Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/12



HE 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 terrour to their enemies. In their religion they were heathens, as all the world was before, except the Jews.

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 Cæsar, first Roman emperor, having conquered Gaul or France, invaded Britain, rather to increase his glory than conquests; for, having overcome them in one or two battles, he returned.

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 3