clothes were found, as if he had been buried in them. The body was very much changed; the bones were turned into a kind of blue powder. The brain was the least changed of all; it was found at one end of the coffin, covered by a thick woollen cap. The body had been wrapped in a coarse woollen cloth, a woollen shirt, two shawls with long fringes, leggings, and at the other end of the coffin were some fragments of leather, doubtless the remains of boots or shoes. In the coffin with him were found also another cap, a small comb, and a knife, packed in a little box, and by his side a bronze sword in a wooden sheath. This man had probably died late in the bronze period, for most generally in the earlier times the dead were burned, and the ashes collected in

an urn.

As to the implements they made, the commonest are called "celts," which could be used for chisels, hoes, or axes, and which were cast in moulds of sand. They could also make very beautiful swords, with ornamental handles; daggers, spears, arrows, knives, and fish-hooks, and pretty bracelets, brooches, hair-pins, and buttons; for they had by no means outgrown the love of ornaments.

They had likewise improved very much in making pottery, and in decorating their jars and vases with different patterns. But they did not yet know how to make them flat at the bottom, so as to stand steady; they were mostly round, and had to be supported on rings of earthenware. Many of the large vases seem to have been used for storing nuts and other fruits for winter use.

It is supposed that these were the people who built Stonehenge, that mysterious circle of stones on Salisbury Plain, which has always been considered one of the wonders of England; but this is not quite certain.

times, we

Still later, or in what are called "historic find the people of whom we read had left off using stone and bronze, and had their tools and weapons made Iron. of iron, as we have now. As iron is much more difficult to work than bronze, it is evident that men must have improved greatly in skill; but we know very little. about the way they first took to it. Only it is believed that the first iron used was not smelted out of ore, but was some of the "meteoric" iron which sometimes falls from the sky, and which is almost pure metal. Some of the oldest names for iron we know of the Greek and the Egyptian

mean

the "starry" and the "sky-stone," or "stone of heaven." And when they had found how keen, how hard, how precious, the heavenly metal was, they would soon think it worth while to take a great deal of trouble to purify that which they found mixed up with baser matters on earth.

CHAPTER II.

THE ROMANS.

The Romans their position in the world at the beginning of British history -their armies, navy, colonies, religion, and morality; their laws — treat, ment of subject nations - habits and amusements

their slaves.

WHEN we come to "historic " times, that is, times in which people observed and wrote down the events which happened, we do not, at first, find that the inhabitants of Britain did so about themselves. But other and quite trustworthy people wrote of them.

It was mentioned in the last chapter that Great Britain and Ireland were once joined to the mainland of Europe; though long before the historic period that had ceased to be the case. Still there has always been a very close connection between the British Isles and the Continent, and we can never understand the history of England without knowing something also about the state of Europe. The first people, from whose writings we learn some- Romans. thing about the country and those who lived in it, were the Romans, who were for several hundred years the most important nation in the world.

The

Egypt, with its pyramids and temples, and its records of hoar antiquity, Palestine, the seat of the Jews, and the birthplace of the Christian religion, - Phoenicia, whose genius developed picture-writing into the alphabet, and so created literature, and whose ships visited every known shore, Asia Minor, with its rich and beautiful cities, Greece, to whom the world owes, perhaps, its largest debt for its inheritance of science, letters, and art, Italy, with its outlying islands, and its many races fused at last in one, -Gaul, Hispania, and the African coast, all the nations around the Mediterranean Sea were conquered by Roman armies, and governed by Roman laws.

In very ancient times there was a state of perpetual war; a state in which a man could only feel secure in the possession of his lands or his flocks as long as he had strength in his own right arm to defend them. It was not thought at all disgraceful, but very honorable, for a stronger man to surprise and take them for himself. The people of one family helped and befriended one another; and as families increased in number they gradually grew into tribes, which hung together and supported each other; and the successful tribes, again, by degrees grew into nations; and it was the natural state of things for them to be at war with all other families, or tribes, or nations.

The Romans had begun in a very small way, by building a rude little village, which in the course of years grew into the stately city of Rome; while they themselves grew into the great conquerors and masters we have seen. It is supposed to have been about 750 years from the foundation of the city to the birth of Christ, which occurred soon after the time when Britain first took her place in written history. Some of the wiser of them had begun to think it time to stop in the career of conquest, though they did add some other provinces afterwards.

The army.

The Romans regarded their army as more important than anything else. The officers were what we now term gentlemen; the common soldiers were of the lower orders, and recruited in all, even the most distant, provinces; but mostly from the north rather than from the south, because they were braver and stronger. It was considered a great honor to be a soldier; much more honorable than to be a mechanic or a laborer. Every soldier took a most solemn oath, which was called a "sacrament;' SO solemn was it that Christians have taken that name for the sacred ceremonies in which they pledge themselves to follow Christ. The soldier swore never to desert his standard, to submit his own will to the command of his leader, and to sacrifice his life for the empire. The standard was a golden eagle, which was worshipped as a god; and it was thought impious as well as disgraceful to desert the eagles. The soldiers were well paid, but very strictly disciplined. They were, if not at war, constantly exercised; and, in exercising, their arms were twice as heavy as the real ones. They were taught to march, run, leap, and swim; and thus became very hardy and active. Their generals

would not only look on, but take part in the exercises themselves.

The navy.

The whole army was divided into legions, each of which was like a little army, complete in itself, and comprising all sorts of soldiers. The heavy-armed footsoldiers had helmets, breastplates, greaves, shields, spears, and two-edged swords. Each legion had also a band of cavalry, with lighter arms; also had its own artillery, - of course not cannon, but battering-rams, and machines for discharging great stones, which were used in sieges before gunpowder was invented. There were, perhaps, 12,500 men in a legion, and in the palmy days of Rome she possessed thirty of these mighty forces. They were encamped along the banks of great rivers, as the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates, and on the other borders of the empire, to keep off the barbarians who were swarming outside. There were men from the conquered provinces, who had not been trained and drilled like the regular soldiers, but who fought in their own fashion, under Roman officers, and who were called auxiliaries. The Romans were not powerful on the sea, and their navy was by no means equal to their army. The Mediterranean was the only sea they wished to command, and they seldom thought of venturing outside the narrow straits which led to the great ocean beyond. They believed that their divine hero, Hercules, had been through those straits in performing some of his great deeds, and had set up a pillar on each side in remembrance of the feat; and though they were really frightened by the sea, they tried to lay their fears on the ground of religion. For one man, Drusus, did try to make some way beyond the pillars," and to find out something more about Hercules; but," says one of their wisest historians, Tacitus, "the roughness of the ocean withstood him, nor would suffer discoveries to be made about itself no more than about Herenles. Thenceforward the enterprise was dropped. Nay, more pious and reverential it seemed to believe the marvellous feats of the gods than to know and to prove them." We do not know how much Tacitus himself believed of those labors of Hercules, for when we try to learn Religion. about their religion, we seem to find that at the time he wrote there were two religions prevailing; one for the common and ignorant people and the women, and another for the well educated. The first had become gross