reign of Hadrian, however, the Romans were attacked all along their northern frontiers by the Caledonians, and the whole state of the island was such as to demand that emperor's presence. Hadrian visited Britain A.D. 121, at which time the conquests of Agricola north of the Tyne and Solway were lost, and his advanced line of forts between the Forth and the Clyde destroyed. Without either resigning or reconquering all that territory, Hadrian contented himself with raising a new rampart between the Solway Frith and the German Ocean. It would have been wise in the Romans to have kept to this line, but in the following reign of Antoninus Pius, A.D. 138, the governor of Britain, Lollius Urbicus, advanced from it, and again fixed the Roman frontier at the isthmus between the Clyde and Forth. It was the boast of the Romans that this fortified line was to cover and protect all the fertile territories of the south, and to drive the enemy into another island, barren and barbarous like themselves. In the reign of Commodus, A.D. 183, however, the northern tribes again broke through this barrier, and the country which lay between it became the scene of several sanguinary battles with the Romans. About the same time, also, a mutinous spirit declared itself among the legions in Britain, and symptoms were everywhere seen of that decline in discipline which led to the dissolution of the Roman empire. These wars continued for many years, and cost the lives of thousands of the civilized British subjects of Rome. In the year A.D. 207, the Emperor Severus led an army in person against the northern barbarians, and after many arduous contests the invaders were driven back. Severus erected a strong stone wall near to the rampart of Hadrian, which was twelve feet high and eight feet thick, to which were added a number of stations or towns, eighty-one castles, and numerous castelets or turrets. As long as the Roman power lasted, this barrier was constantly garrisoned by armed men. Severus had not finished this great work when the northern tribes resumed the offensive. He vowed their extermination, and marched northward, but he died at Eboracum, or York, in the early part of the year 211. Caracalla, his son and successor, who had been serving with him in Britain, tired of the warfare, made peace with the Caledonians; formally ceding to them the debatable ground between the Sol way and Tyne, and the Friths of Clyde and Forth, after which he returned to Rome. Of the history of Britain during the seventy years which followed the death of Severus, few genuine particulars are preserved in history. The country seems to have enjoyed general tranquillity, and the people to have advanced in the arts of civilized life. That Britain was at this time a valuable province of the Roman empire is evident from many passages of ancient writers. The produce of the mines was an object of great importance; considerable sums were annually received from taxes; and British youths rendered important services in the Roman armies. When Britain re-appears in the annals of history she was becoming the scene of a new enterprise. In A.D. 288, Scandinavian and Saxon pirates began to ravage her coasts. At this time Diocletian and Maximinian swayed the Roman empire, and to repress these marauders, the emperors appointed Carausius, a Menapian, to the command of a strong fleet, the head-quarters of which was in the British Channel. Carausius defeated the pirates of the Baltic, but he was soon accused of collusion with the enemy, and the emperors sent orders from Rome to put him to death. On discovering this, Carausius fled with his fleet to Britain, where the legions rallied round his victorious standard, and bestowed upon him the imperial diadem. The joint emperors of Rome attempted to reduce him to their allegiance, but they were defeated, and were compelled to purchase peace by conceding to him the government of Britain, of Boulogne, and the adjacent coasts of Gaul, together with the title of emperor. Under the reign of Carausius Britain figured as a great naval power. He built ships of war, manned them in part with Scandinavian and Saxon pirates, and remaining absolute master of the Channel, his fleets swept the seas from the mouths of the Rhine to the Straits of Gibraltar. But his reign was brief. He was murderered at Eboracum, or York, in the year 297, by Allectus, a Briton, who succeeded to his insular empire. Allectus reigned about three years, when he was defeated and slain by an officer of Constantius Chlorus, who had succeeded to the Roman empire on the resignation of Diocletian and Maximinian. Constantius Chlorus died in A.D. 306, at Eboracum, and his son Constantine, afterwards called the Great, began his reign at that place. Constantine waged a doubtful war north of the wall of Severus, after which he left the island, taking with him a great number of British youths as recruits for his army. From this time to the death of Constantine, in 337, Britain seems again to have enjoyed tranquillity. The Roman empire was now fast decaying. The removal of its capital from Rome to Constantinople had its effects on the remote provinces of Britain. Under the immediate successors of Constantine, while the Frank and Saxon pirates ravaged the southern coasts, the Picts, Scots, and Attacots, begun to harass the northern provinces, and to defy the wall of stone erected by Severus. In the year 367, it is said, that the Picts and Scots pillaged Augusta, or the city of London, and carried off its inhabitants as slaves. They were in possession of that city when Theodosius arrived as governor of Britain, and he compelled them to retreat and to relinquish the prisoners and booty they had captured.. Theodosius remained in Britain two years, and did much towards restoring it to a state of prosperity. At this period, indeed, agriculture was so flourishing that Britain supplied the continent with large quantities of corn. Its mines of lead and tin were, also, worked to a great extent, and even its chalk was exported. In 382, by one of the changes which were now becoming frequent, Maximus, the governor of Britain, assumed the title of emperor. He might have retained the island, but his ambition induced him to seek the possession of all that portion of the Western Empire which remained to Gratian. He withdrew nearly all his troops, and so many of the Britons followed him to Gaul that the island was left almost defenceless. Maximus became by the defeat and death of Gratian the undisputed master of Britain, Gaul, Spain, and Italy. He established the seat of his government at Treves; but Theodosius, called the Great, the emperor of the East, marched against him; and after being defeated in two great battles, Maximus retired to Aquilea, on the confines of Italy and Illyria, where he was betrayed to the conqueror, who ordered him to be put to death, A.D. 388. During the absence of Maximus, the Picts and Scots renewed their depredations in Britain, but Chrysantus, the lieutenant of Theodosius, repulsed them. In the reign of Honorius they, with the Saxons, again renewed their ravages, and it was in vain that Stilicho, the guardian of the boy-emperor, sought to restrain them. The Roman power was now, in deed, almost broken, and the Britons knowing this, permitted the soldiery to elect one Marcus emperor of Britain. But Marcus was soon dethroned and put to death by the same soldiery who had exalted him, as was also one Gratian, whom they had set up in his stead. Their third choice fell on Constantine, who, like Maximus, aspired to the empire of the West, and, like Maximus, fell in the attempt to secure it, A. D. 411. After the death of Constantine, Honorius twice sent over troops for the recovery and protection of Britain, but danger at home obliged him to recall them, and about the year 420, nearly five centuries after Cæsar's first invasion, the Roman emperors abandoned the island. A mutual friendship subsisted some time after between the Britons and Romans, and the emperor Honorius, in a letter addressed to the states of Britain, seemed formally to release them from their allegiance, and to acknowledge the national independence. The domination of the Romans over the Britons lasted for about four hundred years. After the period of transition and conflict was over, their rule was on the whole a happy one for Britain. Under it civilization rapidly gained ground. Order and magnificence, arts and literature, took the place of the imperfect government, the internal wars, the ignorance, the mud hovels, the towns in the woods, and the generally rude accommodations of the Britons. The country assumed a new aspect; it looked as if a new and brighter day dawned upon it. Cultivation was improved and extended, forests were swept away, roads were formed, and towns arose which exhibited piles of regular, stately, and decorated architecture. The Roman stations and towns exceeded three hundred; and many of these may yet be traced with some degree of precision. Roman foundations and remains still abound; and coins, pottery, urns with the ashes of the dead, and various instruments, are frequently discovered, on the soil being turned up below the common depth of cultivation. The state of Britain under the Romans is forcibly depicted by the orator Eumenius in a panegyric on Constantine the Great. “Oh, fortunate Britannia," he exclaims, "thee hath nature deservedly enriched with the choicest blessings of heaven and earth. Thou neither feelest the excessive colds of winter, nor the scorching heats of summer. Thy harvests reward thy labours with so great an increase, as to supply thy tables with bread, and thy cellars with liquor. Thy woods have no sa vage beasts ; and there are no serpents there to harm the traveller. Innumerable are thy herds of cattle, and thy flocks of sheep, which feed thee plentifully, and clothe thee richly. As to the comforts of life, the days are long, and no night passes without some glimpses of light." There is reason to believe that, at least, throughout the whole of the second and third centuries of the Roman dominion in Britain, it was as flourishing and as happy a province as any other in the empire. As great a change took place under the Roman domination in the spiritual as in the moral condition of Britain. It is a matter of uncertainty who first disseminated Christianity in the British isles. Eusebius asserts that it was some of the apostles, which is confirmed by Theodoret, who, after having mentioned Spain, says that St. Paul brought salvation to the isles which lie in the ocean. Clement, who wrote before the end of the first century, and who was a fellow-labourer with the great apostle of the Gentiles, says, that being a preacher both in the east and west, he taught righteousness to the whole world, and went to the utmost bounds of the west. This testimony in favour of St. Paul's visiting Britain is far stronger than the traditional testimony concerning St. Peter, St. James, Simon Zelotes, Philip, and Joseph of Arimathea; but whether Christianity was introduced into the island by any of these holy men; or whether, after the persecution and death of Stephen, by some of the Syrian Christians, who were scattered abroad; or by the devout soldiers of the same nation, whom a famine had driven into the armies of Claudius; or by some of the Jewish converts, dispersed over the world, when Claudius "commanded all Jews to depart from Rome,' cannot be clearly ascertained. It must suffice to know that the island was early blessed by the dissemination of Christianity, and that before the end of the second century the Britons had generally received the gospel. "The Julian spear, A way first opened, and with Roman chains They came-they spread; the weak, the suffering hear, WORDSWORTH. So well grounded in the Christian faith were the early Britons, that, in the third century, when "Diocletian's fiery sword" worked "busy as the lightning," many were found |