would stand still by themselves in all the din and noise of battle while their masters went to fight on foot the could not have succeeded in their most remarkable art without the aid of these sensible and animals the art i mean is the construction and management of or cars for which they have ever been celebrated in history each of the best sort of these not quite breast high in front and open at the back contained one man to drive and two or three others to fight � all standing up the horses who drew them were so well trained that they would tear at gallop over the most stony ways and even through the woods dashing down their masters enemies beneath their hoofs and cutting them to pieces with the blades of swords or ancient england and the which were fastened to the wheels and stretched out beyond the car on each side for that cruel purpose in a moment while at full speed the horses would stop at the driver s command the men within would leap out deal blows about them � their like hail leap on the on the pole spring back into the anyhow and as soon as they were safe the horses tore away again the had a strange and terrible religion called the religion of the it seems to have been brought over in very early times indeed from the opposite country of france called and to have mixed up the worship of the serpent and of the sun and moon with the worship of some of the heathen and most of its ceremonies were kept secret by the priests the who pretended to be and who carried and wore each of them about his neck what he told the ignorant people was a serpent s egg in a golden case but it is certain that the included the sacrifice of human victims the torture of some suspected and on particular occasions even the burning alive in immense of a number of men and animals together the priests had some kind of veneration for the oak and for the � the same plant that we hang up in houses at christmas time now � when its white grew upon the oak they met together in dark woods which they called sacred groves and there they instructed in their mysterious arts young men who came to them as pupils and who sometimes staid with them as long as twenty years vol i � b a child s history df england these built great and open to the sky of which some are yet remaining on plain in is the most extraordinary of these three curious stones called house on near in form another we know from examination of the great blocks of which such buildings are made that they could not have been raised without the aid of some ingenious machines which are common now but which the ancient certainly did not use in making their own uncomfortable houses i should not wonder if the and their pupils who staid twenty years knowing more than the rest of the kept the people out of sight while they made these buildings and then pretended that they built them by magic perhaps they had a hand in the fi too at all events as they were very powerful and very much believed in and as they made and executed the laws and paid ho taxes i don t wonder that they liked their trade and as they persuaded the people that the more there were the better off the people would be i don t wonder that there were a good many of them but it is pleasant to think that there are no who go on in that way and pretend to carry and eggs � and of course th re is nothing of the kind any where such was the improved condition of the ancient fifty five years before the birth of our when the under their great general were masters of all the rest of the known world had then just conquer ancient england and tbe ed and in a good deal about the opposite island with the white and about the bravery of the who inhabited it � some of whom had been fetched over to help the in the war against him � he resolved as he was so near to come and conquer britain next so came over to this island of ours with eighty vessels and twelve thousand men and he came firom the french coast between and because thence was the shortest passage into britain just for the same reason as our now take the same track every day he expected to conquer britain easily but it was not easy work as he supposed � for the bold fought most bravely and what with not having his horse soldiers with him for they had been driven back by a storm and what with having some of his vessels dashed to pieces by a high tide after they were drawn ashore he ran great risk of being defeated however for once that the bold beat him he beat them twice though not so soundly but that he was very glad to accept their proposals of peace and go away but in the spring of the next year he came back this time with eight hundred vessels and thirty thousand men the british tribes chose as their general in chief d whom the in their latin language called but whose british name is to have been a brave general he was and well he and his soldiers fought the army so well that whenever in that war the roman soldiers saw a great cloud of dust and heard the rattle of the rapid british a child s history of england they trembled in their hearts besides a number of smaller battles there was a battle fought near 