e laws and language, which
the Romans had so carefully planted in Britain, were extirpated by their
barbarous successors. After the destruction of the principal churches,
the bishops, who had declined the crown of martyrdom, retired with the
holy relics into Wales and Armorica; the remains of their flocks
were left destitute of any spiritual food; the practice, and even the
remembrance, of Christianity were abolished; and the British clergy
might obtain some comfort from the damnation of the idolatrous
strangers. The kings of France maintained the privileges of their Roman
subjects; but the ferocious Saxons trampled on the laws of Rome, and of
the emperors. The proceedings of civil and criminal jurisdiction, the
titles of honor, the forms of office, the ranks of society, and even the
domestic rights of marriage, testament, and inheritance, were finally
suppressed; and the indiscriminate crowd of noble and plebeian slaves
was governed by the traditionary customs, which had been coarsely framed
for the shepherds and pirates of Germany. The language of science, of
business, and of conversation, which had been introduced by the Romans,
was lost in the general desolation. A sufficient number of Latin or
Celtic words might be assumed by the Germans, to express their new wants
and ideas; but those _illiterate_ Pagans preserved and established the
use of their national dialect. Almost every name, conspicuous either in
the church or state, reveals its Teutonic origin; and the geography
of _England_ was universally inscribed with foreign characters and
appellations. The example of a revolution, so rapid and so complete, may
not easily be found; but it will excite a probable suspicion, that the
arts of Rome were less deeply rooted in Britain than in Gaul or Spain;
and that the native rudeness of the country and its inhabitants was
covered by a thin varnish of Italian manners.

This strange alteration has persuaded historians, and even philosophers,
that the provincials of Britain were totally exterminated; and that
the vacant land was again peopled by the perpetual influx, and rapid
increase, of the German colonies. Three hundred thousand Saxons are
_said_ to have obeyed the summons of Hengist; the entire emigration of
the Angles was attested, in the age of Bede, by the solitude of their
native country; and our experience has shown the free propagation of the
human race, if they are cast on a fruitful wilderness, where their steps