We all loved you, as possessed of every quality that could adorn an English gentleman, and esteemed you as a faithful subject to your prince, and an able negotiator; neither shall any reverse of fortune have power to lessen you either in my friendship or esteem: and I must take leave to assure you further, that my affection towards persons hath not been at all diminished by the frown of power upon them.

Those whom you and I once thought great and good men, continue still so in my eyes and my heart; only with a * * * * * * _Caetera desiderantur_.
[Footnote 3: The author was then in his fifty-second year.

[D.S.]] AN ABSTRACT OF THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, FROM THE INVASION OF IT BY JULIUS CAESAR TO WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.
Britons.
Heathens.
The most ancient account we have of Britain is, that the island was full of inhabitants, divided into several petty kingdoms, as most nations of the world appear to have been at first.

The bodies of the Britons were painted with a sky-coloured blue, either as an ornament or else for terror to their enemies.

In their religion they were heathens, as all the world was before Christ, except the Jews.
Druids.
Their priests were called Druids: These lived in hollow trees, and committed not their mysteries to writing, but delivered them down by tradition, whereby they were in time wholly lost.
The Britons had wives in common, so many to a particular tribe or society, and the children were in common to that society.
About fifty years before Christ, Julius Caesar, the first Roman Emperor, having conquered Gaul or France, invaded Britain rather to increase his glory than conquests; for having overcome the natives in one or two battles, he returned.
Claudius.
Nero.
The next invasion of Britain by the Romans (then masters of most of the known world) was in the reign of the Emperor Claudius; but it was not wholly subdued till that of Nero.