A VIEW OF THE COMMENCEMENT AND PROGRESS OF ROMANCE. WHEN the Romans, by the superiority of their military discipline, had subdued all the nations within their reach, they endeavoured to render them more civilized. Were we to give credit to some of their poets and historians, we should imagine that they undertook the first from the pure view of accomplishing the second. Yet no history, sacred or profane, furnishes examples of the inhabitants of one country entering forcibly into the territories of another, from the mere impulse of benevolence. It is therefore probable that the Romans were influenced by the same kind of good-will to the people they conquered, that the Spaniards were to the Mexicans, and the European traders on the coast of Guinea are to the negroes. A late elegant historian informs us, that as a consolation for the loss of liberty, the Romans communicated their arts, sciences, language, and manners, to their new subjects. * That the Romans instructed the Britons in certain arts is undoubted: but it was merely to render them more Of one art, however, the Ro profitable slaves to Rome. * See Dr. Robertson's View of the State of Europe, Sect. 1 VOL. V. A reve and mans took particular care to keep them ignorant; name?ly, the art of war; that art which secured to themselves the government of other nations. Tu regere imperio populos Romane memento The historian above mentioned adds, that the vanquished nations were disarmed by their conquerors, overawed by soldiers kept in pay to restrain them, and given up as a prey to rapacious governors, who plundered them with impunity.' What kind of consolation is this! Even had those wretched people been less exposed than they were, to the rapacity of the Roman prætors sent to govern them-had they been allowed to retain a considerable share of the riches they were taught to acquire; in what an abject situation would they still have been, beholding their masters eternally before their eyes, and being conscious that they held the fruits of their own industry by no surer tenure than the pleasure of those masters? The earliest inhabitants of this island of whom we have any records, who resisted the invasion of Cæsar, and fought in defence of their country under Caractacus and Boadicea, barbarians as they were, appear infinitely more respectable than their civilized posterity, who lived tamely under the Roman yoke. Two Roman legions were sufficient to keep all the accessible parts of this island in subjection for above three hundred years. What an idea does this convey of the superiority which the military discipline of the Romans gave that people over the rest of mankind! Those legions were at last called from Britain, to preserve more valuable conquests: but such is the debasing influence of long-continued subjection on the human mind, that the wretched Britons were unable to preserve the independence which fortune had restored to them. Unable to resist a handful of Caledonians, who rushed from that mountainous country which the Romans had never subdued, the effeminate Britons applied for aid to their ancient masters with abject eloquence. The barbarians,' said they, chase us into the sea, the sea throws us back on the barbarians, and we have only the miserable choice of perishing by the sword or the waves.' Before they were civilized by the Romans, the Britons would perhaps not have described their dilemma in such pathetic terms; but they would assuredly have used more energetic means of extricating themselves. The Romans, however, were at this time só violently attacked by Attila, that they paid little attention to the groans of the Britons; who, finding they had nothing to expect from Rome, applied for assistance from Germany, and received an army of Saxons into their country. It soon occurred to those auxiliaries, that the country they were able to defend, they would be able to conquer. Accordingly, after they had repelled the invaders from the north, they began to seize the possessions of the southern inhabitants; murdering or driving the original proprietors to the Highlands of England; namely, to Wales. In the same manner, when the conquerors extended themselves into Scotland, they appropriated the Lowlands to their own use, and drove the original inhabitants to the Highlands of that country. The inhabitants of Wales and of the Highlands of Scotland are therefore descended from the same original British ancestors, and at this day speak a language essentially the same; the difference being only what must take place when two divisions of a people, speaking the same language, are kept from all communication with each other for a series of years. That the present inhabitants of England and of the Lowlands of Scotland are in like manner descended from the Saxon invaders is highly probable, from the circumstance of their speaking a language that is essentially the same. Considering the wars and enmity that existed for many centuries between the Scots and English, this could hardly have happened but from their having descended from the same people. When the Saxons were called to Britain, they were free men. The Britons, who called them, had been long de based by the Roman yoke. The difference this makes is prodigious. Much has been said and written of late to show the ill effects of liberty; not surely in the intention of disgusting the inhabitants of this island with that which has been one great basis of their prosperity, and has so long rendered them the envy of surrounding nations; but merely, it is to be hoped, with a view to prevent the abuse of freedom, which, like the abuse of every thing else that is estimable in life, becomes pernicious in pro portion to the value of the thing abused. Liberty and property are the two most valuable blessings men can possess: but when a dread of the one being in danger preponderates in a nation; they are apt to lose all solicitude about the other. Those who supinely endure encroachments on their political freedom, while they are tremblingly alive to whatever they are told may en danger their property, forget that when the first is gone, the second must soon follow. They may be deprived of it more methodically, but not more certainly. To render wealth a permanent blessing to Great Britain, its inhabitants must preserve in its purity that constitution which their ancestors established in 1688. They must retain, as Dr. Smollett finely expresses it, in his Ode to Leven Water, hearts resolv'd, and hands prepar'd, The blessings they enjoy to guard. After having deprived other nations of freedom, the Romans themselves were deprived of it; and with it lost the love of their country, and all that elastic energy of mind which renders free-born men superior to the rest of mankind. The indolent and luxurious inhabitants of Italy shrunk from the fatigues of war; foreigners were bribed or compelled to fight their battles; the armies on the frontiers relaxed in discipline. It is worthy of observation, that military discipline is most cheerfully submitted to in the armies of nations which have maintained their civil liberties. The Greeks were always better disciplined than the Persians; and the Turkish armies are the worst disciplined troops in Europe. Having lost the energy of freedom, the Romans could not withstand those attacks which their ancestors would have repelled with ease. The Saxons who invaded England did not imagine it possible that men who had tasted the sweets of independence could remain quietly in a state of subjection, and therefore thought it necessary, for their own secure possession of the country, to extirpate great numbers of the natives. This inhuman policy was carried greater lengths by those Saxons, than by any conquerors of whom we have an account in profane history. They conquered exclusively for themselves, not for the benefit or aggrandizement of the state to which they had belonged, or of a country to which they never meant to return. The conquered lands were considered as a property which all had contributed to acquire, and in the division of which all had a right to share. By what rule the division was made is not known: but the respect in which they held their chief, and the conviction they entertained that it would be for the general safety to adhere to him, and rally under his standard, appear, from the large share of the lands that were allotted to him, and which, in many instances, were afterwards called crown lands, or royal demesnes. This veneration for the chief appears in a still stronger light, from his being appointed to divide the rest of the lands among the inferior officers; and from these officers receiving their portions on condition of attachment to him, and of serving him in war at their own expense. Those inferior officers, who were the first barons or nobility, after retaining a certain proportion of their share of the land in their own hands, for the support of their dignity and household, were obliged to divide the remainder of what was allotted to them among their followers; that is to say, the soldiers who had in the course of the war been imme |