But Britain had still a few sons left, worthy of the names which their brave forefathers bore; the blood of Boadicea still flowed in their veins; it might have been thinned by the luxury of the Roman bath, and deadened by long inactivity, but though it only ran sluggishly, it was still the same as had roused the strong hearts of Cassivellaunus and Caractacus when the Roman trumpets brayed defiance at the gates of their forest cities. There was still liberty or death left to struggle for; the Roman freedom they threw down in disdain, and trampled upon the solemn mockery; and when they once cast off this poisoned garment, they arose like men inspired with a new life; they seemed to look about as if suddenly aroused from some despairing dream--as if astonished to hear their old island waves rolling upon a beach unploughed by the keel of a Roman galley--as if wondering that they had not before broken through those circumscribed lines, and forts, and ramparts, while they were yet guarded with the few Roman sentinels; they saw the sunshine streaming upon their broad meadows, and old forests, and green hills, and tall pale-faced cliffs, turning to gold every ripple that came from afar to embrace the sparkling sands of the white beach, and they felt that such a beautiful country was never intended to become the home of slaves. They shed a few natural tears when they remembered how many of their sons and daughters had been borne over those billows in the gilded galleys of the invaders; they recalled the faces they had seen depart for ever over the lessening waves; the mother weeping over her son; the manacled father, whose "eyes burnt and throbbed, but had no tears;" the pale-cheeked British maidens, who sat with their faces buried in their hands, as, amid the distant sound of Roman music, their lovers were hurried away to leave their bones bleaching upon some foreign shore; and they would have fallen down and prostrated themselves upon the ground for very sorrow, had not the thunder of their northern invaders rung with a startling sound upon their ears, and they felt thankful that much work yet remained to be done, and that they were now left to fight their own battles, even as their forefathers had fought, in the dearly remembered days of their ancient glory.