.

O'er scenes thus wild adventurous Cæsar stray'd, And joyless view'd the conquests he had made; And bless'd Italia's happier plains and skies, Through purest air where yellow olives rise; From elm to elm where stretching tendrils twine, Bending with clusters of the purple vine :

While, spread o'er sunny hill and verdant wood,

Stray the white flocks, which drink Clitumnus' flood.

Rude as the wilds around his sylvan home

In savage grandeur see the Briton roam.

Bare were his limbs, and strung with toil and cold,
By untam'd nature cast in giant-mould.

O'er his broad brawny shoulders loosely flung
Shaggy and long his yellow ringlets hung.
His waist an iron-belted falchion bore,
Massy, and purpled deep with human gore :
His scarr'd and rudely-painted limbs around
Fantastic horror-striking figures frown'd,

Which, monster-like, ev'n to the confines ran

Of nature's work, and left him hardly man.
His knitted brows and rolling eyes impart

A direful image of his ruthless heart;
Where war and human bloodshed brooding lie,
Like thunders lowering in a gloomy sky.

But you, illustrious Fair Ones, wont to brave
Helvellin's storms, and sport in Darwent's wave,
To your high worth submiss the savage stood,
As Gambia's lions reverence princely blood.
He made no rubied lip nor sparkling eye
The shrine and god of his idolatry;

■ Inesse enim sanctum quid et providum fœminis putant. Tac. de moribus Germ. "Απαντες γὰρ τῆς δεισιδαιμονίας ἀρχηγὸς οἴονται τὰς γυναῖκας. Strabo lib. vii. What is said of the ancient German women is applied by Mr. Mason, and our early historians, to our countrywomen of earlier ages. The important offices, which they filled in the government, so unusual in the savage state, fully justify this application.

But, proudly bending to a just controul,

Bow'd in obeisance to the female soul;

And deem'd, some effluence of th' Omniscient mind In woman's beauteous image lay enshrin'd;

With inspiration on her bosom hung,

And flow'd in heav'nly wisdom from her tongue.

Fam'd among warrior-chiefs the crown she wore ;
At freedom's call the gory falchion bore;

Rul'd the triumphant car; and rank'd in fame
Bonduca's with Caractacus's name.

No tender virgin heard th' impassion'd youth Breathe his warm vows, and swear eternal truth: No sire, encircled by a blooming race,

View'd his own features in his infant's face :

The savage knew not wedlock's chaster rite;

Uxores habent deni duodenique inter se communes. Si qui sunt ex his nati, eorum habentur liberi, a quibus primum virgines quæque ductæ sunt. Cæsar De Bello Gallico.

The torch of Hymen pour'd a common light;
As passion fir'd, the lawless pair were bless'd;
And babes unfather'd hung upon the breast.

Such was the race, who drank the light of day, When lost in western waves Britannia lay.

Content they wander'd o'er their heaths and moors,
Nor thought that ocean roll'd round other shores.
Viewing the fires, that blaz'd around their skies,
Mid the wide world of waters set and rise,

They vainly deem'd the twinkling orbs of light
For them alone illum'd the vault of night;

For them alone the golden lamp of day

Held its bright progress through the heav'n's high

way.

When the chill breeze of morning overhead

Wav'd the dark boughs, that roof'd his sylvan bed, Up the light Briton sprung-to chase the deer Through Humber's vales, or heathy Cheviot drear.

Languid at noon his fainting limbs he cast

On the warm bank, and sought his coarse repast. With acorns, shaken from the neighbouring oak, Or sapless bark, that from the trunk he broke,

His meal he made; and in the cavern'd dell
Drank the hoarse wave, that down the rough rocks

fell.

At eve, retracing slow his morning road,
With wearied feet he gain'd his wild abode.
No city rose with spires and turrets crown'd;
No iron war from rocky ramparts frown'd:
But plain and simple, in the shadowy wood,
The shapeless, rude-constructed hamlets stood :
O'er the deep trench an earthy mound arose,
To guard the sylvan town from beasts and foes.
The crackling fire, beneath the hawthorn shade,

Dio Nicæus says, that the Britons in the woods would live upon roots or bark of trees.