coast the island was the westernmost province of the Roman Empire. In
the fifty-fifth year before Christ a descent of Julius Cæsar revealed it
to the Roman world; and a century after Cæsar's landing the emperor
Claudius undertook its conquest. The work was swiftly carried out.
Before thirty years were over the bulk of the island had passed beneath
the Roman sway, and the Roman frontier had been carried to the firths of
Forth and of Clyde. The work of civilization followed fast on the work
of the sword. To the last indeed the distance of the island from the
seat of empire left her less Romanized than any other province of the
west. The bulk of the population scattered over the country seem in
spite of imperial edicts to have clung to their old law as to their old
language, and to have retained some traditional allegiance to their
native chiefs. But Roman civilisation rested mainly on city life, and in
Britain as elsewhere the city was thoroughly Roman. In towns such as
Lincoln or York, governed by their own municipal officers, guarded by
massive walls, and linked together by a network of magnificent roads
which reached from one end of the island to the other, manners,
language, political life, all were of Rome.

For three hundred years the Roman sword secured order and peace without
Britain and within, and with peace and order came a wide and rapid
prosperity. Commerce sprang up in ports among which London held the
first rank; agriculture flourished till Britain became one of the
corn-exporting countries of the world; the mineral resources of the
province were explored in the tin mines of Cornwall, the lead mines of
Somerset or Northumberland, and the iron mines of the Forest of Dean.
But evils which sapped the strength of the whole empire told at last, on
the province of Britain.

Wealth and population alike declined under a crushing system of