family.]

[Footnote 158: Regio longe lateque diffusa, milite, magis quam credibile
sit, referta. Partibus equidem in illis miles unus quinquaginta generat,
sortitus more barbaro denas aut amplius uxores. This reproach of William
of Poitiers (in the Historians of France, tom. xi. p. 88) is disclaimed
by the Benedictine editors.]

[Footnote 159: Giraldus Cambrensis confines this gift of bold and ready
eloquence to the Romans, the French, and the Britons. The malicious
Welshman insinuates that the English taciturnity might possibly be the
effect of their servitude under the Normans.]

[Footnote 160: The picture of Welsh and Armorican manners is drawn
from Giraldus, (Descript. Cambriae, c. 6-15, inter Script. Camden. p.
886-891,) and the authors quoted by the Abbe de Vertot, (Hist. Critique
tom. ii. p. 259-266.)]

By the revolution of Britain, the limits of science, as well as of
empire, were contracted. The dark cloud, which had been cleared by the
Phoenician discoveries, and finally dispelled by the arms of Caesar,
again settled on the shores of the Atlantic, and a Roman province was
again lost among the fabulous Islands of the Ocean. One hundred and
fifty years after the reign of Honorius, the gravest historian of the
times [161] describes the wonders of a remote isle, whose eastern and
western parts are divided by an antique wall, the boundary of life
and death, or, more properly, of truth and fiction. The east is a fair
country, inhabited by a civilized people: the air is healthy, the waters
are pure and plentiful, and the earth yields her regular and fruitful
increase. In the west, beyond the wall, the air is infectious and
mortal; the ground is covered with serpents; and this dreary solitude
is the region of departed spirits, who are transported from the opposite
shores in substantial boats, and by living rowers. Some families of
fishermen, the subjects of the Franks, are excused from tribute, in
consideration of the mysterious office which is performed by these
Charons of the ocean. Each in his turn is summoned, at the hour of
midnight, to hear the voices, and even the names, of the ghosts: he is
sensible of their weight, and he feels himself impelled by an unknown,
but irresistible power. After this dream of fancy, we read with
astonishment, that the name of this island is Brittia; that it lies in
the ocean, against the mouth of the Rhine, and less than thirty miles
from the continent; that it is possessed by