tinax, Carus, Probus, the second Claudius, Aurelian,
and our own Constantius; and he denies, with abusive violence, the
power for good, of Roman Law, over the Gauls and Britons.

Respecting Roman national character, I will simply beg you to
remember, that both St. Benedict and St. Gregory are Roman patricians,
before they are either monk or pope; respecting its influence on
Britain, I think you may rest content with Shakespeare's estimate of
it. Both Lear and Cymbeline belong to this time, so difficult to our
apprehension, when the Briton accepted both Roman laws and Roman gods.
There is indeed the born Kentish gentleman's protest against them in
Kent's--

"Now, by Apollo, king,
Thou swear'st thy gods in vain";

but both Cordelia and Imogen are just as thoroughly Roman ladies, as
Virgilia or Calphurnia.

Of British Christianity and the Arthurian Legends, I shall have a word
or two to say in my lecture on "Fancy," in connection with the similar
romance which surrounds Theodoric and Charlemagne: only the worst of
it is, that while both Dietrich and Karl are themselves more wonderful
than the legends of them, Arthur fades into intangible vision:--this
much, however, remains to this day, of Arthurian blood in us, that
the richest fighting element in the British army and navy is British
native,--that is to say, Highlander, Irish, Welsh, and Cornish.

Content, therefore, (means being now given you for filling gaps,)
with the estimates given you in the preceding lecture of the sources
of instruction possessed by the Saxon capital, I pursue to-day our
question originally proposed, what London might have been by this
time, if the nature of the flowers, trees, and children, born at the
Thames-side, had been rightly understood and cultivated.

Many of my hearers can imagine far better than I, the look that London
must have had in Alfred's and Canute's days.[3] I have not, indeed,
the least idea myself what its buildings were like, but certainly
the groups of its shipping must have been superb; small, but
entirely seaworthy vessels, manned by the best seamen in the then
world. Of course, now, at Chatham and Portsmouth we have our
ironclads,--extremely beautiful and beautifully manageable things, no
doubt--to set against this Saxon and Danish shipping; but the Saxon
war-ships lay here at London shore--bright with banner and shield
and dragon prow,--instead of these you may be happier, but are not
handsomer, in