Such was the state of things in the year 55 B. C., when Cæsar first crossed the British channel from Calais, and made his descent on Britain. As he approached the cliffs of Dover and Deal, he saw them crowded with armed men, and therefore stood northward and entered Pegwell bay. He was obliged, however, to land in the face of the natives, who had watched his motions, and were here ready to receive him. They filled the air with their hostile arrows; they approached the water’s edge, and rushing into the waves, met and struggled furiously with the Roman soldiers in the sea. But their courage and strength were vain; Roman discipline prevailed, and Cæsar made good his landing. This first attack was followed by other expeditions, and Rome, having taken possession of the island, held it for nearly five hundred years. During this long period, the manners of the Britons were greatly changed. The arts of Rome were adopted in the country; towns and cities were built; Christianity was introduced; and civilization, to a certain extent, was spread over the island. Thus the original Celtic Britons became mixed with the Romans, and were partially Romanized. But the Roman empire at last became weakened, and tottered to its fall. The Roman soldiers were called home for the defence of the capital, and Britain was once more left to herself. The Romans quitted England about the year 410, and for a time, the Britons continued in a feverish state of independence, divided into small republics. But soon these became subject to ambitious leaders, who involved the people in repeated struggles. Constant inroads were also made by the Scots and Picts from the north. To aid in defending the people from these, fifteen hundred Saxons, who came accidentally to the coast from Sweden and Norway, were employed by a British chief named Vortigern. In a few years more Saxons arrived, and in about one hundred and fifty years the whole island was subjected to these intruders. The Britons fought bravely for their liberties, but they were divided among themselves, and were sacrificed piece-meal by the hordes of Saxons that came like successive waves to overspread the country. The Saxons, though a brave and warlike race, were savage and cruel in the extreme. They drove such of the Britons as resisted to the mountains of Cornwall and Wales, and the adjacent islands, making slaves of those who submitted. Thus they established their dominion, and became not only the ruling people in the country, but the stock which was to give a distinctive character to the nation ever after. They were a mixture of Angles, Picts, and Saxons, and were, taken together, called Anglo-Saxons. It is from this race, chiefly, that the English people, as well as ourselves, derive existence. [Illustration: _Anglo-Saxons._]