ern and southern coasts. "They diminish rapidly as
we move inland, and they die away altogether as we approach the purely
Celtic west. Fourteen hundred such names have been counted, of which 48
occur in Northumberland, 127 in Yorkshire, 76 in Lincolnshire, 153 in
Norfolk and Suffolk, 48 in Essex, 60 in Kent, 86 in Sussex and Surrey,
only 2 are found in Cornwall, 6 in Cumberland, 24 in Devon, 13 in
Worcester, 2 in Westmoreland, and none in Monmouth." Grant Allen,
"Anglo-Saxon Britain" (S.P.C.K.), p. 43.

[37] Ammianus Marcellinus: "Ipsa oppida, ut circumdata retiis busta
declinant"; in reference to the Franks and Alemanni, "Rerum Gestarum,"
lib. xvi., cap. ii. Tacitus says the same thing for the whole of the
Germans: "Nullas Germanorum populis urbes habitari, satis notum est....
Colunt discreti ac diversi, ut fons, ut campus, ut nemus placuit. Vicos
locant, non in nostrum morem, connexis et cohaerentibus aedificiis: suam
quisque domum spatio circumdat." "De Moribus Germanorum," xvi.

[38] It seems impossible to admit, as has been suggested, that these
frail objects should have been saved from the plunder and burning of the
villas and preserved by the Anglo-Saxons as _curiosities_. Glasses with
knobs, "_a larmes_," abound in the Anglo-Saxon tombs, and similar ones
have been found in the Roman tombs of an earlier epoch, notably at
Lepine, in the department of the Marne.

[39] Where the Celtic element was reinforced, at the commencement of the
sixth century, by a considerable immigration of Britons driven from
England. Hence the name of Bretagne, given then for the first time to
Armorica.

CHAPTER III.

_THE NATIONAL POETRY OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS._

I.

Towards the close of the fifth century, the greater part of England was
conquered; the rulers of the land were no longer Celts or Romans, but
men of Germanic origin, who worshipped Thor and Woden instead of Christ,
and whose language, customs, and religion differed entirely from those
of the people they had settled amongst and subjugated.

The force of circumstances produced a fusion of the two races, but
during many centuries no literary fusion took place. The mind of the
invader was not actuated by curiosity; he intrenched himself in his
tastes, content with his own literature. "Each one," wrote Tacitus of
the Germans, "leaves an open space around his dwelling." The
Anglo-Saxons remained in literature a people of isolated dwellings. They
did not allow the tr