THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

LECTURE I.-PRE-HISTORIC ENGLAND.

Pre-historic England and its inhabitants. The paleolithic period-ran and the contemporary animals. The neolithic period. The bronze period.

1. We all love our country dearly; and though, perhaps, we hardly know why, we feel proud of being English men and women. Sometimes we may be inclined to feel a little too proud of it, and to think ourselves a great deal better than the rest of the world; but without boasting, we have some ground for honest pride; without boasting, we may truly say that the English are free, brave, kindly, and just. Our country is beautiful and fertile; our houses are full of comforts; our shelves filled with noble books; our children gathered into happy schools; our sick into splendid hospitals. Our language is spoken over immense tracts of the earth's surface; our ships are in every harbour; and wherever we have power and influence we strive, in the main, "to break oppression, and set the captive free." There are many things we still wish to amend, many things we have to blush for; but on the whole we have cause to be proud of our country and our

name.

2. How did we come to be what we are?

That is what the history of England teaches us; and surely every son and daughter of England ought to know something about it.

3. Now when we are taught history, as, indeed, when we are told anything, we have a good right to ask, "Is it true?" "How do you know?" We generally consider that the very best reason we can have for being sure of anything is the evidence of our own eyes and senses. And this is certainly a very good ground of belief; though, perhaps, a still better one is the evidence of the

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eyes and senses of a wise and sensible observer, more experienced than ourselves. Of things which happened a long while ago we cannot have the evidence of our own eyesight; but we may have that of other men. If we get a sensible book or letter, written by a person on the spot when the thing happened, and there is nothing very improbable or unreasonable in the thing itself (even if that was hundreds of years ago), it is a very good reason for believing it. And the first written statement we have about our country is of that kind.

4. We are not concerned with that at present; but throughout these lectures, the grounds on which we believe the statements made, shall be explained, and if possible, the very words of the man who first told the tale, quoted. But this first lecture is occupied with matters which were not written down by any one living at the time, nor for thousands of years after; yet for all that the facts are true, and the proofs will appear as we go on. When Robinson Crusoe saw the foot-print in the sand, he did not want a book or a letter to tell him "there has been a man here." 5. Our History of England shall begin with an account of the very first men we know of who lived here. Strange as it may sound, at that time there were no British Isles at The first all. England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland were all joined on to the mainland of Europe. (See map.) It is clear from the enormous quantities of ice we see in this map that it must have been much colder then than it is now. But though we have now no snowy mountains and no glaciers, England is in the same latitudes as Labrador, which is now as cold as Greenland and Iceland; and it is well known to physical geographers, that England was formerly in a somewhat similar condition.

period.

The animals.

6. In spite of the cold, there were a very great number of animals living in England at that time, which it would surprise us very much to find anywhere now out of the Zoological Gardens. There were two kinds of elephants; two kinds of rhinoceroses; lions larger than those now living in Asia and Africa; bears equal in size to large horses; huge hyænas, hippopotamuses, bisons, reindeer; very large stags and elks, besides many other smaller animals. Here you have a good right to ask the question, "How do you know?" The answer is that in a great many parts of England, in very old caves, and buried in very old gravel, the bones, horns, teeth, and tusks of these creatures have been found in large numbers. Learned men can tell one animal's bone or tooth from another as well as

Shaded area Land now submerged; Dotted area Region occupied by animals; Plain area = Region

occupied by Glaciers.

we can tell the live creatures from each other. proof as Robinson Crusoe's footprint.

That is as good

7. This seems to prove very clearly that England could not have been an island then. For how would all these great creatures have got over the sea? They could not have swum so far; and it is certain, even if men had come across in boats, they would not have wanted to bring these fierce wild beasts with them. Another thing is, that in many parts of the sea, between England and the Continent, fishermen are frequently dredging up bones and teeth of the same animals, which had lived and died in those parts when they were still dry land. And the same sorts of bones, tusks, &c., are found in great numbers on the mainland opposite to England. The sea is not very deep in any part of the German Ocean, and it is known by other proofs that sometimes land rises above the sea, and sometimes sinks below it.

8. Now amongst all these great, fierce, and strong animals, there was another remarkable animal living, much smaller than the lions and elephants, and apparently very helpless. The lions had enormous strength in claws and teeth; this poor creature had no claws, and very small teeth. The elephant and rhinoceros could crush an enemy with their weight; the elephant has also huge tusks. The hyæna had wonderfully powerful jaws. We all know about a 66 bear's hug." This poor thing had no tusks nor great heavy limbs. The bisons and elks had horns; this creature had none. Then, for the cold climate, many of the animals, even the elephants and rhinoceroses, had woolly or furry coats or manes. This creature had a bare skin, with no fur, no wool, and very little hair.

9. Which of all these creatures was likely to be crushed, devoured, and stamped out first?

Yet that very one is living, triumphant lord and master; and where are the lions and elephants, the bears and the hyænas? Gone for ever, every one of them; at any rate out of England, of them out of the whole world.

but many

10. And now, how could this be, which is as wonderful as any fact in history, perhaps the most wonderful of all? That poor defenceless creature, though he had no horns Man. nor claws, had what none of the others had--a mar

vellous power of thought and a marvellous power of improvement. No other animal could come near him in that. And by that by thought and by intelligence-he subdued or survived all the others. Set in the midst of all these fierce enemies, and so helpless, he thought of what no brute has ever in the world