monuments of men and conquerors? But he, whose just and true valour uses the necessity of war and dominion, not to destroy but to prevent destruction, to bring in liberty against tyrants, law and civility among barbarous nations, knowing that when he conquers all things else, he cannot conquer time or detraction, wisely conscious of this his want, as well as of his worth, not to be forgotten or concealed, honours and hath recourse to the aid of eloquence, his friendliest and best supply; by whose immortal record, his noble deeds, which else were transitory, becoming fixed and durable against the force of years and generations, he fails not to continue through all posterity, over envy, death, and time, also victorious. Therefore, when the esteem of science and liberal study, waxes low in the common wealth, we may presume, that also there all civil virtue and worthy action is grown as low to a decline: and then eloquence, as it were consorted in the same destiny, with the decrease and fall of virtue, corrupts also and fades, at least resigns her office of relating, to illiterate and frivolous historians, such as the persons themselves both deserve and are best pleased with; whilst they want either the understanding to choose better, or the innocence to dare invite the examining and searching style of an intelligent and faithful writer, to the survey of their unsound exploits, better befriended by obscurity than fame."

The struggles between the Britons and Romans are related by our patriotic historian in a congenial spirit; we shall only, however, extract part of his account of the manners of the ancient Britons, for the sake of some characteristic observations it contains.

"But at Cæsar's coming hither, such likeliest were the Britons, as the writers of those times, and their own actions represent them, in courage and warlike readiness to take advantage by ambush or sudden onset, not inferior to the Romans, nor Cassibelan to Cæsar, in weapons, arms, and the skill of encamping, embattling, fortifying, overmatched; their weapons were a short spear and light target, a sword also by their side, their fight sometimes in chariots fanged at the axle with iron scythes, their bodies most part naked, only painted with woad in sundry figures, to seem terrible, as they thought; but pursued by enemies, not nice of their painting, to run into bogs, worse than wild Irish, up to the neck, and there to stay many days, holding a certain morsel in their mouths, no bigger than a bean, to suffice hunger: but that receipt, and the temperance it taught, is long since unknown among us: their towns and strong holds were spaces of ground fenced about with a ditch, and great trees felled overthwart each other; their buildings within were thatched houses for themselves and their cattle. In peace, the upland inhabitants, besides hunting, tended their flocks and herds, but with little skill of country affairs; the making of cheese they commonly knew not, wool or flax they spun not, gardening and planting many of them knew not; clothing they had none, but what the skins of beasts afforded them, and that

not always; yet gallantry they had, painting their own skins with several portraitures of beast, bird, or flower, A vanity which hath not yet left us, removed only from the skin to the skirt, behung now with as many coloured ribands and gewgaws.'"

The second book concludes with the separation of Britain from the Roman empire. This gives occasion to the following reflections, with which the third book opens.

"This third book having to tell of accidents, as various and exemplary as the intermission or change of government hath any where brought forth, may deserve attention more than common, and repay it with like benefit to them who can judiciously read: considering especially, that the late civil broils had cast us into a condition not much unlike to what the Britons then were in, when the imperial jurisdiction departing hence, left them to the sway of their own councils; which times, by comparing seriously with these later, and that confused anarchy with this interreign, we may be able from two such remarkable turns of state, producing like events among us, to raise a knowledge of ourselves both great and weighty, by judging hence what kind of men the Britons generally are in matters of so high enterprise, how by nature, industry, or custom, fitted to attempt or undergo matters of so main consequence: for if it be a high point of wisdom in every private man, much more is it in a nation to know itself; rather than be puffed up with vulgar flatteries and encomiums, for want of self-knowledge, to enterprise rashly and come off miserably in great undertakings. The Britons thus, as we heard, being left without protection from the empire, and the land in a manner emptied of all her youth, consumed in wars abroad, or not caring to return home, themselves through long subjection, servile in mind, slothful of body, and with the use of arms unacquainted, sustained but ill for many years the violence of those barbarous invaders, who now daily grew upon them. For although at first greedy of change, and to be thought the leading nation to freedom from the empire, they seemed a while to bestir them with a shew of diligence in their new affairs, some secretly aspiring to rule, others adoring the name of liberty, yet so soon as they felt by proof the weight of what it was to govern well themselves, and what was wanting within them, not stomach or the love of licence, but the wisdom, the virtue, the labour, to use and maintain true liberty, they soon remitted their heat, and shrunk more wretchedly under the burden of their own liberty, than before under a foreign yoke."

In the fourth book, the incident by which Edwin, king of Northumbria, is said to have been finally converted to the Christian religion, is thus related.

"But while he still deferred, and his deferring might seem now to have past the maturity of wisdom to a faulty lingering, Paulinus, by revelation, as was believed, coming to the knowledge of a secret,

which befell him strangely in the time of his troubles, on a certain day went in boldly to him, and laying his right hand on the head of the king, asked him if he remembered what that sign meant; the king trembling, and in a maze rising up, straight fell at his feet. 'Behold,' saith Paulinus, raising him from the ground, God hath delivered you from your enemies, and given you the kingdom, as you desired: perform now what long since you promised him, to receive his doctrine, which I now bring you, and the faith, which, if you accept, shall, to your temporal felicity, add eternal.' The promise claimed of him by Paulinus, how and wherefore made, though savouring much of legend, is thus related: Redwald, as we heard before, dazzled with the gold of Ethelfrid, or by his threatening overawed, having promised to yield up Edwin, one of his faithful companions, of which he had some few with him in the court of Redwald, that never shrunk from his adversity, about the first hour of night comes in haste to his chamber, and calling him forth for better secrecy, reveals to him his danger, offers him his aid to make escape; but that course not approved, as seeming dishonourable without more manifest cause to begin distrust towards one who had so long been his only refuge, the friend departs. Edwin, left alone without the palace gate, full of sadness and perplexed thoughts, discerns, about the dead of night, a man, neither by countenance nor by habit to him known, approaching towards him: who, after salutation, asked him, why at this hour, when all others were at rest, he alone so sadly sat waking on a cold stone? Edwin, not a little misdoubting who he might be, asked him again, what his sitting within doors, or without, concerned him to know ? To whom he again, ، Think not that who thou art, or why sitting here, or what danger hangs over thee, is to me unknown: But what would you promise to that man, whoever would befriend you out of all these troubles, and persuade Redwald to the like?' All that I am able,' answered Edwin. And he, What if the same man should promise to make you greater than any English king hath been before you? ، I should not doubt, quoth Edwin, “ to be answerably grateful.' And what, if to all this, he would inform you,' said the other, in a way to happiness, beyond what any of your ancestors hath known, would you hearken to his counsel?' Edwin, without stopping, promised he would. And the other, laying his right hand on Edwin's head, When this sign,' saith he, ، shall next befall thee, remember this time of night, and this discourse, to perform what thou hast promised;' and with these words disappearing, left Edwin much revived, but not less filled with wonder, who this unknown should be. When suddenly, the friend who had been gone all this while to listen further what was like to be decreed of Edwin, comes back, and joyfully bids him rise to his repose, for that the king's mind, though for a while drawn aside, was now fully resolved not only not to betray him, but to defend him against all enemies, as he had promised. This was said to be the cause why Edwin admonished by the bishop of a sign, which had befallen him so strangely, and as he thought so secretly, arose to him with that reverence and amazement, as to one sent from

heaven, to claim that promise of him which he perceived well was due to a Divine power, that had assisted him in his troubles."

Our author's patience, as may be supposed, fails him during the dry and endless recital of the obscure wars and petty negotiations of the heptarchy. "I am sensible," says he," how wearisome it may likely be to read of so many bare and reasonless actions, so many names of kings one after another, acting little more than mute persons in a scene:neither do I care to wrinkle the smoothness of history with rugged names of places unknown, better harp'd at in Camden, and other chorographers." The fifth book begins thus :

"The sum of things in this island, or the best part thereof, reduced now under the power of one man; and him, one of the worthiest, which, as far as can be found in good authors, was by none attained at any time here before, unless in fables; men might with some reason have expected from such union, peace and plenty, greatness, and the flourishing of all estates and degrees: but far the contrary fell out soon after; invasion, spoil, desolation, slaughter of many, slavery of the rest, by the forcible landing of a fierce nation.

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Which invasion, perhaps, had the heptarchy stood divided as it was, had either not been attempted, or not uneasily resisted; while each prince and people, excited by their nearest concernments, had more industriously defended their own bounds, than depending on the neglect of a deputed governor, sent oft-times from the remote residence of a secure monarch. Though as it fell out in those troubles, the lesser kingdoms revolting from the West Saxon yoke, and not aiding each other, too much concerned with their own safety, it came to no better pass; while severally, they sought to repell the danger nigh at hand, rather than jointly to prevent it far off. But when God hath decreed servitude on a sinful nation, fitted by their own vices for no condition but servile, all estates of government are alike unable to avoid it. God had purposed to punish our instrumental punishers, though now Christians, by other heathen, according to his Divine retaliation; invasion for invasion, spoil for spoil, destruction for destruction. The Saxons were now full as wicked as the Britons were at their arrival, broken with luxury and sloth, either secular or superstitious; for laying aside the exercise of arms, and the study of all virtuous knowledge, some betook them to over-worldly or vicious practice, others to religious idleness and solitude, which brought forth nothing but vain and delusive visions; easily perceived such, by their commanding of things, either not belonging to the gospel, or utterly forbidden ceremonies, relics, monasteries, masses, idols, add to these ostentation of alms, got oft-times by rapine and oppression, or intermixed with violent and lustful deeds, sometimes prodigally bestowed as the expiation of cruelty and bloodshed. What longer suffering could there be, when religion itself grew so void of sincerity, and the greatest shews of purity were impured?"

The story of Canute and his courtiers is worth extraction, on account of the dignified plainness with which it is narrated.

"I must not omit one remarkable action done by him, as Huntingdon reports it, with great scene of circumstance and emphatical expression, to shew the small power of kings in respect of God; which, unless to court-parasites, needed no such laborious demonstration. He caused his royal seat to be set on the shore, while the tide was coming in; and with all the state that royalty could put into his countenance, said thus to the sea: Thou, sea, belongest to me, and the land whereon I sit, is mine; nor hath any one unpunished, resisted my commands: I charge thee come no further upon my land, neither presume to wet the feet of thy sovereign lord.' But the sea, as before, came rolling on, and without reverence, both wet and dashed him. Whereat the king quickly rising, wished all about him to behold and consider the weak and frivolous power of a king, and that none indeed deserved the name of a king, but he, whose eternal laws both heaven, earth, and sea, obey. A truth, so evident of itself, as I said before, that unless to shame his court-flatterers, who would not else be convinced, Canute needed not to have gone wet-shod home. The best is, from that time forth he never would wear a crown, esteeming earthly royalty contemptible and vain."

The sixth and last book, which conducts the history down to the Norman conquest, concludes in the usual strain; and with this we shall close our quotations.

"Thus, the English, while they agreed not about the choice of their native king, were constrained to take the yoke of an outlandish conqueror. With what minds, and by what course of life they had fitted themselves for this servitude, William of Malmesbury spares not to lay open. Not a few years before the Normans came, the clergy, though in Edward the Confessor's days, had lost all good literature and religion, scarce able to read and understand their Latin service: he was a miracle to others who knew his grammar. The monks went clad in fine stuffs, and made no difference what they eat; which, though in itself no fault, yet, to their consciences, was irreligious. The great men given to gluttony and dissolute life, made a prey of the common people, abusing their daughters whom they had in service, then turning them off to the stews; the meaner sort tippling together night and day, spent all they had in drunkenness, attended with other vices which effeminate men's minds. Whence it came to pass, that carried on with fury and rashness, more than any true fortitude or skill of war, they gave to William, their conqueror, so easy a conquest. Not but that some few of all sorts were much better among them, but such was the generality. And as the long suffering of God permits bad men to enjoy prosperous days with the good, so his severity oft times exempts not good men from their share in evil times with the bad.