the English conquest, when the invaders were still confined, for the
most part, to the south-eastern region. Objections have been raised to
the authenticity of his work, a small rhetorical Latin pamphlet,
entitled, "The History of the Britons;" but these objections have,
perhaps, been set at rest for many minds by Dr. Guest and Mr. Green.
Nevertheless, what little Gildas has to tell us is of slight historical
importance. His book is a disappointing Jeremiad, couched in the florid
and inflated Latin rhetoric so common during the decadence of the Roman
empire, intermingled with a strong flavour of hyperbolical Celtic
imagination; and it teaches us practically nothing as to the state of
the conquered districts. It is wholly occupied with fierce diatribes
against the Saxons, and complaints as to the weakness, wickedness, and
apathy of the British chieftains. It says little that can throw any
light on the question as to whether the Welsh were largely spared,
though it abounds with wild and vague declamation about the
extermination of the natives. Even Gildas, however, mentions that some
of his countrymen, "constrained by famine, came and yielded themselves
up to their enemies as slaves for ever;" while others, "committing the
safeguard of their lives to mountains, crags, thick forests, and rocky
isles, though with trembling hearts, remained in their fatherland."
These passages certainly suggest that a Welsh remnant survived in two
ways within the English pale, first as slaves, and secondly as isolated
outlaws.

Bæda stands on a very different footing. His authenticity is undoubted;
his language is simple and straightforward. He was born in or about the
year 672, only two hundred years after the landing of the first English
colonists in Thanet. Scarcely more than a century separated him from the
days of Ida. The constant lingering warfare with the Welsh on the
western frontier was still for him a living fact. The Celt still held