province of Brittany. When the subjugation of Gaul was completed, Cæsar, revolving, perhaps, his plans. against the freedom of the republic, looked round and beheld on one side the dark and impenetrable forests of Germany, and on the other what appeared the more accessible and easy conquest of the almost unknown land of the Britons. He looked to the white cliffs of these shores, perhaps with a revengeful eye against the confederates of his Gallic enemy-perhaps impelled to continued war by the fire of that lust of conquest, which burned in the heart of Roman soldiers for eight centuries and more-burned until it was quenched, not only by exhaustion, but by the fulfilment of providential purposes. Whatever was the impulse-whether these, or the improbable and meaner one, which has been imputed to Cæsar by one of his own countrymen, the coveting of British pearls-the invasion of Britain added nothing to Roman power or pride.* The eagles were fluttered in their flight; and, when thanks were given at Rome to the gods, it may well be questioned, as Milton intimates in his History of England, whether it was for a conquest or an escape—whether it was for an exploit done or for a discovery made. At the end of the campaigns, the conqueror of Britain was not master of one foot of British ground; not a Roman colonist was left in the land; and Julius Cæsar, at his return to Rome, dedicated to the goddess Venus a corslet of these British pearls-a gift, which

*Tacitus, Vit. Agricolæ cap. xii. Cicero ad Att. iv. 16. Ad Fam. vii. 7. Lingard, ch. i. The authority alluded to in the text was, doubtless, Suetonius, C. Julius Cæsar s. 47:-"Britanniam petîsse, spe margaritarum, quarum amplitudinem conferentem, interdum suâ manû exegisse pondus." W. B. R.

was, perhaps, the more precious from the fact, that the Romans went home with no inclination to renew the search for that kind of jewels.

It is certain that, in the invasion of Britain, Cæsar encountered a foe who caused a dismay, from which even the discipline of his veteran legions with difficulty rallied; and I must confess that, while we applaud the heroism of the standard-bearer of the tenth legion, I have a deeper sympathy with the rude barbarians who gathered by thousands to defend their native shores. If it was true martial virtue for the Roman to leap into the waves and bid his hesitating fellow-soldiers 'follow him, there was a nobler spirit in those undaunted Britons, who rushed into the sea to strike the invader before his foot polluted their soil.

It is not my intention to dwell upon such familiar passages in history as the descent of Julius Cæsar on the British shore; but I could hardly say less in asking your attention to the manner in which the authentic history of Britain has its beginning, with that event, about fifty years before the birth of our Saviour. It is the practice of the later writers of English history to make no attempt to present any narrative of the earlier period, which is abandoned as purely legendary or hopelessly involved in fable or confused tradition. It should be understood, however, that, in doing so, they pursue a course very different from that of the early historians of England, who had no fear in looking into a very remote antiquity, and no difficulty in persuading themselves that they saw a great deal there. They dealt with their eras of a thousand years with a magnificent assurance, and marshalled kings and dynasties of kings in complete chronology and

exact succession. They carried their elaborate genealogy so far beyond the Olympiads, that, by the side of it, Greek and Roman history seems a thing of yesterday. British antiquity is made to run parallel with Egypt's ancient lore, and with the prophets, and kings, and judges of Israel. It stops at the Deluge, and is every thing but antediluvian.

This confident chronology of the chroniclers startles us with its boldness and its minute accuracy; and, indeed, it seems fantastic, if not ludicrous, when we are gravely told of one British king flourishing in the time of Saul, and another being contemporary with Solomon; and that it was in the period of the prophet Isaiah that King Lear was ruler in the land. Yet this mythical chronology appears to have been for so long a time part of the popular literature of England, and to have taken such hold on the mind, that one of the commentators on Shakspeare thinks it worth while to remark, that the name of Nero is introduced in King Lear about three hundred years before he was born; and another commentator on the same passage, where Edgar says that "Nero was an angler in the lake of darkness," goes still more seriously to work in the way of correction, by remarking that "this is one of Shakspeare's most remarkable anachronisms; for that King Lear succeeded his father Bladud in the year of the world 3105, and Nero, in the year 4017, was sixteen years old when he married Octavia, Cæsar's daughter."* Surely, the fancies and fables of the

*Grote's History of Greece, vol. i. 642, Eng. ed.; 485, Am. ed. This whole subject is discussed by Mr. Grote, and thence the hints in the lecture were obviously taken. Mr. Grote's note is this: -"Dr.

romancers and chroniclers had as much of wisdom in them as there is in such commentary. Who, as he gives his heart up to the study of this grand tragedy, ever heeds or thinks of the chronology? In the course of this lecture I will endeavour to show, that the poetic truth is preserved, so far as the drama stands in relation to an age and a land of paganism; but, besides that, it mattered not in what particular century the story was cast, or whether it corresponded with the history of other countries. From the legends of Britain, Shakspeare culled the story as one which he felt the power of his imagination could make as universal, and as perpetual, as the human heart-that he could create a sympathy with' it, which, growing out of the relation of father and child, must endure as long as the earth is peopled. What need the poet care for the violation of a fabulous chronology, when he was giving poetic reality to the sublime passion of Lear, and when, in the character of Cordelia, he was creating such a personification of all that is graceful and dutiful in womanly nature-a being, the very embodiment of filial piety, whom every parent, the wide world over, may bless, and every daughter reverence?

I have spoken of the authentic history of Britain be

Zachary Grey has the following observations in his 'Notes on Shakspeare,' (London, 1754, vol. i. p. 112.) In commenting on the passage in King Lear

'Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness,'

he says: "This is one of Shakspeare's most remarkable anachronisms. King Lear succeeded his father Bladud A. M. 3105; and Nero, A. M. 4017, was sixteen years old when he married Octavia, Cæsar's daughter."" W. B. R.

ginning only when the inhabitants of that country came in contact, or rather collision, with the Romans; and this may lead us to the consideration, that all the authentic history of the ancient world-its sacred and profane history—is almost entirely limited to the story of those races of men, who dwelt on the borders of the Mediterranean. The region of that great inland sea is the domain of ancient history. As you pass away from the sound of its waves, the voice of history dies away with it; and the countless generations, that lived and died at a distance from the shores of the midland sea, have hardly more place in our thoughts than if they had been the inhabitants of another planet. We read the history of the Israelites and of Egypt, the history of the Greeks and the history of the Romans, and this we call ancient history; and then we think we have read the history of all the ancient world: yet it is the story of only those who occupied a small belt of the earth's surface. The light of history seems to fade unless it is reflected from the glancing waters of the bright Mediterranean; and we scarce recognise the existence of mankind dwelling in the vast spaces of the North, and the East, and the South. The Celt and the Cambrian, the Briton and the German, are known only when Rome is waging war with them or is dismayed at their approach. We must come to the borders of the Adriatic and the Ægean shores, or to where the Nile pours its turbid current to the sea, to find the history of the Old World; for, elsewhere, it is either a desert vacancy of historical knowledge, or else what was once known has passed into dark oblivion. The tribes that moved on many a Northern plain have kept no kindred with the nations of history, and many