Daily national Democrat., 1859-01-20
He continues {:

There he is fat, and therto tender,
And my men be lean and slender"
We might easily carry on this comparison in
definitely, but perhaps il is well not TO destroy
altogether the charm that hangs around the "mys-
| ferrous past and our "uOble ancestry, by bring
! ing it into too familiar association with modern
! huts and novels, dogs and vermin, and the other
accompaniments of "sauvagerie."
We may as well take up the thread of the
discourse, where our contemporary leaves off,
and follow it little farther, for the benefit
of the class Of persons alluded to in the open.
ing of this article First, in regard to "our
noble British ancestry" Macaulay says, spea.
king of Britain, "Her inhabitants, when first
they became known to the Tyrian mariners
were little superior t. the natives of the
Sandwich Islands," Little superior to the ma
tires Of the Sdndpich Islands Other histori
ans tell us about their living ia rude novels
and their being clad in the skins of wolves
and foxes. A murderous, revengeful and
bloodthirsty set they were--as much so as
the most ferocious tribe of Indians that ever
held their midnight orgies around the pole
dripping with the freshly torn scalps of their
enemies. As the English and their American
descendants conquered the Indian tribes of
New England, so did the Romans conquer
the Britons and had the Roman Empire con.
tinued to flourish the Brions would, in all
probability, have shared the fate of other
barbarous nations conquered by the Romans,
and been treated with that contempt which
the refined and highly polished Roman con
querors invariably felt for the barbarous
races brought under their sutjecton
1t is curious to observe with what ineffable
contempt the present proud and vaunted
AngloSaxon race was regarded by their con
querors, on the other hand, from Normandy,
who held themNfor so long time in SO COM
plete a subsection. Whenever a Norman gen
tleman wished to give his countryman the
bitterest of insults, he had only to say to him.
"Why, you are no better than an English
man p If he did not resent that insult, he
was not to be reached with words Macau.
lay relates that, one of the Norman rulers. in
order to win the hearts of his English sub
jects, espoused an English princess But"
he adds, "by many of his Larons this mar
riage was regarded as a marriage between
white planter and quadroon girl would now
be regarded in Virginia"
The Anglo-Saxons were at this time not
much more than mere tenants-at-will on
their own soil, or vilIiens appurtendnt to the
land which was owned by the Norman Bar
ons, and were, consequently, treated, for the
most part, as the veriest of menials and in
feriors. 1t was but an accident in the tides
and changes of Europe, that ever released
the Anglo-Saxons from their intolerable
bondage In this connection, Macauley says;
"Had the Pantagenetts, as at one time seemed
likely. succeeded in uniting all France under their
government, it is proba BILE that England would
| never have had an independent existence Her
princes, her lords, her prelates, would have been
men differing in race and language from the arti-
sans and the tillers of the earth. The revenues
| of her great proprietOrS would have been spent in
| festivities and diversions on the banks of the
Seine The noble language of Milton and Burke
would have remained a rustic dialect, without
literature, fixed grammar or fixed Orthogra-
ply, and would have been contemptuously aban-
doned to the use Of Doors"
The noble, fiery hearted IIieand Scotch
"a truly lofty race of men-what were they
in the old, historic days of the past? Brave,
warlike, heroic but, brave, warlike, heroic
as they were, what were the followers of such
men as the eagle plumed chieftain, Lochiel,
the McDonalds and the McIntoshes, but saw
ages Thousands of them, savages of the
very lowest order; dwelling In dirty, smoky
huts, and covered with vermin, as we'll as be.
ing continually affected with the itch and
other cutaneous diseases Frequently their
heads and necks were besmeared all over
with tar, (as the poor Diggers in California
have theirs, for different reason,) as a pro.
lection against the prevailing contagious dis
eases of the skin, arising from their filthy
mode Of life. The men made their wives do
all the hard work, while they lounged in the
shade and took their ease They thought
nothing of stabbing their enemy in the back.
or shooting him down from behind rock or
tree. Deadly feuds were kept up between