foreign to both the British and Roman was introduced into
Britain, so was British blood introduced elsewhere. All the foreign
stations of the British troops are not known; but that there was, at
least, one in each of the following countries is certain--Illyricum,
Egypt, Northern Africa. The history of foreign blood in Britain, and of
British blood in foreign countries are counterpart questions.

The lines of Roman road are the best _data_ for ascertaining the parts
of our island where the mixture of Roman and foreign blood was greatest:
since it is a fair inference that those districts which were the least
accessible were the most Keltic. These are North Wales, Cornwall and
Devonshire, the Wealds of Sussex and Kent, Lincolnshire, and the
district of Craven. On the other hand, the pre-eminently Roman tracts
are--

1. The valleys of the Tyne and Solway, or the line of the wall and
rampart which divided South Britain from North.

2. The valley of the Ouse, or the parts about York.

3, 4. The valleys of the Thames and Severn.

5. Cheshire and South Lancashire.

6. Norfolk and Suffolk.

The Roman blood, then, in Britain seems to have been inconsiderable,
even when we class as Roman everything which was other than British.
That the language, however, was chiefly Latin--more or less
modified--is what we infer from the analogies of Gaul and Spain. The
history, too, of four centuries of civilization and corruption is Roman
also. That there was a bodily evacuation of Britain by the Romans, a
concealment of treasures, and a migration to Gaul, rests upon no
authority earlier than that of the Anglo-Saxon writers, some five
centuries later. The country was rather a theatre for usurpers and
rebels; none of whom can be shewed to have either left the island, or to
have been exterminated by the Anglo-Saxon invasion--an invasion to
which, in a future chapter, an earlier date, and a more gradual
operation than is usually assigned will be attributed.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] Niebuhr's Lectures, p. iii, 312.

[11] Referred to some time between the reigns of Valens and Honorius.

CHAPTER VII.

VALUE OF THE EARLY BRITISH RECORDS.--TRUE AND GENUINE TRADITIONS
RARE.--GILDAS.--BEDA.--NENNIUS.--ANNALES CAMBRENSES.--DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN CHRONICLES AND REGISTERS.--ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.--IRISH
ANNALS.--VALUE OF THE ACCOUNTS OF THE FIFTH AND SIXTH
CENTURIES.--QUESTIONS TO WHICH THEY APPLY.

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