be raised, even if the invaders were as completely barbarized as the Saxons of the fifth century.

The Romans were in possession of the island of Great Britain for four centuries. We should make a great mistake if we supposed that it was only the Roman armies which occupied it. Roman citizens, of every class and occupation, emigrated there, as the English did to America. If we did not know this to be the fact, it would be a most improbable supposition that Roman civilization did not exercise a decisive and permanent influence upon the whole frame of Saxon society. Cities were founded even in the sequestered districts of Wales, in which the municipal government of the mother country was established, and the wealth and luxury displayed by the inhabitants, was evidence of a total transformation of the original society. From A. D. 80 to the fifth century, architecture and all the arts flourished, and beautiful buildings, after the Italian model, were erected in various parts of the Island. Every Roman colony and free city was a mimic representation of the city of Rome, encompassed with walls, adorned with temples, palaces, acqueducts, and other buildings, both for use and ornament; so that when the Emperor Constantine rebuilt the city of Autun, in Gaul, in 296, he was chiefly furnished with workmen from Brtiain. Schools were established in various parts of the country, in which youth were taught the Latin language, and other departments of knowledge.* The Theodosian code abounds in edicts relating to these schools. Savigny, in his great work, (Histoire du droit Romain), shows that not less than thirty-three towns lying between Winchester and Inverness were endowed with regular forms of municipal government; and the choice of the Magistrates was intrusted to the citizens themselves.

When the invasion of the Barbarians took place, the same consequences followed as in central and southern Europe. A long period of anarchy ensued. Society was in a state of fermentation until the process of mixing and amalgamating the two races was complete; but there never was a time, even during the darkness of the seventh, tenth and eleventh centuries, when Roman civilization did not exert a predominant influence throughout Britain, Gaul, Spain and

Italy. The work of Savigne is devoted to establish the perpetuity of the Roman law, to show that there never was a period when it ceased to be the chief element in the jurisprudence of the European

States.*

The diffusion of the Latin language over the west of Europe is an incontestible proof of the thorough root which Roman civilization had taken. It was the spoken language on the continent, in Gaul, Spain, Belgium, &c. Mr. Gibbon, (v. 1, p. 60), says that it was the spoken language in Britain also. Mr. Hallam, (Mid. Ages, v. 4, p. 159), thinks otherwise, and that Latin was never spoken as generally as in Gaul and Spain; and this is undoubtebly correct. But that it was the spoken language of the Roman and Roman-Anglo population, and that this population in the third and fourth centuries, was very considerable, will admit of no doubt. The Gælic was spoken by the Britons, as in the Welsh and German settlements of the United States, these people speak their own language, although the English is the prevailing language of the country. The Latin is the root of a great part of the English language. If the Saxon is the basis of the words used in common life, the Latin is the foundation of the intellectual part of the language, nor could it be otherwise. An uncivilized tribe cannot have the same range of ideas as a cultivated people; and not having the ideas, it is impossible for them to invent the corresponding words. The same fondness for uttering novel propositions which makes the English boast of their Saxon descent, has led them to boast of the Saxon origin of their language. Epicures whose taste is palled by living on a healthy diet, acquire a relish for the most repulsive food; and the most refined and cultivated minds, satiated with the perfection to which their language has been brought by the transfusion of the Latin, take delight in descanting on the homely terms of Saxon origin. It carries them back to what they are pleased to consider an arcadian age, but which only exists in their own imaginations. Roman civilization, the traces of which, however obscured by time, are stamped upon every feature of the existing society, has given them a vantage ground to stand upon, and enable them to talk of the wonders which Saxon institutions achieved. If the question as to the structure of the English language involved a mere critical inquiry, it would be unimportant; but it necessarily assumes a character of profound philosophical interest, as it is connected with the whole problem of European civilization, and with the still deeper problem, what nation, if any, that has risen up in the world, has ever been known to civilize itself?

It is supposed that the bulk of the Roman population was expelled from the Island after the invasion of A. D. 406; that the Roman legion had been removed some time before, in order to protect the empire in another quarter, is certain. It is highly probable, also, that numbers of Roman citizens among the employees and civil officers of the government also withdrew; but that the entire Roman population and the population of mixed blood, which had been growing up during a much longer period than has elapsed since the settlement of the United States, also withdrew, is absolutely incredible. For what was the Roman population at the commencement of the fifth century? It was composed of persons who were Britons by birth, although descended from Roman ancestors; and this population which had been growing up for twenty generations, had become fastened to the soil, by habit and interest, as well as by early associations. If a thousand years hence, there shall be no authentic history of the dismemberment of Spain from her American Colonies, no one would place any confidence in the random conjectures that the Creoles had in a body abandoned Mexico, Peru and Chili. The belief would be, as is the fact, that they nearly all remained in the country of their birth.

The Saxon conquest was not the work of a day. It procceded more slowly than conquests usually do. The armies which entered the country at considerable intervals, were too small to exterminate the inhabitants, even if they had desired to do so, although in the end they were sufficient to overcome the military force which they encountered. Nor could there be any motives to induce the Roman British population to retire, when all other parts of the empire were suffering from the overwhelming inroads of still more formidable Barbarians.

Historians speak of the expulsion of the Moors from Spain. With as much reason might a historian living three centuries hence speak of the entire emigration from Ireland to America of the Gælic race.

The Moorish kingdoms of Spain were very gradually destroyed; the last, that of Granada, not until the close of the fifteenth century. But the Moors had been settled in Spain nearly eight centuries; and even if we possessed no positive information to contradict the general notion which is afloat, the fact that the national character to this day is strongly tinged with Moorish features, would be sufficient to prove that Mahommedan institutions had exerted a decisive influence upon Spanish society. No country, we may be well assured, has ever been emptied of its inhabitants to anything like the extent to which the careless and sweeping statements of some historians would seem to imply. The rich may remove, but the bulk of the population must stay behind.

With a much more formidable force than the Saxons conveyed to Britain, William the Conquerer was unable to extirpate the Saxon population. As soon as an invading army has succeeded in overawing the people, it has no interest in pushing its conquest farther. On the contrary, it is greatly to its advantage that they should remain. The Huguenots, notwithstanding the revocation of the edict of Nantz, always composed a numerous and compact body in France; and yet total expulsion was more practicable in that instance than in any other.

The history of Great Britain, for more than three centuries after the Saxon invasion, I have already remarked, is almost a blank. But we know that when this piratical horde planted itself in the island, they found regular government established, and all the arts of civilized life in considerable progress; and there is no way of accounting for even the slow advances which they made in civilization, but by supposing that a large proportion of the civilized people, and not merely the works of arts were permitted to remain. Knowledge is power, even in the hands of the subjugated; and the compiler of the Saxon code was as ambitious as the compilers of the Burgundian and Visigoth codes, of copying after Roman institutions.

There can be no doubt, that the mixture of different peoples of the same race has contributed to the progress of European civilization, and has caused English society to attain its present high state of perfection. But I see no reason why it should not have made these advances, if the island had been invaded by any other German tribe. After making allowance for the powerful influence of Christianity, the civilization of modern Europe s chiefly ascribable to the fact that Roman civilization was engrafted on a northern stock. It was indifferent whether this stock should be a Saxon one or not. If the Franks had possessed themselves of Britain, and the Saxons of Gaul, the structure of society in the two countries would have been the same as it is now. Two things were necessary, that the barbarous tribes should be placed in contact with a civilized people, that they should live among them, and learn from them, otherwise, there would have been no beginning for the new race; and secondly, that Roman civilization should be so modified as to adapt itself to this mixed people. The sufferings, the distress, and anguish of mind which the people endured, threatened for a time to disorganize all European society. But these causes were never sufficient to tear up by the roots Roman civilization. On the contrary, the multiplied adversities to which men in all the relations of life were exposed, developed reflection and individual energy, and constituted a training and discipline for the new society, which rose up from the ruins of the old. In the seventh and eighth centuries, learning had made greater progress in England than anywhere else. On the Continent, profane literature had entirely disappeared. In England the schools were flourishing, and Greek and Roman literature were sought after with unusual ardor, as the history of Alcuin, the intellectual representative of the eighth century, completely attests.

Do physical causes exercise an important influence upon the human character? This has been a much debated question. But it is not difficult of solution. That difference of race produces a difference of character among nations, can admit of no doubt. But difference of race proceeds from an original difference of structure, or organization, and is entitled to infinitely more attention than food, air, and climate. The difference between the Chinese and the people of Europe is so marked, that it is impossible to mistake it. The Chinese attained to their present state of civilization when the