natives of the Sandwich Islands. She was subjugated by the Roman
arms; but she received only a faint tincture of Roman arts and
letters. Of the western provinces which obeyed the Caesars, she
was the last that was conquered, and the first that was flung
away. No magnificent remains of Latin porches and aqueducts are
to be found in Britain. No writer of British birth is reckoned
among the masters of Latin poetry and eloquence. It is not
probable that the islanders were at any time generally familiar
with the tongue of their Italian rulers. From the Atlantic to the
vicinity of the Rhine the Latin has, during many centuries, been
predominant. It drove out the Celtic; it was not driven out by
the Teutonic; and it is at this day the basis of the French,
Spanish and Portuguese languages. In our island the Latin appears
never to have superseded the old Gaelic speech, and could not
stand its ground against the German.

The scanty and superficial civilisation which the Britons had
derived from their southern masters was effaced by the calamities
of the fifth century. In the continental kingdoms into which the
Roman empire was then dissolved, the conquerors learned much from
the conquered race. In Britain the conquered race became as
barbarous as the conquerors.

All the chiefs who founded Teutonic dynasties in the continental
provinces of the Roman empire, Alaric, Theodoric, Clovis, Alboin,
were zealous Christians. The followers of Ida and Cerdic, on the
other hand, brought to their settlements in Britain all the
superstitions of the Elbe. While the German princes who reigned
at Paris, Toledo, Arles, and Ravenna listened with reverence to
the instructions of bishops, adored the relics of martyrs, and