FROM THE COMMENTARIES OF CESAR. 153 
gree of affinity between most known alphabets 
in existence and the first system of which we 
have account. The Greeks derived their alpha- 
bet from the east, the Romans from the Greeks, 
and all modern Europe from the Romans. 
When Cesar began his career of conquest, the 
Gauls were rude and ignorant barbarians. Be- 
fore the end of the reign of Augustus, they had 
made considerable progress in knowledge and 
civilization. Itis not easy to conceive how, 
previously to the former period, a small colony 
of Greeks, situated in a remote corner of the 
country, could have communicated a knowledge 
of the Greek language to the nations of Gaul, 
much less of Britain, amidst their continual tu- 
mults, dissensions and wars: with habits too, 
unused to literary pursuits, and in circumstan- 
ces where neither the value of literary attain- 
ments could be appreciated, nor proficiency in 
them be practicable. In the time of Strabo, it 
is true, their condition was much improved. 
But it is inadmissible to reason from facts ex- 
isting in the the reign of Tiberius, as if they 
belonged to the time of Cesar. 
Several inferences drawn from the extracts 
themselves, render it highly probable, that by 
M 
