HISTORIC TALE OF ANCIENT BRITAIN. ple kings and princes at their chariot wheels. This great victory has been gained over Caractacus, the British chief. He is now in Rome, and will shortly be led in triumph. Assemble to the sight, ye citi THIRD SCENE IN THE LIFE OF CLAUDIA. zens, the senate bids you welcome." "Now the Silurian king, Caractacus, The hope of Britain, and her tough right arm, Abash'd the Roman that confronted him. But the wild child of danger and adventure; Swift messengers spread far and wide the intelligence that filled all hearts with gladness; and so thickly thronged were the streets, that scarcely might the soldiers, whose office it was to clear them of all impediments, open a passage sufficiently wide for the procession. It came at length; and though the love of military glory was all absorbing in the public mind, and men rejoiced in whatever tended to exalt the majesty of Rome, not a few regarded, with feelings of deep commiseration, that heroic chieftain, who had so long made head against a great and powerful empire. First came the followers of Caractacus, chiefs, and private men, who had fought bravely in many a battle-field; who had cared neither for toil nor danger; who during nine long years had often endured the extremity of human hardship, when contending with the Romans. Next, as if in mockery of past achievements, were displayed the military accoutrements, the harness and rich collars, which had been gained in various battles. The wife and daughter of Caractacus, supported by his brother, followed; he himself closed the melancholy train. Prisoners of all ranks and ages walked two and two.-British ladies, and half-savage looking women, some leading their children, a few even with infants in their arms; gaunt men, tattooed and clothed in the skins of wild animals, with here and there a chieftain, wearing linen garments woven by the hands of his wife or daughters. Those who observed the countenances of many as they passed, would have seen looks of stern defiance, and that dauntless bearing which often characterizes men of desperate valour and fallen fortunes: some bewildered, without doubt, by the crowding, and unwonted sounds, gave way to abject lamentations; while a few of the "A great victory has been achieved, in youngest women wept bitterly, and wrung no respect inferior to conquests which shed their hands as if in utter hopelessness. immortal glory on the Roman arms; when When the procession began to move, OsPublius Scipio brought Syphax in chains torius ascended his triumphal car, bearing to the imperial city; when Lucius Paulus a large oaken branch, to which was affixed led Perses in captivity; and when other the armour of Caractacus. Soldiers folcommanders exhibited to the Roman peo-lowed in full military equipment, singing That day was one of no ordinary interest. Chariots flashed along the roads; they rushed from the seven hills; they jostled one another in the street; the highways were covered with foot passengers, each one pressing eagerly forward, as if all that was most dear to them depended on the issue of some momentous contest. Rumours had been afloat for two previous days, that the honour of a triumph would be awarded to Ostorius; for the emperor Claudius, willing to magnify the importance of the conquest, bestowed the highest praise on the valour of Caractacus. When, therefore, the day arrived in which the prisoners were to be paraded through the streets of Rome, scarcely had the citizens arisen from their beds, when the loud, clear voice of a herald was heard, proclaiming, in the name of Claudius songs of triumph; and thus went on the long array of prisoners and armed men into the presence of Claudius and Agrippina. "If to the nobility of my birth," said Caractacus, when standing before the tribunal of the emperor, "to the splendour also of exalted station, I had united that attribute of mind, which causes its possessor to look unmoved on the calamities of other men, Rome had beheld me, not a captive, but a royal visitor and friend. Perhaps even the alliance of a prince, descended from an illustrious line of ancestors, a prince whose sway extended over many nations, might not have remained unsought. A verse of fortune is now the lot of Carac tacus; the event to you is glorious-to me humiliating. I had arms, and men, and horses; I had wealth in abundance; can you wonder that I was unwilling to lose them? The ambition of Rome aspires to universal dominion, and must mankind, by consequence, bow their necks without a struggle to the yoke? I stood at bay for many years; had I acted otherwise, where, on your part, had been the glory of conquest; and where, on mine, the honour of a brave resistance? I am now in your power; if you are bent on vengeance, execute your purpose, my humiliation will be soon over, yet the name of Caractacus will not sink into oblivion. Preserve my life, and I shall afford, to the latest posterity, a monument of Roman clemency." Claudius gazed upon the scene before him. Among the men of patrician rank who formed his court, none, perhaps, in manly bearing and native dignity might vie with Caractacus; he remembered, perhaps, his birth-place on the banks of the Danube, and companionship with those whom the British hero brought vividly to his remembrance. Be this as it may, he commanded the fetters of his prisoners to be taken off, and granted them a free pardon. companied by the young barbarian, as some were pleased to call the daughter of Agrippina was seated in great state, on Caractacus, to whom the name of Claudia a lofty tribunal near at hand; the sight was had been given by Agrippina, in comaltogether new. A Roman matron, sta-memoration of the emperor's clemency. tioned amid the ensigns and the armies of Rome, presented a spectacle unknown to the old republic; but in an empire acquired by the valour of her ancestors, the high ambition and political character of Agrippina obtained for her peculiar honours. Caractacus advanced with his wife, his daughter, and his brother, before the tribunal of the empress, where he returned thanks, and proffered the same homage as he had paid the emperor. No mention is made of Bran, the aged father of Caractacus; contemporary historians speak of his having passed the Alps and entered Rome, but it is certain that he did not walk in the procession. Ostorius, without doubt, respected his age, and would not subject him to a public humiliation. Why is it," said a Roman lady one day to the wife of Caius Gracchus, "that so much kindness is shown to the British family? Men of the highest rank call frequently upon that haughty chief; and as to his wife and daughter, they are well received in the first patrician circles; nay, if report says true, the empress herself admits them to frequent interviews. That great lady does not often award her courtesies without some good reason for so doing; and in the present case, an exile family cannot promote one single object which she has in view." 66 "Not so, exactly," replied her friend; 'Agrippina is fond of novelty, she desires to have something new to tell the emperor; and you know how greatly, even in the senate, he has magnified the conquest of Britain. Nothing, therefore, better pleases him than to hear details of the arts and customs of its inhabitants, concerning their war chariots and their arms, and of the different campaigns in which Caractacus has been engaged. Who so well qualified to narrate such warlike deeds as the wife and daughter, who, as I have heard, according to the customs of these barbarians, accompanied him to battle?" Scarcely had the lady finished speaking, when two slaves announced the wife of Galleo, proconsul of Achaia, who had recently arrived in Rome; she was ac The conversation then turned on general topics. In consequence of a recent event, no small surprise was expressed that Claudius should tolerate that strange sect, which, commencing with the humblest of the people, had gradually extended into higher grades, and even included in its members some of Cæsar's household. "Have you heard," said a young officer who had served in Britain under Ostorius, "that even Aristobulus, after all the hardships that he has undergone during his life of turbulent ambition, is inclined to this foreign superstition; that in the household of Narcissus, the ambitious prime minister of Claudius, the ladies of the family are now unwilling to offer sacrifice, as was their wont? During the reign of Maximin and Decius, of Gallus and Valerian, the case was otherwise; then, vigorous decrees went forth, prohibiting the Christians, as they call themselves, from assembling together, and sentencing to death all those who were found refractory, whether patrician or plebeian." Claudia inquired concerning the nature of the superstition to which the company referred. "Why, as to that," said the young officer, "I cannot tell you much, nor in truth do I know any great harm of its votaries, excepting that they will not bow down before the images we all adore. They meet, as I have heard, on a stated day before light, and repeat a hymn about one Jesus, as if he were a god; they then bind themselves by an oath not to commit any kind of wickedness, but on the contrary, to abstain from theft and robbery; and the oath thus taken is well kept, for they are certainly a quiet inoffensive people. Good soldiers, too; I had four or five among my auxiliaries; but, as they would not invoke the gods and the image of the emperor, they were put to death." Claudia shuddered; she remembered the Druidic sacrifices, and the grief which they occasioned to her grandfather. "Who was their founder?" she again inquired. "I cannot tell," was the reply. "I only know that he is called a Saviour' by his followers. This, however,. I know," said the officer, laughing, "that when I was at Jerusalem, the whole city rung with the exploits of two of his disciples, Peter and John, who were said to have cured a lame beggar a man who was carried daily to the gate of the Temple, to ask alms of those who passed. I called on an officer of high rank, who with his daughters was discussing the same fact, and never shall I forget the toss of the head which one of the young ladies gave, nor the contemptuous manner in which she said-'Peter and John, indeed! they used to bring fish to our door."" One day a middle-aged woman crossed the Tiber, and proceeding on the Via Flaminia through the suburbs, entered imperial Rome unnoticed and unattended. She had passed over plains varied with olives, vines, and corn-fields, beside clear streams of classic origin; through groves of ilex and of laurel; pausing at one time to contemplate delightful views of vales and towns, of rivers and of mountains; at another, listening to the songs of innumerable birds, that warbled blithely from amid thickets of laurel and wild roses; and when at length she looked from an eminence on majestic Rome, with her palaces, and statues, her amphitheatres, and idol temples, had any one in passing observed the countenance of that unnoticed stranger, a sudden shade of sadness might have been seen to cloud her brow. But she had no observers, neither patricians nor plebeians heeded the traveller as she went musing on her way: and yet that traveller was guarded well. Phoebe, for such was the stranger's name, had an important mission to fulfil, and was an instrument for effecting it; for we often see that momentous effects result from, apparently, the most unimportant causes. Phoebe had been welcomed joyfully at the dwelling of Priscilla and Aquila, when a persecuting edict had driven them from Italy to seek refuge in the metropolis of Greece. We know not when it was that Claudius repealed his edict, or tolerated its infraction; it is, however, certain, that Priscilla and Aquila returned to Rome; and that St. Paul, who had resided with them, in commending Phoebe to Christians who resided there, requested them not only to receive her with all kindness, but to assist her in whatsoever way her business required, adding that she had been a succourer of many, and of himself also. On that evening Claudia was sitting thoughtfully and alone in the apartment appropriated for her use. The words of the young officer recurred continually to her remembrance; the testimony also which he bore to the inoffensiveness of the people, whom previous emperors refused to tolerate; and above all, deeply did she feel that neither Druidic observances nor yet the imposing rites of Pagan worship, could satisfy that yearning after truth which she had felt from childhood. "Why sits my child thus lonely?" said aged Bran, who came to seek his Claudia. "Let us walk beside the river, and watch the setting of the glorious sun over yonder range of hills." "Oh! my father," replied Claudia, "how fervently do I wish that some bright sun might arise to shine upon the darkness of my understanding; from the moment that you first taught my young mind to desire a purer faith than the one which alone we knew, have I sought with fervent prayer for guidance and instruction. To whom I prayed I knew not; but my ear once listened with intense delight to words that fell from the lips of the Arch-Druid, when, revealing to an aspirant after knowledge somewhat of that wisdom which is concealed from others, he spoke of a Mighty Being by whom all things were made. I heard those words when gathering blackberries in a thickly shaded hollow beside a consecrated grove of oak; and how tremblingly did I crouch among the fern till the sound of retiring steps had died away! for I well knew that if discovered, my immediate destruction would be inevitable." Claudia then related to her grandfather the conversation which had so deeply impressed her: and while strolling beside the Tiber, with its yellow sands, how often did their aspirations silently ascend for help from above! We have mentioned Gallio, the governor of Achaia, who cared for none of the strange words uttered by St. Paul, although they excited the utmost rancour among his Jewish brethren. Not so his wife; she had often conversed with Phoebe on the truths of the gospel. That admirable woman had gained the affections of the proconsul's lady, by unremitting attention to her sick child, when a malignant fever raged in the city, and many stood aloof submitted to suffering or death. Claudia, therefore, desired to obtain from Phœbe whatever information she possessed with regard to the acts and words of Him who listening to her engrossing narratives, the light which the British maiden had long sought, shone into the secret recesses of her mind, with all its clearness and effulgence. But the time at length arrived when they must part; and the same attendant who had conducted Phoebe thither, was summoned to secure her safe retreat. The slave was herself a Christian; she was devotedly attached to the proconsul, who purchased her from motives of compassion; and such was her fidelity, that the preservation of his life, with that of his whole family, might have been safely confided to her, had necessity required. from even their dearest friends. The family of the governor was then in Rome, and Gracia, for so was the lady called, had secretly embraced the new religion, though constrained to act with the utmost caution," spake as never man spake;" and while for the sake of her husband Gallio. When, therefore, Phoebe's arrival became known, she was sent for, in all haste, by the Roman lady. The time appointed for her visit was in the grey of evening; and amid the hum and stir of the great city, passed silently the stranger from Cenchrea, towards the stately mansion of the proconsul Gallio. A slave awaited her approach, who after motioning to a side entrance, led the way up several stone steps into a gallery, and across a number of small neglected-looking rooms, till having reached a low arched door, she unlocked it with the utmost caution, and passing swiftly through a handsome corridor adorned with statues, ascended a flight of marble steps with equal celerity, and ushered Phoebe into a spacious room, where sat the wife of the proconsul, with Claudia by her side. It is needless to speak of the joy with which the lady and Phoebe met; they were united by that close and indissoluble bond, which in those perilous times, and when Christians were of one heart and mind, bound them in an endearing fellowship, which has, perhaps, no parallel in our day. son. The Roman matron, deprived by her rank of personal intercourse with Christians, had only obtained permission from her husband to receive the faithful Phoebe, in consideration of her disinterested kindness to their "But, remember," said he, "how much depends upon your prudence. If the slightest suspicion is awakened in the mind of Agrippina, with regard to your disinelination for the sacrifices, and my toleration of such disrespect, the proconsulship of Achaia will be taken from me.' Claudia had studied, with unwearied diligence, to acquire the Latin language. Her naturally fine understanding and retentive memory soon enabled her to speak it with tolerable facility, and she no longer required the aid of an interpreter. Few if any doubts had arisen in her mind, from the moment when she heard of a purer faith than such as either Britain or Rome presented; and of men, who, in obedience to its precepts, abstained from all evil ways, and who, rather than violate their consciences, That day of which the officer had spoken, wherein the early Christians assembled, while as yet the morning had scarcely dawned, was near at hand. Those who were abroad at its still and quiet hour, might have seen two shrouded figures, passing quietly towards a neglected quarter of the city, chiefly inhabited by persons. of the humblest description. None could have recognised either Claudia or the faithful slave, so carefully were they enwrapped; and thus concealed they went on towards an apparent ruin, overgrown with laurels and ilexes. The slave carefully put aside the intermingled branches, and creeping through a narrow entrance, followed by Claudia, came into what had been once a spacious room. It was dimly lighted by a lamp, which served to discover a number of persons, some of whom came without concealment as the poor quarrymen, who rendered such important services to fugitives of all ranks, in days of unmitigated persecution; others were closely muffled; among these were ladies of the family of Aristobulus and Narcissus, with persons of high rank, who came stealthily, attended by Christian slaves. Aged Bran was there, brought by Aquila and Priscilla; and truly with unfeigned joy and thankfulness did that venerable man and his devoted Claudia kneel at the Christian altar. What more can we say respecting the father and mother of the British maiden, who stood unmoved before the tribunal of the |