between our shores and that part of Europe in
which the traces of ancient power and policy were yet discernible.
Many noble monuments which have since been destroyed or defaced still
retained their pristine magnificence; and travellers, to whom Livy and
Sallust were unintelligible, might gain from the Roman aqueducts and
temples some faint notion of Roman history. The dome of Agrippa, still
glittering with bronze, the mausoleum of Adrian, not yet deprived of its
columns and statues, the Flavian amphitheatre, not yet degraded into a
quarry, told to the rude English pilgrims some part of the story of that
great civilised world which had passed away. The islanders returned,
with awe deeply impressed on their half opened minds, and told the
wondering inhabitants of the hovels of London and York that, near the
grave of Saint Peter, a mighty race, now extinct, had piled up buildings
which would never be dissolved till the judgment day. Learning followed
in the train of Christianity. The poetry and eloquence of the Augustan
age was assiduously studied in Mercian and Northumbrian monasteries. The
names of Bede and Alcuin were justly celebrated throughout Europe. Such
was the state of our country when, in the ninth century, began the last
great migration of the northern barbarians.

During many years Denmark and Scandinavia continued to pour forth
innumerable pirates, distinguished by strength, by valour, by merciless
ferocity, and by hatred of the Christian name. No country suffered so
much from these invaders as England. Her coast lay near to the ports
whence they sailed; nor was any shire so far distant from the sea as
to be secure from attack. The same atrocities which had attended the
victory of the Saxon over the Celt were now, after the lapse of ages,
suffered by the Saxon at the hand of the Dane. Civilization,--just as
it began to rise, was met by this blow, and sank down once more. Large
colonies of adventurers from the Baltic established themselves on the
eastern shores of our island, spread gradually westward, and, supported
by constant reinforcements from beyond the sea, aspired to the dominion
of the whole realm. The struggle between the two fierce Teutonic breeds
lasted through six generations. Each was alternately paramount. Cruel
massacres followed by cruel retribution, provinces wasted, convents
plundered, and cities rased to the ground, make up the greater part of
the history of those evil days. At length the No