torn, torches
in their hands, and, with an horror increased by the perverted softness
of their sex, howled out the same curses and incantations with greater
clamor.[15] Astonished at this sight, the Romans for some time neither
advanced nor returned the darts of the enemy. But at length, rousing
from their trance, and animating each other with the shame of yielding
to the impotence of female and fanatical fury, they found the resistance
by no means proportioned to the horror and solemnity of the
preparations. These overstrained efforts had, as frequently happens,
exhausted the spirits of the men, and stifled that ardor they were
intended to kindle. The Britons were defeated; and Paulinus, pretending
to detest the barbarity of their superstition, in reality from the
cruelty of his own nature, and that he might cut off the occasion of
future disturbances, exercised the most unjustifiable severities on this
unfortunate people. He burned the Druids in their own fires; and that no
retreat might be afforded to that order, their consecrated woods were
everywhere destroyed. Whilst he was occupied in this service, a general
rebellion broke out, which his severity to the Druids served rather to
inflame than allay.

From the manners of the republic a custom had been ingrafted into the
monarchy of Rome altogether unsuitable to that mode of government. In
the time of the Commonwealth, those who lived in a dependent and
cliental relation on the great men used frequently to show marks of
their acknowledgment by considerable bequests at their death. But when
all the scattered powers of that state became united in the emperor,
these legacies followed the general current, and flowed in upon the
common patron. In the will of every considerable person he inherited
with the children and relations, and such devises formed no
inconsiderable part of his revenue: a monstrous practice, which let an
absolute sovereign into all the private concerns of his subjects, and
which, by giving the prince a prospect of one day sharing in all the
great estates, whenever he was urged by avarice or necessity, naturally
pointed out a resource by an anticipation always in his power. This
practice extended into the provinces. A king of the Iceni[16] had
devised a considerable part of his substance to the emperor. But the
Roman procurator, not satisfied with entering into his master's portion,
seized upon the rest,--and pursuing his injustice to the most horribl