German, though it was not quite the same as that spoken in Germany now. It is called Low German; and was more like the Dutch

language. Jutes, were as fierce as the Scots and Picts. They had small vessels, and were hardy sailors.

The Angles, and Saxons, and

They came across the sea, plundering, and

burning, and slaying, like the Scots and Picts. In the year 449, some Jutes, under two chiefs, named Hengist and Horsa, landed in the Isle of Thanet. Other chiefs, with bands of armed followers, landed in other parts of the island. They did not bring law and order for the Britons, as the Romans had done; but they slew or drove them away, and divided their land amongst themselves. They did not care to live in towns, as they had always been accustomed to live in the country. So they either burnt the towns and left them desolate, or else suffered them to decay. At a later time, they too learned to live in towns and to trade.

2. Fate of a Roman Town near Pevensey. -A curious example of the way in which the towns were treated, is to be found on the coast of Sussex, between Hastings and Eastbourne. There is to be seen the spot, where once was the flourishing Roman city of Anderida. The Roman walls are still there, firmly built with that mortar which the Romans knew how to make, and which is harder than even the stones which it binds together. Inside is a green flat space, with no trace of any building, except in one corner, where are the ruins of a castle, built there long after the days of the Romans. The

Saxon conqueror could not destroy the city wall. He destroyed the houses inside it. He liked better to live outside. Two little villages in front of the old gate of the City tell us, by their names, the language of the people who built and inhabited them. To the West is West Ham-that is to say, the western home of some settler whose name we do not know. To the East is Pevensey, where, no doubt, another of the conquerors fixed his abode.

3. Gradual Conquest of Britain.-These Saxons, and Jutes, and Angles, did not conquer the country all at once. Like the Britons, before the Romans came, they did not form one people, but lived separately, each tribe by itself. Many of our counties bear the names of these tribes. The East Saxons lived in Essex, the Middle Saxons in Middlesex, the South Saxons in Sussex. At first the conquest was not very difficult. The south-eastern part of England had been more civilised by the Romans than the rest of the country. It was richer, because, being nearer to the Continent, the people who lived in it traded with those who lived beyond the sea. Its inhabitants were also less warlike than those who lived in the

Western hills, so that the conquest was easiest here. In the South-east there had been formed four small kingdoms,-Kent, answering to the modern county, Sussex, including the modern Sussex and Surrey, Essex, including the modern Essex and Middlesex, and East Anglia, including Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire. In the north and west the struggle was harder; and the conquerors found it necessary to join their small tribes together, in order that they might bring a stronger force against the enemy. The three larger kingdoms were those of Northumberland, or the land North of the Humber as far as the Clyde, of Mercia, occupying the centre of the country, and of Wessex, the land of the West Saxons, occupying the country westward from the border of Sussex. These three went on fighting with the Britons. In 128 years of conflict, they had pushed their frontier as far as the Pennine range, and thence south-eastward to a spot near Bedford, from which point, it twisted about irregularly, till it reached the English Channel, about half way between the mouth of the Exe and Portland. After some further years of struggle, the line went from the Pennine Hills southward through the Mendip