wall were the nations that no severity had reduced to subjection, and no
resistance could restrain from plunder. At the extreme west of England
were the people of Cornwall, or little Wales, as it was called; having
the most intimate relations with the people of Britannia Secunda, or
Wales; and both connected with the colony of Armorica. The inhabitants
of Cornwall and Wales, we may assume, were almost exclusively of the old
British stock. The abandonment of the country by the Romans had affected
them far less than that change affected the more cultivated country,
that had been the earliest subdued, and for nearly four centuries had
received the Roman institutions and adopted the Roman customs.

But in the chief portion of the island, from the southern and eastern
coasts to the Tyne and the Solway, there was a mixed population, among
whom it would be difficult to trace that common bond which would
constitute nationality. The British families of the interior had become
mingled with the settlers of Rome and its tributaries to whom grants of
land had been assigned as the rewards of military service; and the
coasts from the Humber to the Exe had been here and there peopled with
northern settlers, who had gradually planted themselves among the
Romanized British; and were, we may well believe, among the most active
of those who carried forward the commercial intercourse of Britain with
Gaul and Italy.

When, therefore, we approach the period of what is termed the Saxon
invasion, and hear of the decay, the feebleness, the cowardice, and the
misery of the Britons--all which attributes have been somewhat too
readily bestowed upon the population which the Romans had left
behind--it would be well to consider what these so-called Britons really
were, to enable us properly to understand the transition state through
which the country passed.