461 
of groat works is due, perhaps, more to the incoming of fresh tribes, 
than to the actual improvements made by those already in the 
country. The numerous earthworks mark the sanguinary battles 
tliat attended these incomings. And as Isaac Taylor has so clearly 
pointed out, each tribe has left indications of its settlements in the 
names of places— the Celt more especially in the names of physical 
ea ures, of liver and hill; the Roman in military statioms, and in 
mam roads or “streets;” tlie Saxon and the Dane in villages. 
llio Romans embanked rivers and drained marshes; they made 
sea-walls and taught agriculture; but .Mr. J. R. Green has remarked 
lat even at the close of tlie Roman rule, our land remained “ a 
wild and half-reclaimed country, the bulk of whose surface was 
occupied by forest and waste.”* He mentions, however, that “ if 
tlie towns were thoroughly Romanized, it seems doubtful, from tlio 
lew facts that remain to us, whether Roman civilization had made 
much impression on the bulk of the provincials,” and that “over 
arge tracts of country the rural Britons seem to have remained apart 
from their conquerors.” Hence arose, as I have read elsewhere, 
10 term 1 agan, from Pagcnms, a villager, because idolatry lingered 
longest in the country villages, Christianity spreading gradually 
lom the towns;— and also the term Heathen, applied to those who 
(like myself!) are dwellers on the heath.f Whether or not there 
were any Christian Churches in this country during Romano- 
iu'itish times IS uncertain:: we have no earlier building than dates 
roiii Saxon times. To the Anglo-Saxon we are chiefly indebted 
or our present county divisions and parishes. And Norfolk 
probably from its proximity to the Continent, and the facilities 
It offered for cultivation, gave more easy access to maraudincr 
nbes; to which causes it may owe the fact of its numerous 
settlements, ultimately formed into seven hundred and fifty-six 
parishes, which outnumber those of any other English county, 
i Ins, too, has so much influenced our scenery, that we cannot travel 
lar witliout seeing the tower of some village church. 
* ‘ The .Alaking of England,’ pp. S, 12, 13. 
f Note on p. S4 of Mr. W. P. Smith’s edition of the 
Sir Thomas Browne (1874). 
‘ Religio Medici ’ of 
+ It is asserted that Caraolaciis brought over Christianity a.d. 5S or 59 . 
