Britain's Historical Drama; A Series of National Tragedies, Intended to Illustrate the Manners, Customs, and Religious Institutions of Different Early Eras in Britain (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: NOTES. (1) The paragon of men. .. p. 6. ' The Britons were taller than the Gauls, but not so strong. The young Britons, whom Strabo saw at Rome, were higher by half a foot than the tallest man there. ' The Silures are mentioned with ruddy cheeks and curled hair.' ?Anglo Saxons, vol. i. ' The ancient Britons were a tall finely-proportioned race, and the women fair, and of exceeding good features. Plutarch says, the strength of nature wrought long in the Britons, for they sometimes lived to the age of one hundred and twenty years.'?Speed, book v. Nature seems to have been no less liberal to the Celtic nations, and in particular to the Gauls and Britons, in the natural powers and faculties of their minds, than in the formation of their bodies. The Gauls are represented by all the ancient authors who speak of them, as an acute and ingenious people, very capable of acquiring any art or science to which they applied. But the Britons were declared by one who was well acquainted with both nations to be still more acute than the Gauls; and to have had a happier genius for the acquisition of the sciences. And truly the imaginations of a people who delighted so much in poetry as the ancient Britons, and who courted the Muses with so much ardour, and (if we may judge from their few remains) with so much success, must have been very warm and lively.'?Henry's England, p. 440. (2) And fearlessly the death of heroes die ! .. p. 11. ' The boldness and intrepidity of the ancient Gauls and Britons were sogreat, that they despised even death itself in its most frightful forms.'?Henry's England. (3) The eloquence of gods. . . p. 20. Cineas, sent by Pyrrhus as an ambassador to the Romans, declared that the senate appeared a reverend assembly of demigods. ' Majestate etiam...