And so I must take leave of the Wall; and Wall must make its exit from this little stage.
"Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so,
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go."
(Midsummer Night's Dream.)
It has not been possible within the limits of this book to say all I should have liked.
The romance of the Museums I have left untouched, with their pathetic relics of the loves, the vanities, the hopes and fears, the sufferings, and the victories of the great people who colonized our land so many years ago.
There is abundant proof that there was some measure of family life enjoyed by the Romans on the wild outposts of the Wall.
The officers had their wives with them; children were born (and lost); sorrowing husbands have left memorials to their wives; disconsolate wives lament, on stone, their husbands.
And trinkets there are in plenty: gold, and silver, and bronze, inlaid with stones; and beautiful enamel work. At Chesters there is a jet ring inscribed with a monogram, and the legend:
QVIS · SEPA · MEVM · ET · TVVM · DVRANTE · VITA
"Who shall separate me and thee during life?"
Has mankind changed much in eighteen hundred years?
Only one definitely Christian inscription has been found, and that is a British tombstone.