In a retrospect of the Roman Era, the conquest of Cæsar is commonly referred to as the starting point in our social progress; and it has been thus felicitously illustrated by a leading writer of our time:—"If," he says, "we compare the present situation of the people of England with that of their predecessors at the time of Cæsar's invasion; if we contrast the warm and dry cottage of the present labourer, its chimney and glass windows (luxuries not enjoyed by Cæsar himself), the linen and woollen clothing of himself and his family, the steel and glass and earthenware with which his table is furnished, the Asiatic and American ingredients of his food, and, above all, his safety from personal injury, and his calm security that to-morrow will bring with it the comforts that have been enjoyed to-day; if we contrast all these sources of enjoyment with the dark and smoky burrows of the Brigantes or the Cantii, their clothing of skins, the food confined to milk and flesh, and their constant exposure to famine and to violence, we shall be inclined to think those who are lowest in modern society richer than the chiefs of their rude predecessors. And if we consider that the same space of ground which afforded an uncertain subsistence to a hundred, or probably fewer, savages, now supports with ease more than a thousand labourers, and, perhaps, a hundred individuals beside, each consuming more commodities than the labour of a whole tribe of ancient Britons could have produced or purchased, we may at first be led to doubt whether our ancestors enjoyed the same natural advantages as ourselves; whether their sun was as warm, their soil as fertile, or their bodies as strong, as our own.
"But let us substitute distance of space for distance of time; and, instead of comparing situations of the same country at different periods, compare different countries at the same period, and we shall find a still more striking discrepancy. The inhabitant of South America enjoys a soil and a climate, not superior merely to our own, but combining all the advantages of every climate and soil possessed by the remainder of the world. His valleys have all the exuberance of the tropics, and his mountain-plains unite the temperature of Europe to a fertility of which Europe offers no example. Nature collects for him, within the space of a morning's walk, the fruits and vegetables which she has elsewhere separated by thousands of miles. She has given him inexhaustible forests, has covered his plains with wild cattle and horses, filled his mountains with mineral treasures, and intersected all the eastern face of his country with rivers, to which our Rhine and Danube are merely brooks. But the possessor of these riches is poor and miserable. With all the materials of clothing offered to him almost spontaneously, he is ill-clad; with the most productive of soils, he is ill-fed; though we are told that the labour of a week will there procure subsistence for a year, famines are of frequent occurrence; the hut of the Indian, and the residence of the landed proprietor, are alike destitute of furniture and convenience; and South America, helpless and indigent with all her natural advantages, seems to rely for support and improvement on a very small portion of the surplus wealth of England."[14]
At length, the connexion between Britain and Rome was entirely severed. The Saxons joined the Picts and the Scots in their great invasion, and continuing their predatory warfare reduced the country to the greatest misery. Any degree of union amongst the Britons might have enabled them to repel their enemies; the walls of the principal cities, fortified by the Romans, were yet strong and firm. The tactics of the legions were not forgotten. Bright armour was piled in the storehouses, and the serried line of spears might have been presented to the half-naked Scots and Picts, who could never have prevailed against their opponents. But the Britons had no inclination to use the sword, except against each other.
[DOMESTIC LIFE OF THE SAXONS.]
he infant state of our Saxon ancestors when the Romans first observed them, exhibited nothing from which human sagacity could have predicted greatness. A territory on the neck of the Cimbric Chersonesus, and three small islands, contained those whose descendants occupy the circle of Westphalia, the Electorate of Saxony, the British Islands, the United States of North America, and the British Colonies in the two Indies. Such is the course of Providence, that empires, the most extended and the most formidable, are found to vanish as the morning mist; while tribes, scarcely visible, or contemptuously overlooked, like the springs of a mighty river, often glide on gradually to greatness and veneration.
Our inquiry, however, must be confined to the arts of these people. Concerning their architecture, it is supposed that the most ancient buildings were of wood; since the Saxon verb Getymbrian, to build, signifies literally to make of timber. The early English churches were built of logs of wood; and the erection of buildings of reeds and trunks of trees seems to have existed in some parts of England to a late period; since, in 940, Hoel Dha, King of North Wales, erected his White House, where his famous laws were made, of twisted branches, with the bark stripped and left white, whence it derived its name. Even in the days of Henry I. also, Pembroke Castle was built of twigs and turf. Bricks were made in England by the Saxons; but they were thin, and were called wall-tiles. It has been supposed that the Saxons and Normans adopted the masonry which the Romans introduced into England, altering it as architecture improved. The principal peculiarities of the Saxon style are the want of uniformity in all its parts, massive columns, semicircular arches, and diagonal mouldings. The first two are common to the barbaric architecture of Europe; the round arches are believed to have been taken from the Romans; and the zig-zag mouldings have been thought to allude to the stringing of the teeth of fishes. According to the best authorities, there are very few specimens of architecture now in existence in this country which can properly be called Saxon,—that is, of date anterior to the Conquest, and not of Roman origin; and these few are of the rudest and most inferior description. Saxon, therefore, as far as the architecture of this country is concerned, is an improper term.[15]
