Julius Cæsar about fifty-five years before the Christian era passed over from Gaul, and made a descent on Britian. The Britons not discouraged by the fame of his conquests, and the subjugation of their brethren the Gauls, made a brave resistance; and though compelled to give way to the disciplined legions of Rome, they obtained the praise due to their valour and courage from their enemies. The ambition of Cæsar was now directed against his own country; and having received hostages from the Britons. he departed, and they escaped the yoke prepared for them for near a century.

Cæsar, who amidst the toils of war and the various duties which his high rank imposed upon him, still found leisure for the cultivation of polite literature; and to his elegant Commentaries we are indebted for the best information respecting the laws, customs and manners of the Britons. From these we learn, that the island of Britain was peopled from the Continent, and that our ancestors spake the same language, worshipped the same idols, and were governed by the same laws as the inhabitants of Gaul.

The kingdom was divided into a number of independent and separate states, one of the most considerable of which was that of the Brigantes, who inhabited this part of the country. Each state acknowledged one chief or king; but this chief or king was not absolute. He could neither make laws, nor engage in any matters of importance, without the advice and consent of the equites, or lead

tin came Cassiterides, and confesses he knew not where it lay. O is the Chaldee name for tin, and it is probable it was sq called by the Phenicians; as the Greeks cannot be supposed to have given a name to an island they did not know.

ing men, and the druids, or priests *. There appears only to have existed among the Britons these two orders, for the common people were in a state of vassalaget. Each of these equites enjoyed a certain district of land, where he resided with his retainers around him, who attended him in war, and in peace cultivated his ground, and supplied his table with its produce. These districts must have differed in extent, some being larger than others; and it has been supposed these divisions of land, were the foundation of our present parishes.

The houses of the Britons were of a round form, and covered with a convex roof; and houses of this form continued in the highlands of Scotland, where the remains of the old Britons still reside, within a few centuries. They were made by driving stakes into the earth, and watling them with osiers; and the roof was covered with branches of trees, and thatched. They had much the appearance of tents, and were so called by Dion and Zonaras §.

At the arrival of the Romans, the population of Britain was considerable. Bede inform us, there were twenty-eight cities, besides other fortified places. Tacitus expressly asserts, that the Brigantes were the most numerous, and formed the largest kingdom of any within the whole island. This people whose capital was called Isurium, (now Aldborough, near Boroughbridge,) were justly ranked among the most warlike of the Britons.

* WHITAKER, Hist. Man, Vol. 1. p. 6.

+ CÆSAR, pene servorum loco.

BEETIUS, Scot. Reg. Descrip. Fo. 4. 1575, Paris.

TAC. Agr. c. 17. Brigantos-civitas numerossissima totius provinciæ.

They had either peopled, or acquired by conquest the whole of that territory now divided into the counties of Durham, York, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancaster. In the Itineraries of Antonine and Richard, there are twenty-eight towns mentioned, whose names prove their British origin, subject to the Brigantes. According to Ninius, Danum, or Doncaster was then a town of impor tance *.

The towns or cities of the Britons were generally built in valleys, upon the margin of a stream or river, for the convenience of water and security from winds, They were not scenes of general and constant residence, but may be considered rather as places of refuge amid the dangers of war, where they might occasionally lodge their wives, children and cattle, and the weaker resist the stronger, till succours could arrive. Surrounded by impervious woods and secured by a rampart and fosse, they, were sufficiently strong to resist the ordinary attacks of their enemies.

The Britons had a peculiar method of giving alarm and collecting their forces, on the invasion of an enemy. They raised a cry which was caught up, and transmitted from mouth to mouth through all the region, and as the notice passed along the warriors snatched their arms, and hurried away to the rendezvous. When Cæsar first invaded Britain the alarm was spread in this manner, in sixteen or seventeen hours, one hundred and sixty miles in a direct line † The partial remains of this custom

*Usserii Prim. Eccl. Brit.

+ Ubi major atque illustrior incidit res, clamore per agros, regionesque, significant; hunc alii deinceps excipiunt, et proximis tradunt: ut tunc accidit: nam quæ oriente sole Genabi gesta

still exist among us in the hue and cry which is raised after a thief who would escape justice.

After the invasion of Julius Cæsar, a more general intercourse was established between Britain and the continent, and Britain was considered as a field where the generals of Rome might obtain fame, and the empire receive an addition to its territory and wealth. At length they obtained a settlement in the country; and in the progress of their conquests reached the Brigantes; and, after numerous and hard-fought battles, reduced them under subjection. Unaccustomed to a tame submission our brave countrymen, soon raised the standard of revolt, and once more committed their cause to the decision of arms.

Though possessed of equal valour and courage with their enemies, the Britons were deficient in that steady discipline and order which they had acquired, and were at last compelled to submit to the Roman eagle. This revolt of the Brigantes and the triumph of the Romans over them, happened in the seventeenth consulate of Domitian, and about the eighteenth of the christian era. The fact is establised by a leaden trophy dug up near Ripon, about the middle of the last century *.

Having conquered this part of Britain, they adopted the most prudent methods to keep the people in subjection; to check the spirit of revolt and to render their conquest useful and lasting. As they could not confide in Britons, they fixed

essent, ante primam confectam vigiliam in finibus Arvernorum audita sunt; quod spatium est millium passuum circiter 160. CÆSAR. Com. p. 135.

* The inscription of it is, TMP. CAES. DOMITIAN. AVG. VII. COS. BRIG. Phil. Tr. 687.

their camps, on the site of their towns or near to them, and a certain part of a legion was there stationed. The camps of the Romans which are supposed to have given origin to many of our towns and cities, appear rather to indicate some prior settlement of the Britons. In many instances this is certain, and in others the reason of the thing establishes it.

Within two miles of this place the vestiges of a Roman camp or station remained till within a late period, and the Itineraries furnish us with the name Lagecium or Legeolium, now called Castleford. In the Bean-field, or Castle-garth, numbers of Roman coins have been dug up; a sure indication that the Romans once dwelt there. From this circumstance, and if the above remark be just, we may infer that previous to their arrival, the banks of the Aire and Calder were inhabited; the native Britons there depastured their cattle, while the surrounding woods supplied them with game for the chase, and with food for their tables. Nor is it improbable that the Britons fed their flocks and their herds in the valley where the old town of Pontefract stood.

The Romans stationed in this neighbourhood did not only check the ardent and restless spirit of the natives, but gradually introduced among them their own arts, and the comforts of civilization; and thus rendered their conquest equally beneficial to themselves and the vanquished Britons. The Roman soldiers were as much accustomed to the use of the plough as the shield, and were as industrious in peace as they were brave in war. When they had fixed their camps they availed themselves of the advantages the surrounding country presented, in