river of Germany on the banks of which the best grapes grow to make
the German wine. They began to come, in pirate ships, to the sea-
coast of Gaul and Britain, and to plunder them. They were repulsed
by CARAUSIUS, a native either of Belgium or of Britain, who was
appointed by the Romans to the command, and under whom the Britons
first began to fight upon the sea. But, after this time, they
renewed their ravages. A few years more, and the Scots (which was
then the name for the people of Ireland), and the Picts, a northern
people, began to make frequent plundering incursions into the South
of Britain. All these attacks were repeated, at intervals, during
two hundred years, and through a long succession of Roman Emperors
and chiefs; during all which length of time, the Britons rose
against the Romans, over and over again. At last, in the days of
the Roman HONORIUS, when the Roman power all over the world was
fast declining, and when Rome wanted all her soldiers at home, the
Romans abandoned all hope of conquering Britain, and went away.
And still, at last, as at first, the Britons rose against them, in
their old brave manner; for, a very little while before, they had
turned away the Roman magistrates, and declared themselves an
independent people.

Five hundred years had passed, since Julius Caesar's first invasion
of the Island, when the Romans departed from it for ever. In the
course of that time, although they had been the cause of terrible
fighting and bloodshed, they had done much to improve the condition
of the Britons. They had made great military roads; they had built
forts; they had taught them how to dress, and arm themselves, much
better than they had ever known how to do before; they had refined
the whole British way of living. AGRICOLA had built a great wall
of earth, more than seventy miles long, extending from Newcastle to