ation of the idolatrous strangers. The kings of France
maintained the privileges of their Roman subjects; but the ferocious
Saxons trampled on the laws of Rome, and of the emperors. The
proceedings of civil and criminal jurisdiction, the titles of honor, the
forms of office, the ranks of society, and even the domestic rights of
marriage, testament, and inheritance, were finally suppressed; and the
indiscriminate crowd of noble and plebeian slaves was governed by the
traditionary customs, which had been coarsely framed for the shepherds
and pirates of Germany. The language of science, of business, and of
conversation, which had been introduced by the Romans, was lost in the
general desolation. A sufficient number of Latin or Celtic words might
be assumed by the Germans, to express their new wants and ideas; [144]
but those illiterate Pagans preserved and established the use of their
national dialect. [145] Almost every name, conspicuous either in the
church or state, reveals its Teutonic origin; [146] and the geography
of England was universally inscribed with foreign characters and
appellations. The example of a revolution, so rapid and so complete, may
not easily be found; but it will excite a probable suspicion, that the
arts of Rome were less deeply rooted in Britain than in Gaul or Spain;
and that the native rudeness of the country and its inhabitants was
covered by a thin varnish of Italian manners.

[Footnote 142: Hoc anno (490) Aella et Cissa obsederunt
Andredes-Ceaster; et interfecerunt omnes qui id incoluerunt; adeo ut ne
unus Brito ibi superstes fuerit, (Chron. Saxon. p. 15;) an expression
more dreadful in its simplicity, than all the vague and tedious
lamentations of the British Jeremiah.]

[Footnote 143: Andredes-Ceaster, or Anderida, is placed by Camden
(Britannia, vol. i. p. 258) at Newenden, in the marshy grounds of Kent,
which might be formerly covered by the sea, and on the edge of the great
forest (Anderida) which overspread so large a portion of Hampshire and
Sussex.]

[Footnote 144: Dr. Johnson affirms, that few English words are of
British extraction. Mr. Whitaker, who understands the British language,
has discovered more than three thousand, and actually produces a long
and various catalogue, (vol. ii. p. 235-329.) It is possible, indeed,
that many of these words may have been imported from the Latin or Saxon
into the native idiom of Britain. * Note: Dr. Prichard's very curious
researches, which