xperience of the past, they no longer attempted to unite their whole
forces and defeat him in general engagements, but endeavoured to exhaust
his resources, and wear out his troops by a protracted defensive
warfare. They fortified and garrisoned their towns so as to impose on
him the necessity of innumerable sieges; whilst the country, on his
line of march, was laid waste, and his troops were harassed by the
incessant attacks of their skirmishers. But Caesar overcame all
difficulties: if they met him in battle, they were vanquished; if they
retreated to their fortifications, they were driven from them by
escalade; if they took refuge in their marshes, he pursued and overtook
them even there. Dispirited by these constant defeats, the Gauls, for
the last time, laid down their arms. The conquered territory was
organized as a new province of the Roman empire, and Caesar laboured to
attach it to his person by the lenity and moderation of his government.
In this he succeeded; nor had he ever reason to repent of having done
so; for, during the civil wars which raised him to the imperial power,
he received no inconsiderable assistance from the courage and devotion
of its inhabitants. Here, as a free people, ends the history of the
Gauls. We shall not follow M. Thierry in his account of the last period
of their annals, which embraces the subjugation of the Britons; the
organization of Gaul into a subject province; the gradual loss of their
nationality by its inhabitants; the spread of Roman manners and Roman
civilization amongst them; their transition from an independent people
to an integral part of the Roman empire. Here we take leave of them:
their arms have just dropped from their hands; liberty has just fled
from their shores; the fetters of conquest sit strangely on their
free-born limbs; they have not yet learned the vices of a subject race:
after having followed them in their career of conquest, and through the
hard-fought struggle in their native land, we love not to dwell on the
crushing of their haughty spirit.

Throughout the whole of his history, Thierry sustains the interest well;
but nowhere is his narrative more animated than in his account of the
wars of Caesar; and no wonder, for a nobler field could not lie before
him. His book is altogether one of the most curious and interesting
which we possess on the history of ancient times. A great work it cannot
be called. M. Thierry is more a man of talent than of geniu