132 Hadrians Wall. [Sess. 



artistic merit is concerned, between what one sees in Italy and 

 what one sees on the line of the wall. 



No display of luxury or of art is here — no remains of 

 temples or of villas, splendid even in their ruins, in the pro- 

 digality of beautiful mosaics, of gorgeous colouring, or of 

 architectural grandeur, speaking of a life of voluptuous ease 

 under sunny skies. 



It is true that in Southern England, during the later period 

 of the Eoman occupation, there was luxury enough, and all 

 those accompaniments of civilisation with which the Eoman 

 was wont to surround himself, and thus to mitigate the rigour 

 of his banishment from his native land; but such refinement 

 did not accompany him to the north, and the relation between 

 life at Eome and life on the Eoman Wall can best be appreci- 

 ated by comparing the life and luxury of modern London with 

 the conditions of service among our troops on the north-west 

 frontier of India. 



The craze for historical pageants which has lately affected 

 the country like an epidemic of measles has, among other 

 things, accentuated for us the part the Eomans played in our 

 early history ; for no pageant in any part of the island seems 

 to be complete unless some peaceful citizen is found masquer- 

 ading in the Eoman dress and arms. Yet even this recognition, 

 I fear, leaves us largely ignorant of the real state of the case. 

 Compare our occupation of India, which in many respects is a 

 peculiarly apposite one. It is about one hundred and fifty 

 years since the battle of Plassy gave us our Indian Empire, 

 and yet we look on our presence there as old. We consider 

 that our manners, our speech, our civilisation, are stamped 

 indelibly upon that vast country. 



Leaving out of account the brief but portentous raids of 

 Julius Caesar in 55 and 54 B.C., and counting from the year 

 42 a.d., when the Emperor Claudius began the serious con- 

 quest of Britain, the Eomans were for four hundred years 

 masters of the island. Think of the changes that have taken 

 place in this Scotland of ours in any other period of four 

 hundred years — say, since James IV. was reigning at Holyrood 

 before the dark tragedy of Flodden — and the changes wrought 

 by the four hundred years of Eoman rule were no less striking; 

 and under that rule the southern part of Britain, at least, 



