Law.] 134 [April 6, 
tury before. And, above all, from his describing as then being built, the 
two great northern walls of defense, while we know that one of them had 
been built by Hadrian nearly three hundred years, and that the other, the 
wall of Severus, nearly two hundred years. These facts, in my opinion, 
are crucial tests. It is possible, perhaps, for a contemporary to be mis- 
taken as to the civil wars, but how could it be possible to make such a 
mistake about a fact which was so patent as the building of those great 
walls? 
As well could a person who pretended to live in A. D. 1888 in Phila- 
delphia, assert that the great city hall was erected by William Penn. 
Such a statement would stamp at once its author, whatever his preten- 
sions might be, as not a contemporary. 
Besides this many of the facts which we know from the Roman rec- 
ords and from the remains of the burials and other records, are incon- 
sistent with the common story of the Saxon Conquest. 
From the Notitia Imperii, which was a survey of the Roman Empire 
taken in the end of the fourth century, we learn that the whole of the 
east coast was already called the Litus Saxonicum, the Saxon Shore ; and 
was governed by a special Count, thus probably indicating that a large 
population of that race was already there settled. 
From the remains disinterred from the tombs it appears that the Saxons 
and Britons were frequently buried side by side, each corpse in the re- 
spective national manner. 
Another remarkable fact also appears from the inspection of these 
tombs, that scarcely any appearance of Christian burial has been found. 
From this it would seem that most of the British population still remained 
Pagan ; a fact which will perhaps explain why the Saxons did not, like 
the Franks, the Goths, the Allemanni, adopt Christianity. 
The information furnished by the Welsh chroniclers seems always to 
have been particularly unreliable. They are full of inventions which are 
plainly the work of their own fancies. In Nennius, who is a Welsh 
writer on the history of Britain, and who cannot be later than the com- 
mencement of the tenth century at the farthest, the legend of King Brute 
and his Trojans already begins. This was finally developed in Geoffrey 
of Monmouth, a Welsh Bishop about 1150 A. D., who starting from King 
Brute develops a long line of Kings until the time of Julius Cesar. He gives 
their names, the incidents of their reigns, their personal peculiarities and 
their speeches, with a detail and a certainty almost amazing. Frequently 
these contradict the well-known facts related in the Roman historians. 
The Roman history, though well known.at the time from the manuals like 
Orosius and others which were extensively copied and read in the middle 
ages, does not seem to inspire him with any doubt. It has always struck 
me as a most singular historical problem why such fables and inventions 
could have been so readily accepted. They were given place in almost all 
the histories of England which were written until the time of the Renais- 
sance, and were apparently accepted as completely credible, and indeed 
almost to the commencement of the seventeenth century. 
