stock asserts itself. The State
is young; but the race is precisely of the same remoteness as Britain
and the Greater Britain.

Passing to the second point--at what epoch do we now stand as compared
with Rome or Islam? It is not unusual to speak of Britain as an aged
empire, but such estimates or descriptions commonly rest upon a
misapprehension, first, of the period in which the Nation of England
strictly speaking arises, and secondly, of the period in which the
Empire of Britain arises.

The traditional date of the landing of Hengist does not indicate a
moment analogous to the moment in the history of Rome marked by the
traditional date of the foundation of the city. The date 776 B.C.
marks the close of a process of transformation and slow revolving unity
extending over centuries, so that the era of Romulus and the early
kings, Numa, Ancus, and Servius, may be regarded as an epoch in Rome's
history analogous to the period in England's history between Senlac and
the constitutional struggle of the thirteenth century. The former is
the period in which the civic unity of Rome is completed. The latter
is the period in which the national unity of England is completed.
Rome is now finally conscious to itself of its career as a city, _urbs
Roma_, as England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is finally
conscious to itself of its career as a nation. Magna Carta and the
constitutional struggle which followed may be said to determine the
course of the national and political life of England as much as the
Servian Code founded the civic unity and determined the character of
the constitutional life of Rome.

And, as was pointed out in an earlier lecture, already in Rome and in
England there are premonitions, foreshadowings of the future. The
design of the city on the seven hills is the design of the eternal
city, and the devotion of the _gens Fabia_ announces the Roman legion.
And in those wars of Crecy and Poitiers, the constancy, the dauntless
heart, and the steady hand of the English archers, which broke the
chivalry of France, what is it but the constancy of Waterloo, the
squares, the charge, the Duke's words, spoken quietly as the words of
fate, decreeing an empire's fall, "Stand up, Guards!"? And in 1381,
the tramp of the feet of the hurrying peasants, sons and grandsons of
the archers of Crecy, in the great Revolt, indignant at ingratitude and
wrong, what is it but the prelude to the supremacy of the People