down the castles; they made breaches here and there in
the wall; they built vessels, and, passing round by sea across the
mouth of the Solway Frith and of the River Tyne, they renewed their
old incursions for plunder and destruction. The Britons, in extreme
distress, sent again and again to recall the Romans to their aid, and
they did, in fact, receive from them some occasional and temporary
succor. At length, however, all hope of help from this quarter failed,
and the Britons, finding their condition desperate, were compelled to
resort to a desperate remedy, the nature of which will be explained in
the next chapter.

[Footnote 1: For some account of the circumstances connected with this
war see our history of Alexander, chapter vi.]

CHAPTER II.

THE ANGLO-SAXONS

Any one who will look around upon the families of his acquaintance
will observe that family characteristics and resemblances prevail not
only in respect to stature, form, expression of countenance, and other
outward and bodily tokens, but also in regard to the constitutional
temperaments and capacities of the soul. Sometimes we find a group in
which high intellectual powers and great energy of action prevail for
many successive generations, and in all the branches into which the
original stock divides; in other cases, the hereditary tendency is to
gentleness and harmlessness of character, with a full development of
all the feelings and sensibilities of the soul. Others, again, exhibit
congenital tendencies to great physical strength and hardihood, and
to powers of muscular exertion and endurance. These differences,
notwithstanding all the exceptions and irregularities connected with
them, are obviously, where they exist, deeply seated and permanent.
They depend very slightly upon any mere external causes. They have,
on the contrary, their foundation in some hidden principles connected
with the origin of life, and with the mode of its transmission from
parent to offspring, which the researches of philosophers have never
yet been able to explore.

These same constitutional and congenital peculiarities which we see
developing themselves all around us in families, mark, on a greater
scale, the characteristics of the different nations of the earth, and
in a degree much higher still, the several great and distinct races
into which the whole human family seems to be divided. Physiologists
consider that there are five of these great races, whose
charac