of _Englishman_, as in the line--

"Britons never, never, never shall be slaves."

The name _Briton_ is now used also to mean Irish, Scotch, and Welsh
men--in fact, any British subject. We also speak of _Great Britain_,
which means England and Scotland. When the Scottish Parliament was
joined to the English in 1702 some name had to be found to describe
the new "nation," and this was how the name _Great Britain_ came into
use, just as the _United Kingdom_ was the name invented to describe
Great Britain and Ireland together when the Irish Parliament too was
joined to the English in 1804.

We see how Gaul and Britain, as France and England were called in
Roman times, had their names changed after the fall of the Roman
Empire; but most of the countries round the Mediterranean Sea kept
their old names, just as they kept for the most part their old
languages. Italy, Greece, and Spain all kept their old names, although
new peoples flocked down into these lands too. But though new peoples
came, in all these lands they learned the ways and languages of the
older inhabitants, instead of changing everything, as the English did
in Britain. And so it was quite natural that they should keep their
own names too.

Most of the other countries in Europe took their names from the people
who settled there. Germany (the Roman _Germania_) was the part of
Europe where most of the tribes of the German race settled down. The
divisions of Germany, like Saxony, Bavaria, Frisia, were the parts of
Germany where the German tribes known as Saxons, Bavarians, and
Frisians settled. The name _Austria_ comes from _Osterreich_, the
German for "eastern kingdom." Holland, on the other hand, takes its
name from the character of the land. It comes from _holt_, meaning
"wood," and _lant_, meaning "land." The little country of Albania is
so called from _Alba_, or "white," because of its snowy mountains.

But perhaps the names of the old towns of the old world tell us the
best stories of all. The greatest city the world has ever seen was
Rome, and many scholars have quarrelled about the meaning of that
great name. It seems most likely that it came from an old word meaning
"river." It would be quite natural for the people of early Rome to
give such a name to their city, for it was a most important fact to
them that they had built their city just where it was on the river
Tiber.

One of the best places on which a town could be built, especially in
ea