30 INTRODUCTION.
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that children should be educated with the utmost care. But their prodigious renerstiflii
for the misdetoe, and the great effects they attributed to it; their opinion that the i^pon is a sovereign remedy for diseases, with others of their sentiments and customs, shewed a strong superstition ; at their prohibiting an intercourse with strangers, if not meregf a political law, testified a savageness of manners ; and their allowance, nay command, of human sacrifices, carries in it the evidence of the most shocking cnielty. In truth, l^py were little more than the barbarous priests of a barbarous and unlettered people. The^ knowledge is said to have reached to physics, the mathematics, to astronomy, and tb medicine ; but as it was never committed to writing, it could not be very extensive^ Indeed, it chiefly consisted of the arcana of their doctrines and worship, and had a, special relation to magic.
About forty-five years after Christ, Aulus Plautius was sent over with some Roman . forces, who overcame the two kings of the Britons, Togodumnus and Caractacus, when the southern parts of the island were reduced to the form of a Roman province, aJter which, Agricola subdued the country, as far as Scotland; whereupon, a great number of i the Britons retired into the mountains of Wales, into Cornwall, and into the isles and ^ highlands of Scotland, carrying their language with them ; and of which only corrupted fragments remain in the Gaelic or Erse tongue, the Irish, and the Welsh.
Whoever has a strong regard to the cause of fipeedom, can scarcely avoid being filled with indignation, when he beholds the Romans spreading desolation and slaughter around them ; wantonly subduing the nations of the earth, and unjustly depriving them of their liberty. It was their sole intention to obtain power, wealth, and renown, and to j subject the world to their yoke. But all this time, they were working the will of heaven, I polishing and adorning the places with arts, which they conquered by their arms^ diffusing knowledge in general, and paving the way for the Christian knowledge in particular. During the warm contests that subsisted between the Romans and the Britons, when the latter so gloriously, so bravely, though so unsuccessfully, struggled to maintain their independence, little progress could be made in literature. Bnt whi the country was peaceably settled into a province, then civiUty began to spread itself, sciences to be cultivated, and taste to be refined. Tacitus has informed us, that urn the dominion of Agricola, the British nobles studied the Roman learning, and valui themselves on their magnificence and politeness ; becoming pleased with what were,^^ fact, their badges of their slavery. ^f*
Britain being thus become a Roman province, the legions who resided in the island* above two hundred years, undoubtedly disseminated the Latin tongue ; and the peo^e being afterwards governed by laws written in Latin, must necessarily create a mixture of languages. During this interval, there were, no doubt, schools of philosophy, what men were celebrated, we are not able to say ; no traces of them being now to be found. The confusions that succeeded, destroyed all the remains of learning, and left a blank in this period which cannot be filled up.
There is an event belonging to this era, which, besides its own immense importance in other views, desenes to be mentioned as a grand circumstance in the history of knowledge ; and that is, the propagation of Christianity in the island. Supposing we reject all idea of its being promulgated by the apostles, or their immediate disciples, it
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