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not lightly to be discarded, especiaUy when ratified by several 

 concomitant circumstances, smaU but significant and undesigned 

 coincidences bearing their witness to weU-nigh lost history. 

 These discoveries do not stand alone. We are not to look at 

 them as mere single specimens, however beautiful or however 

 curious, but we are to look at them as leaves or pages recovered 

 of the past history of our country, out of which, by patience and 

 perseverance, we may make up a missing chapter ; and we shall, 

 I trust, be as thoroughly rewarded as though we had found the 

 long-lost books of the historian Livy. 



It is weU known that in the second invasion of this island by 

 the Emperor Claudius, the Romans, after a rapid march across 

 the country, advanced with comparatively little opposition on 

 the part of the Britons as far as the county of Gloucester, then 

 inhabited by a people by some historians caUed the Boduni, by 

 others called the Dobuni, according as might be the auricular 

 perception of the pronunciation of their name by those who 

 recorded it. History also tells us that some of the Bntish 

 princes were favourable, rather than otherwise, to the Eomans, 

 and others were soon conquered into obedience. History, such 

 as we have it, relates that Arviragus, King of this country, a 

 Kin- whose name is recorded by Juvenal, made terms with the 

 Emperor, and was permitted to retain possession of Hs kingdom; 

 that this King, having reigned honourably forty-four years, and 

 having during that time visited Eome, returned to his kingdom, 

 and was eventuaUy buried at Gloucester. At tHs time Yespasian 

 father of Titus, the conqueror of Jerusalem, was Lieutenant of 

 the Emperor in Britain, and to him British historians attribute 

 the foundation of the town of Cirencester, or rather its conversion 

 from a British settlement, called Caer Corin, then the capital of 

 the Dobuni, into a Roman fortress, with the Romanised Bntish 

 name of Corinium. Discoveries in that town give reason to 

 believe that there is every probability of the truth of the tradition. 

 Its Roman occupation, its Roman walls, are unquestionable; 

 and why should not Vespasian, whom Roman history teUs us 

 was in Britain at that period, have transformed it from a British 

 settlement into a Roman town? But to return to Arviragus. 



