In many cases indeed the Roman cities were allowed to decay: the forest resumed its rights: the feudal castle was constructed from the ruins of the Proconsul’s palace and the Basilica, or if these edifices were too massive for demolition, they were left standing in the waste—the Mammoths and Saurians of a bygone civilization. The great Viæ were for leagues overgrown with herbage, or concealed by wood and morass; and for the direct arms of transit which bound Rome and York together as by the cord of a bow, were substituted the devious and inconvenient highways, which led the traveller by circuitous routes from one province to another. The contrast indeed between the ‘Old Road and the New’ is represented in Schiller’s fine image—rendered even finer in Coleridge’s translation:— “Straight forward goes The lightning’s path, and straight the fearful path Of the cannon ball. Direct it flies, and rapid, Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches. My son! the road the human being travels, That on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow The river’s course, the valley’s playful windings, Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines, Honouring the holy bounds of property: And thus secure, though late, leads to its end.” It was long however before much security was found on the new roads. In the dark ages the days described by Deborah the prophetess had returned. “The highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through bye-ways: the villages were deserted. Then was war in the gates, and noise of the archers in the places of drawing water.” Danger and delay were often the companions of the traveller. Occasionally a vigorous ruler, like Alfred, succeeded in restoring security to the wayfarer, and proved his success (so said the legend) by hanging up, in defiance of the plunderer, golden armlets on crosses by the roadside. But these intervals of safety were few and far between, and the traveller journeyed, like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, “in fear and dread,” “Because he knew a fearful fiend Did close behind him tread.”