New-York tribune., 1882-02-19

same language, rather closely hhureu
languages, and bad the same, or very
slmi ar. laws and customs, they had
no bond of political union, indeed no semblance OF
it or pretence to it: and although they were All
bent on winning lard for themselves in the same
country, each leader and each band preferred an
Independent course of active hghtlng on MS own
hook TO a united enterprise
For this reason among Others, their conquest was
comparatively slow. Chief of the Others was the
srubbornncss of the defence to which Mr. Green
calls special attention. In Britain he says the III
vader was met by a courage and tcnacity almost
enual 10 his own So far as we can follow the
meagre record of the conquerors or trace their ad
vance by the dikes and ruins 1t left behind IL,
every inch of ground seems TO have been lought
for. Field by field, town by town. fore st
by forest the land was won; and as
cach bit of ground was torn away from
rs defenders the beaten men sullenly drew back
from it 10 ;ight for the next This resistance was
aided by the nature of the country, which, by Its
fcns and marshes and vast unbroken forests inter-
posed great obstacles to the advance OF
isolated bands of rude invaders. But
vcor after wear this bloody struggle
went on and notwithstanding the bravery of the
Briton fighting for home and freside and wife and
child year after year tho advance Of the savage
" here he had we'll established himself. And where
he settled he ruled alone; there were no conquered
Britpns around him. Mr.. Green. however, Is OF the
opinion and we think with reason that the Brltons
were not exterminated by the men who took
their place. but that they were merely
driven back. Slaughter" he says, no DOUBT
there was on the battlefield, or in towns IKE An
derida, whose long defence woke wrath III their
hesegers; but for the most part the Brtons cannot
have been slaughtered; they were simply defeated
and driven back"
Mr. Green, however insists strongly upon the IacU
Of the total and absolute displacement of the
Britons from every place wh're Jute or Saxon or
Angle got foothold In this he differs widely from
some modern historians of this period-writers
chiefly of strong Celtic sympathics-who MAINTAIN
that there must have been remnant OF the BIltons
around their old hOnes,and consequent adinlNture
of the races But Oh this point. too Mr. Green seems
TO be right the conquest was an absolute dlSpoS-
sion of the conquercdpeople who fell upon the hcld
or were driven of together in hodv. Demurring
to Mr. Green's use of the word Englishman in re-
gard TO this PERIOD think that he puts the case
rightly and clearly when he says: " But almost to
the close of the sixth century the English conquest
Of Britain was sheer dspossession of the conquered
people; and so far as the English sword in these
earlier days reached. Bri ain became Engand-a
nl,
His reasons for this decision briefly these Be
fore The oppearance of the scandinavian and Low
Dutch invaders there was a long and well cs-
tablished Roman-Brtsh civilization IN the island,
and one of rather high grade. as Is known oy eX-
isting record and monuments AS the invaders
advanced all this was wholly changed. Where
.Jute or Saxon or Angle dwet tine country
showed no sign of British or Roman
lie at all. The tradition both of conquerors
and conquered is that among the English ere were
no Brltons TO GildaS, the British historian OF tins
period as to his cOumlrymen the land OF the Enghsh-
men (although formerly their own is a foreign
land, aud its people is foreign people Inc very
names of the towns and hanets are changed; the
yiU and the city have vanished, and in their stead
we find the tn, and the ham, and the thorpe of the
new settlers. The names even of the men and
women of the two races Go not minge' In Bede
British or Roman names do not appear except as
those of men in parts of the country free from Eng
lish rule; but amid the hundreds of men and
women whom he records as living and acting III the
new England, there is not one whose name Is
not almost certainly English" The sgnii-
canoe of this fact is the stronger because there
were then no surnames or family names; men ana
women were called by some name given from fancy
or which was descriptive, and each had but one.
The evidence of language Is strongly IN the same d.
although even as household slaves or husband
men. there would surely have been many traces of
their presence left in the speech of the country
where they dwet There is 40 such evidence. The
words of Celtic origin in English use are so few
that. as bows say they don't count; and this is
even more strikingy true of the early English than
Of the later For example, ii is only within the last
three hundred years that the Saxon mdand has been
wholly displaced by the British basket Finally,
as CONQUEST passed over the country, the towns
of Roman Britain, populOus towns, in which there
were large and richly adorned mansions, sank
into mere ruins from which condition some oi them
never arose but actually disappeared from the lace
o. the country OF these few have been Lately un-
eaIthed; but the very sites OF others, which we
know existed. still remain undiscovered. There is
no doubt of it such clean sweep was never made
by conquerors before or since; men, women, chill
dren, houses temples religion, language the very
names of their dwelling places were not left behind
them by the vanqushed.
The Britons retrca ed doggedly before their saw
oce foes hiding haunting forest and fen which af-
forded them rude and gloomy protection, by max
ing pursuit by strangers almost impossible But the
British according to Mr.. Green. were driven back
again into their prehistoric condition of cave-dwel-
ers Our readers will need no apology from us for
the duotation in full of this passage, which descrb
one consequence of successful advance OF the
Enge in the North:
of history tells us nothing of the victories that
1oid +his Great district at the feet of its con-
nncrors the spade 81 the archeologist has done
somewhat to reveal the rum and misery of the con-
guered people. The caves OF the yorkshire moor
lands nreslrve traces Of the miserable fugitivcs who
ded 10 them for shelter Such cave opens on the
side of a lonely ravine known now as the Kings
Scaur, high no in the mooTs beside Settle. IN
nrimevaI ages it had been haunt of hyenas. who
dragged thither the mmoths the reindeer the
bsons. and the bears that prowled Ill tn,
ucipbboring glens. At "a later time il
became a home of savages whose stone adzcs
and flint knives and bone harpoons are still en-
brdded in its floor. But these, too, vanished III
their turn, and this haunt of prlmitiyc man lay