they haughtily sang:——

So Arthur leads on the Britons, with the image of the Virgin on his shield, and points his sword Excalibur towards the swarming foe. Twelve great battles he fights with the English, and for a time holds them at bay. Then some of his followers desert to the enemy, and he is sore beset. One by one his knights fall around him, and then he, too, is stricken to the ground. Sore wounded, Arthur calls the last of his knights, and bids him throw Excalibur into a lake. The sword is flung high into the air, and as it falls, lo, a hand comes out of the water and catches the magic brand by the hilt. Three times it is brandished, and then it vanishes for ever beneath the waves.

“Alas!” cries Arthur, “my end draws near. Carry me to the edge of the water.” The knight does so, and there, awaiting the dying king, is a black barge, his destined bier. On the deck are three queens, with black hoods and crowns of gold. “Now, put me in the barge,” says Arthur; and when this is done, the queens receive him with great mourning and wailing, and one of them cries, “Ah, my dear brother, why hast thou tarried so long?” Then Arthur bids the knight farewell, and the barge slowly moves across the water. Sad and lonely, the knight watches it disappear

So fades Arthur from our view, a dim and mystical figure in life, a vision of undying splendour in death. Let the historians say what they will, men will still believe in him; they will still see the wearer of his mantle in every true knight, and still hold him a shining example to all who “bear without abuse the grand old name of gentleman.”