guished or blended with the common people, so that few or none could produce any title sufficiently respected to wield the sceptre of government. The unfortunate Britons had lost, with the Roman regular forces, the flower of their own youth, who had voluntarily or by compulsion followed the imperial armies, and the remainder of the population, by the policy of the Romans, had been so long deprived of the use of arms, that they remained a disorderly multitude, ready to become an easy prey to the first bold invader.

The emperors of Rome had continued to put arms into the hands of the Gauls and Germans, notwithstanding a national presentiment that the empire was doomed to destruction from these nations. Sallust concludes his Jugurthar war with the remark, "About this time our consuls were very unfortunate against the Gauls, which occasioned a general consternation throughout Italy, and the Romans then were, as they always have been, of opinion, that other wars had no difficulty in them: but that they fought with the Gauls, not only for glory, but for their very existence."

Continental dominion is always insecure, and continental conquest of very precarious tenure. Sidon, Tyre, Carthage, were splendid examples of the preeminent power and wealth which a well-conducted commerce will confer on cities possessing but a small extent of territory. The two former kept Egypt in check, and gained repeated triumphs over the indomitable mountaineers of the land of Canaan. The latter extended its sway over the continent of Africa, the larger part of Spain, and had nearly conquered Italy. In the succeeding age of Christianity, when

G

Rome fell, Venice, Genoa and Pisa, under the same mantle that the Phenician merchants wore, led the Crusaders to the capture of Constantinople, and enable their armies to recover the Holy City from the conquering Saracens; but their successes in arms were fluctuating, depending on the genius of some eminent commander, who led their fleets and armies to victory, when invested with unlimited power; but whose efforts were paralysed by the factions that from time to time obtained influence, cramped his better judgment by their self-interest and ignorant commands, and lost sight of the grand principle of carrying on war at a distance from their own territory.

We have cited Egina as an instance of a small spot of land which obtained a power and influence that would scarcely be credited, were it not as well confirmed as any statements that exist prior to what may be called the historical period, and we may conclude that, in the dissentions which were constantly occurring amongst the small but warlike and independent states of Greece, this island afforded a safe refuge for the persecuted of all parties. When the power of Argos succumbed before the institutions of Sparta, when Træzene was on the decline, and Athens contending with the rising strength of Megaris, the inhabitants of Egina, strong in their insular position, and possessing the germs of a naval force, felt they might safely assume the reins of self-government; they would not let " the great interests of their state depend upon the thousand chances that might sway a piece of human frailty, but sought within themselves the means of sove

reignty; their country's space, so happy in its smallness, so complete, needed not the magic of a single name which wider regions might require, to draw their interests into one.'

They built a magnificent temple to the father of all the gods, and styled it the temple of Jupiter Panhellenius. Here was a common place of worship for all refugees; and we have reason to believe that their laws were enacted with special regard to making all private property inviolate, whether of strangers or natives.

When Egina fell, Sicily might have taken its place, of a magnitude commensurate with the increasing extent and power of the several commonwealths, which at that period succeeded the era of Solon, the conquerors of Trinacria should have erected another Panhellenian temple on the summit of the highest mountain in its neighbourhood; and, calling a national feeling into action, this magnificent island would have possessed a powerful central sway, and made the Mediterranean a Sicilian lake.

Nor are the institutions of the Greeks and Romans to be despised, as inferior to that of modern invention; although, Vico justly observes, that "ancient jurisprudence was altogether poetic, composed of fictions which made facts of what never happened, feigned children to be born who never saw light, and considered the dead living and the living dead."

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Nevertheless, we have high authority for the assertion, that the children of darkness were in their generation wiser than the children of light."

Let it be our endeavour, then, to build up and present to the world a structure combining all the

excellencies of antiquity; and established on the firm and solid basis of unchanging and immoveable truth.

END OF THE SECOND PART.

LONDON:

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PUBLISHED BY EFFINGHAM WILSON, No. 11, ROYAL EXCHANGE, LONDON.

SIR THOMAS GRESHAM, KNIGHT,
FOUNDER OF THE ROYAL EXCHANGE;
Including Notices of many of his contemporaries, by
JOHN WILLIAM BURGON, Esq.

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