e destructive inroads of the
Scots and Picts required the presence of his youngest son, who reigned
in the Western empire. Constans visited his British dominions: but we
may form some estimate of the importance of his achievements, by the
language of panegyric, which celebrates only his triumph over the
elements or, in other words, the good fortune of a safe and easy passage
from the port of Boulogne to the harbor of Sandwich. The calamities
which the afflicted provincials continued to experience, from foreign
war and domestic tyranny, were aggravated by the feeble and corrupt
administration of the eunuchs of Constantius; and the transient relief
which they might obtain from the virtues of Julian, was soon lost by
the absence and death of their benefactor. The sums of gold and silver,
which had been painfully collected, or liberally transmitted, for
the payment of the troops, were intercepted by the avarice of the
commanders; discharges, or, at least, exemptions, from the military
service, were publicly sold; the distress of the soldiers, who were
injuriously deprived of their legal and scanty subsistence, provoked
them to frequent desertion; the nerves of discipline were relaxed, and
the highways were infested with robbers. The oppression of the good, and
the impunity of the wicked, equally contributed to diffuse through the
island a spirit of discontent and revolt; and every ambitious subject,
every desperate exile, might entertain a reasonable hope of subverting
the weak and distracted government of Britain. The hostile tribes of
the North, who detested the pride and power of the King of the World,
suspended their domestic feuds; and the Barbarians of the land and sea,
the Scots, the Picts, and the Saxons, spread themselves with rapid and
irresistible fury, from the wall of Antoninus to the shores of Kent.
Every production of art and nature, every object of convenience and
luxury, which they were incapable of creating by labor or procuring by
trade, was accumulated in the rich and fruitful province of Britain. A
philosopher may deplore the eternal discords of the human race, but he
will confess, that the desire of spoil is a more rational provocation
than the vanity of conquest. From the age of Constantine to the
Plantagenets, this rapacious spirit continued to instigate the poor and
hardy Caledonians; but the same people, whose generous humanity seems to
inspire the songs of Ossian, was disgraced by a savage ignorance