have placed as its permanent bulwarks and boundaries: on
the west, the Atlantic Ocean; the Rhine and Danube on the north; the
Euphrates on the east; and towards the south, the sandy deserts of
Arabia and Africa.

Happily for the repose of mankind, the moderate system recommended
by the wisdom of Augustus, was adopted by the fears and vices of his
immediate successors. Engaged in the pursuit of pleasure, or in the
exercise of tyranny, the first Caesars seldom showed themselves to the
armies, or to the provinces; nor were they disposed to suffer, that
those triumphs which their indolence neglected, should be usurped by the
conduct and valor of their lieutenants. The military fame of a subject
was considered as an insolent invasion of the Imperial prerogative;
and it became the duty, as well as interest, of every Roman general, to
guard the frontiers intrusted to his care, without aspiring to conquests
which might have proved no less fatal to himself than to the vanquished
barbarians.

The only accession which the Roman empire received, during the first
century of the Christian AEra, was the province of Britain. In this
single instance, the successors of Caesar and Augustus were persuaded to
follow the example of the former, rather than the precept of the latter.
The proximity of its situation to the coast of Gaul seemed to invite
their arms; the pleasing though doubtful intelligence of a pearl
fishery, attracted their avarice; and as Britain was viewed in the light
of a distinct and insulated world, the conquest scarcely formed any
exception to the general system of continental measures. After a war of
about forty years, undertaken by the most stupid, maintained by the most
dissolute, and terminated by the most timid of all the emperors, the
far greater part of the island submitted to the Roman yoke. The various
tribes of Britain possessed valor without conduct, and the love of
freedom without the spirit of union. They took up arms with savage
fierceness; they laid them down, or turned them against each other, with
wild inconsistency; and while they fought singly, they were successively
subdued. Neither the fortitude of Caractacus, nor the despair of
Boadicea, nor the fanaticism of the Druids, could avert the slavery of
their country, or resist the steady progress of the Imperial generals,
who maintained the national glory, when the throne was disgraced by the
weakest, or the most vicious of mankind. At the very time wh