landed his forces in Anglesea, they saw intermingled amongst the troops drawn up to oppose them, women in a funereal dress, running about with dishevelled hair, and hurling torches, like so many demoniacs; whilst the druids, standing around, with arms outstretched towards heaven, poured out the bitterest imprecations against the invaders. For a moment the arms of the Romans seemed paralyzed with a superstitious horror; but the next, ashamed of having shrunk before women and priests, they rushed on these deluded wretches, put them to the rout, burned the druids, by a cruel revenge, in their own sacrificial fires, and, finally, levelled their consecrated groves with the ground.

From being the instruments employed to inflict a just punishment on the wickedness of the Britons, Paullinus and his army were suddenly called away to witness and share the calamities which the vices of the Romans had brought upon themselves. Prasutagus, king of the Iceni, having no son to inherit his authority, named the emperor joint heir with his daughters; it having been suggested to him, probably by some Roman, that, by such a step, he would obtain for them that powerful protection which their weaker sex rendered peculiarly desirable. But, instead of his bequest being accepted as an honourable testimony of his respect, and rewarded by a liberal, or even a just attention to the rights which he had reserved for his family, the collector of the emperor's revenues seized on the whole succession. And when his widow, Boadicea, remonstrated against this injustice, she was scourged, without any regard to her sex or quality. The daughters suffered still more brutal usage; the other relations of the late king were seized and kept as slaves; and the whole nation, who had acted the part, and been allowed the title, of faithful allies of the Romans, were exposed to systematic pillage. Such an odious violation of the plainest dictates of common justice, was

sufficient to rouse all the vindictive passions of the most inert savage, and to stimulate the cowardly to the most desperate exertions, as affording the only hope of escaping the insults and the oppression which they saw that neither submission nor fidelity could avert. But besides these general inducements for hatred of, and resistance to, the Roman yoke, the whole system of ancient warfare was one of unchecked aggression on private rights, and indulgence in cruelty; so that every individual of the conquered people had his personal wrongs to revenge. Hence no sooner did Boadicea, escaping from her oppressors, raise the standard of revolt, than the whole British population in the neighbouring districts of the Roman portion of the island, seems to have risen as with one heart in her cause. Scattered divisions of the Roman army were surrounded and murdered. Maldon, Verulam, and London were reduced to ashes; as already Roman rather than British towns. The fury of savages was displayed upon every person of Roman blood, and every supposed friend of the Roman cause, who fell into their hands, without distinction of age or sex; till the heavier debt of cruelty and wickedness was transferred from the Roman to the British army. The force which Suetonius Paullinus could collect was reduced to 10,000 men, whilst the followers of Boadicea had swelled to an amount, which the Roman historians have exaggerated much beyond what can reasonably be believed, but which was sufficient to oblige him to avoid fighting till he had taken a position where he could only be attacked in front. And now the A. D. late horrid cruelties, perpetrated by Boadicea's party on their prisoners, ensured her defeat; having had the effect of convincing every Roman soldier, or ally, that death in the field would be infinitely preferable to surrender. Paullinus' troops were thus compelled to conquer; and their victory, in its turn, was followed by a pitiless slaughter of the

61.

flying Britons, and of their wives and their children, who filled numerous cars in the rear of their army.

Boadicea, in despair, put an end to her own life; and thus deprived her countrymen of a rallying point; whilst Paullinus, as he gradually regained the territory from which the Romans had been driven, or withdrawn, behaved to the unhappy natives with a vindictive severity, which even his ferocious master, Nero, disapproved; as impolitic towards a people whose desperation had lately been found so troublesome. He was, therefore, recalled; and his three next successors seem to have been selected as persons whose milder administration might induce the natives, already within the Roman pale, to submit to the yoke with less reluctance.

A. D.

62.

Whilst these Roman governors were exercising their short-lived power, a far mightier conqueror than they is supposed to have visited Britain, even Paul, the Apostle; the weapons of whose warfare, indeed, were not carnal, but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strong holds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought, to the obedience of Christ *. Perhaps some haughty Roman officer, in power here, might cast his eyes on such an one as Paul the aged was, and seeing nothing but humble poverty in his appearance, and caring for none of those things of which he came to tell, would deem it impossible that his own importance could ever be insulted, by being brought to a comparison with that of one who had wandered thus far to urge what sounded to him as no more than a question of names and words, and of the Jewish law. Yet we have learned to consider all which these proud Romans made their boast, as only given them, that they might be employed as instruments in preparing the world to submit to the

* 2 Cor. x. 4, 5.

A

humble apostles and messengers of Christ. shapeless wall forms the most important part of what now remains of all that the power of Roman governors, or Roman emperors, ever did in Britain; whilst whoever is pre-eminent in sound wisdom hangs in deep and reverential attention on every word which it was given to that despised Jewish wanderer to leave for the instruction of the world; if there be any virtue, if there be any praise amongst us, it is to be found in the imitation of what was learned and received, and heard and seen in him. The souls he has won to Christ in this our island, by his labour, whether present or absent, will form a glorious portion of his crown of rejoicing, in the presence of our Lord, when heaven and earth are passed away. And even then, amidst infirmities, reproaches, necessities, persecutions, and distresses, if these had made him base in outward appearance, to the eye of human pride, was he not the same Paul who had received such transcendant honour from GOD, that the mercy which had thus graciously indulged him, declared it necessary that he should suffer a peculiar infliction, lest he should be exalted above measure, through the abundance of his communications with Him, before whom kings and emperors are but polluted dust? That glory which the world aspires after, he called foolishness, and desired it not; and therefore it is that the learned have been put to considerable difficulty to detect the steps by which his journey to Britain may be traced. For the writer of the Acts of the Apostles told but little of the much that was done; because he only designed to record enough to teach the Church how extraordinary were the powers communicated by the Holy Ghost, after Christ's ascension, and to justify and proclaim the call of the Gentiles; not to gain for himself and his blessed companions, honour from men, by full details of the address, the industry, the patience, the zeal, the love with which they laboured; or the signs, the wonders,

and the mighty deeds they wrought, as ambassadors for Christ, that his abundant grace might, through the thanksgiving of many, redound to the glory of God.

It seems not improbable, that after St. Paul's first imprisonment at Rome, no less than nine years were spent by him in the zealous fulfilment of the high office of Apostle of the Gentiles; which had been peculiarly assigned to him, whom it had pleased Gqd to design from his birth*, and, in due time, to call by his grace, that he might preach Christ among the heathen. In this actively-employed interval, all that we can learn of his proceedings from Scripture is, that he did not return to the East, to visit those churches which he had before planted there. For to them he had said, previous to his imprisonment, speaking as one who foresaw, by inspiration, what he asserted, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more. This should reasonably incline us, amongst the conflicting opinions of writers, who lived when very accurate information was difficult to procure, to believe those who assert that St. Paul then visited Spain, Gaul and Britain. Our assent to this assertion is farther justified by its being known, that during the two years in which Paul dwelt in his own hired house at Rome, and received all that came in unto him, there were two eminent females there, who were very likely to have besought him to have pity on the darkness of the miserable Britons. The name of the one was Pomponia Græcina; of the other Claudia. Pomponia was the wife of that Plautius under whose command the Romans first obtained a permanent footing in Britain; and that she was one of St. Paul's converts may be reasonably inferred, from her narrowly escaping martyrdom, within about a year after his arrival in + Acts xx. 25.

* Gal. i. 15: