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ANCIENT SLAVERY IN ENGLAND.

(For the _Mirror_.)

"O Freedom! first delight of human kind."

DRYDEN.


Sharon Turner, in his interesting "History of the Anglo-Saxons," says,
"It was then (during the reign of Pope Gregory I.) the practice of
Europe to make use of slaves, and to buy and sell them; and this traffic
was carried on, even in the western capital of the Christian Church.
Passing through the market at Rome, the white skins, the flowing locks,
and beautiful countenances of some youths who were standing there for
sale, interested Gregory's sensibility. To his inquiries from what
country they had been brought, the answer was, from Britain, whose
inhabitants were all of that fair complexion. Were they Pagans or
Christians? was his next question: a proof not only of his ignorance of
the state of England, but also, that up to that time it had occupied no
part of his attention; but thus brought as it were to a personal
knowledge of it by these few representatives of its inhabitants, he
exclaimed, on hearing that they were still idolaters, with a deep sigh,
'What a pity that such a beauteous frontispiece should possess a mind so
void of internal grace.' The name of their nation being mentioned to be
Angles, his ear caught the verbal coincidence--the benevolent wish for