frank-incense, was explicitly informed that the first was procured by stratagem from the nests of birds built upon inaccessible crags, and the latter from a tree guarded by winged serpents. There is also the story of the master of a Phoenician trader from Cadiz to the Cassiterides, who finding himself followed by a Roman ship ran his own vessel a-shore preferring death to discovery. The Romans were also shipwrecked, and were drowned, but the patriot escaped to tell his tale at Tyre, and to receive from a grateful state the value of his cargo and an additional reward. In spite of these precautions, either by accident, or by the treachery of some renegado Phoenician, or from the colony of Phocians at Marseilles, the Greeks discovered the secret about three hundred years before the Christian era. Thus monopoly being ended, the commerce of the Britons was extended and improved, and after the descent of the Romans they exported not only tin and lead, but also gold, silver, iron, corn, cattle, slaves, hunting-dogs, pearls, and those wicker baskets which Martial has immortalized in his epigrans. It also appears that chalk was an article of their trade, by this inscription which was found with many others near Zeland, A.D. 1647. DEAE NEHALENNIAE OB MERCES RECTE CONSER NEGO × TOR CRETARIVS V. SL M. To the Goddess Nehalennia A chalk merchant Of Britain Willingly performed his merited vow. Before describing the religion and superstitions of our earliest ancestors, which will bring me to the real purpose of this book, I will add a few remarks upon their manners and peculiarities. Curiosity, which is certainly the chief characteristic of all barbarous and semi-barbarous nations, was possessed by the Celts in so extraordinary a degree that they would compel travellers to stop, even against their wills, and make them tell some news, and deliver an opinion upon the current events of the day. They would also crowd round the merchants in towns with the same kind of inquiries. But the great failing of these Celts was their hastiness and ferocity. Not content with pitched battles against their enemies abroad, they were always ready to fight duels with their friends at home. In fact, the end of a British feast was always the beginning of a fray; two warriors would rise and fight each other with such sang-froid, that Athenæus wrote in astonishment, Mortem pro joco habent, "They turn death into a joke;" and it was from these spectacles that the Romans conceived and executed the idea of gladiatorial entertainments. They feared nothing, these brave men. They sang as they marched to battle, and perhaps to death. They shot arrows at the heaven when it thundered; they laughed as they saw their own hearts' blood gushing forth. And yet they were plain and simple in their manners; open and generous, docile and grateful, strangers to low cunning and deceit, so hospitable that they hailed the arrival of each fresh guest with joy and festivities, so warm-hearted that they were never more pleased than when they could bestow a kindness. Their code of morals, like those of civilized nations, had its little contradictions; they accounted it disgraceful to steal, but honourable to rob, and though they observed the strictest chastity, they did not blush to live promiscuously in communities of twelve. This extraordinary custom induced Cæsar to assert that they enjoyed each other's wives in common; but in this he is borne out by no other authorities, and, indeed, there are many instances of this kind among barbarous nations, who love, apparently, to hide their real purity with a gross and filthy enamel. Richard of Circencester (probably alluding to Bath the aquæ solis of the ancients) mentions, however, some salt and warm springs used by the ancient Britons, from which were formed hot baths suited to all ages, with distinct places for the two sexes; a refinement which was unknown in Lacedæmon. And Procopius writes: "So highly rated is chastity among these bar'barians, that if even the bare mention of marriage occurs without its completion, the maiden seems to "lose her fair fame." Having thus briefly sketched the condition and employments of the early Britons—having proved that our ancestors were brave, and that their daughters were virtuous, I will now show you those wise and potent men of whom these poor barbarians were but the disciples and the slaves. |