progress was greatly assisted by the mercantile spirit of its citizens, whose faculties were developed and enlarged by constant and familiar intercourse with other nations. Its navigators possessed all the skill and activity of their Phœnician ancestors. Their vessels were seen on the western coast of Africa, in the Euxine, in the Baltic, in the distant fjords of Norway. Their factories and their agents were established in Germany and Britain. Their internal trade was most extensive and important. They traversed the course of the Rhone and the Loire from their sources to the sea. Every tribe in communication with those waterways paid tribute to their shrewdness and shared the benefits of their experience. The Greek language was familiar to the inhabitants of Gaul; it was even adopted and used by the Druidical priesthood, and eventually became the general medium of commercial and social intercourse. The dark and cruel superstitions and legends of the country were supplanted by the elegant and graceful fictions of Paganism; by the songs, the dances, the floral games, the pomp of sacrifice, the joyous festivals, which characterized the religious ceremonials of Greece and Italy. The existence of such conditions could not fail to exert a marked effect upon the minds of a people, barbarous indeed, yet highly susceptible to impressions which appealed equally to its imagination and its interest. Narbonnese Gaul, under the emperors, maintained the literary and artistic pre-eminence which had, from time immemorial, distinguished it among the provinces of Western Europe. The most copious, elegant, and euphonic of languages was still spoken throughout the various municipalities that formerly acknowledged the jurisdiction of the Massilian Republic. The capital was especially renowned for its philosophers and physicians; for its patronage of letters; for the refinement of its society; and for the number and excellence of its educational institutions, which, in the estimation of many distinguished Romans, took precedence of the schools of Greece. Imperial favor bestowed upon the Narbonnese province monuments whose perfection was eminently worthy of the taste and splendor of the Augustan age. Its cities were adorned with beautiful temples, porticos, and theatres. In the gardens were peristyles of precious marble, mosaic pavements, superb fountains, vases filled with flowers, and statues of gilded bronze. Sumptuous baths administered to the luxury of the populace. In the circus, the chariot race displayed a pomp but little inferior to that exhibited by the imperial spectacles of Rome. Aqueducts of colossal dimensions brought, for a distance of many leagues, the water demanded by the requirements of an immense population. In no portion of the Roman world have such a variety of the architectural memorials of classic elegance survived as in the district of Provence and Languedoc. From the magnificent ruins that