OF NORTHUMBERLAND--OF EAST ANGLIA--OF MERCIA--OF ESSEX--OF SUSSEX--OF
WESSEX



[MN The Britons.]
The curiosity, entertained by all civilized nations, of inquiring into
the exploits and adventures of their ancestors, commonly excites a
regret that the history of remote ages should always be so much
involved in obscurity, uncertainty, and contradiction. Ingenious men,
possessed of leisure, are apt to push their researches beyond the
period in which literary monuments are framed or preserved; without
reflecting that the history of past events is immediately lost or
disfigured when intrusted to memory or oral tradition; and that the
adventures of barbarous nations, even if they were recorded, could
afford little or no entertainment to men born in a more cultivated
age. The convulsions of a civilized state usually compose the most
instructive and most interesting part of its history; but the sudden,
violent, and unprepared revolutions incident to barbarians are so much
guided by caprice, and terminate so often in cruelty, that they
disgust us by the uniformity of their appearance; and it is rather
fortunate for letters that they are buried in silence and oblivion.
The only certain means by which nations can indulge their curiosity in
researches concerning their remote origin, is to consider the
language, manners, and customs of their ancestors, and to compare them
with those of the neighbouring nations. The fables which are commonly
employed to supply the place of true history ought entirely to be
disregarded; or if any exception be admitted to this general rule, it
can only be in favour of the ancient Grecian fictions, which are so
celebrated and so agreeable, that they will ever be the objects of the