20 On the History of Chippenham. 
Bradenstoke,) Calne and Bowood, Chippenham and Pewsham, 
Blackmore, Selwood, Groveley, Gillingham, Cranbourn Chase, and 
the New Forest. At no great distance we still have Savernake 
and Marlborough Forest, probably a fair sample of what the whole 
must have been. It is quite certain that no county in England 
has been at all times more famous for field sports than this, from 
the days of King Arthur, to those of His Grace the Duke of Beaufort. 
If venison is good living, these old Wiltshire Britons lived well. 
It is scarcely possible to open a barrow upon the Downs, without 
finding by the side of the skeleton the heads of hunting spears, or 
bones and horns of deer; so that it would almost seem that they 
not only lived upon venison, but sometimes died of it. Thriving 
on such fare very happily in their own way, they were interrupted, 
B.c. 65, by the lash of the first scourge, viz. :— 
Tue Romans. 
There is no mention of Chippenham in the Commentaries of 
Julius Cesar, for several good reasons, of which two will suffice. 
First; because, in his time, there was probably no such place, 
certainly no such name: and next, even if there was such a place, 
Cesar did not come into Wiltshire to look at it. It may be added, 
that even if he had come so far and had described it, I do not 
know that we should be bound to put implicit faith in his deserip- 
tion. For though Cesar was undoubtedly a very great soldier, he 
was also occasionally given to story telling. He has been 
convicted of this by (amongst others), a Wiltshire clergyman, 
of this very neighbourhood, the late Rev. Henry Barry, Rector 
of Draycote, in a little treatise called ‘‘ Caesar and the Britons.” 
Mr. Barry maintains, ingeniously and with much learning, that 
the Britons could not have been the absolute savages described 
by Cesar; and though, perhaps, Mr. Barry may have ridden 
his own hobby a little too far into the opposite extreme, and 
would appear to attribute to them a higher degree of civilization 
than they are likely to have possessed; still he points out great 
misrepresentations in Ceesar’s narrative. 
Cesar was an invader, but not a conqueror. He was forced 
to retire; and as soon as the Britons had driven him out, they 
