OF DEVONSHIRE. 109 



Druids, would we accredit some fragments of their 

 own, were no mean proficients in science, as well as 

 in morals and literature : from the more sensible 

 wnters of Greece and Rome, we gather, that their 

 knowledge was imposture, and their manners rude. 

 The people, it is ever the case, were in a still lower 

 degree of civilization than their teachers ; and to a 

 religion and habits ill-calculated to promote their 

 happiness, other causes were superadded to impair 

 and destroy it. The inland country was divided into 

 petty principalities, without natural or artificial 

 means of defence, thus offering a wide field to rapine 

 and ambition : the sea-coast lay in the possession of 

 powerful strangers, men who had been entertained 

 as exiles, and fostered until they became enemies. 

 The warfare of the Britons was simple, for they 

 fought naked, defended by a wicker shield only ; 

 their chariots, with scythes projecting from the 

 wheels, were more calculated to astonish the rude, 

 than to secure a victory over disciplined troops, such 

 as fifty-five years before the Christian era, they were 

 called to encounter in Caesar,"^ and his legionaries. 

 Two expeditions made by this victorious leader, 

 tended to discover, rather than subjugate the south- 

 ern parts of Britain :f he again withdrew his forces, 

 securing to tlie republic the glory of its last empty 

 conquest, and leaving to the islanders their ancient 

 laws and customs, and, with the exception of a 

 tribute, more readily promised than it was paid, the 

 freedom of their native wilds. For nearly a century 

 from this period, Rome and her nominal subjects 

 maintained a friendly intercourse, until it suffered 

 interruption in the reign of Claudius, when the 

 southern coast, with all the adjacent inland country, 



* Seutonius intimates that he came over to enrich himself 

 from the pearl fisheries on the coast: but the thirst of ambition 

 is insatiable as that of gain. 



f Pliny, IV., 16., says — ^'the name of the island was Albion, 

 the whole set of islands being called Britannic.'' 



