%


14  ORIOm  OF  TEE  ENGLISH  [Chap. B

remote  period,  perhaps  long  anterior  to  the  invasion  of  Julius  Ca;sar;
and  even  in  those  parts  of  the  country  which  have  been  successively
occupied  by  very  different  races,  many  appellations  of  pure  Celtic;
antiquity  have  survived  the  inundations  of  new  peoples,  and  may  still
be  marked,  like  some  venerable  Druidical  cromlech,  standing  in  hoar
mysterious  age  in  the  midst  of  a  more  recent  civilization. Thus  the-
termination  "  don  "  is  in  some  instances  the  Celtic  word  "  dun,"  a  rock
or  natural  fortress. Again,  the  termination  '■^caster"  or  '■^Chester"  is
unquestionably  a  monument  of  the  Roman  occupation  of  the  island,
indicating  the  spot  of  a  Roman  "  castrum  "  or  fortified  post.*

§  4. The  true  foundations  of  the  English  laws,  language,  and
national  character  were  laid,  between  the  middle  of  the  fifth  and  the
middle  of  the  six  centuries,  deep  in  the  solid  granite  of  Teutonic  an-
tiquity. The  piratical  adventurers  whom  the  old  German  passion  for
plunder  and  glory,  and  also,  perhaps,  the  entreaties  of  the  "  miserable
Britons,"  allured  across  the  North  Sea  from  the  bleak  shores  of  their
native  Jutland,  Schleswig,  Holstein,  and  the  coasts  of  the  Baltic,  were
the  most  fearless  navigators  and  the  most  redoubted  sea-kings  of  those
ages. On  their  arrival  in  Britain,  concerning  which  the  early  chron-
icles are  filled  with  vague  and  picturesque  legends,  like  that  of  Hengist
and  Horsa,  these  rovers  were  in  every  respect  savages,  though  their
rugged  energetic  Teuton  nature,  so  admirably  sketched  by  Tacitus  at
a  preceding  period,  offered  a  rich  and  fertile  soil  capable  of  being
developed  by  Christianity  and  civilization  into  a  noble  type  of  national
character. Successive  bands  of  the  same  race,  attracted  by  the  reports
of  their  predecessors  respecting  the  superiority  of  the  new  settlement
over  their  own  barren  and  perhaps  over-peopled  father-land,  gradually
established  themselves  in  those  parts  of  Britain  which  the  Romans
had  occupied  before  them. But  the  same  causes  which  j>:Bvented  the
Romans  from  penetrating  into  the  mountainous  districts  of  Wales  and
Scotland,  continued  to  exclude  the  Saxons  also  from  those  inaccessible
fastnesses. 