to the relief of Britain,—­who, by an admirable conduct in war, and as vigorous application to the cure of domestic disorders, for a time freed the country from its enemies and oppressors, and having driven the Picts and Scots into the barren extremity of the island, he shut and barred them in with a new wall, advanced as far as the remotest of the former, and, what had hitherto been imprudently neglected, he erected the intermediate space into a Roman province, and a regular government, under the name of Valentia.  But this was only a momentary relief.  The Empire was perishing by the vices of its constitution.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 388.]

Each province was then possessed by the inconsiderate ambition of appointing a head to the whole; although, when the end was obtained, the victorious province always returned to its ancient insignificance, and was lost in the common slavery.  A great army of Britons followed the fortune of Maximus, whom they had raised to the imperial titles, into Gaul.  They were there defeated; and from their defeat, as it is said, arose a new people.  They are supposed to have settled in Armorica, which was then, like many other parts of the sickly Empire, become a mere desert; and that country, from this accident, has been since called Bretagne.

The Roman province thus weakened afforded opportunity and encouragement to the barbarians again to invade and ravage it.  Stilicho, indeed during the minority of Honorius, obtained some advantages over them, which procured a short intermission of their hostilities.  But as the Empire on the continent was now attacked on all sides, and staggered under the innumerable shocks which, it received, that minister ventured to recall the Roman forces from Britain, in order to sustain those parts which he judged of more importance and in greater danger.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 411.]

On the intelligence of this desertion, their barbarous enemies break in upon the Britons, and are no longer resisted.  Their ancient protection withdrawn, the people became stupefied with terror and despair.  They petition the emperor for succor in the most moving terms.  The emperor, protesting his weakness, commits them to their own defence, absolves them from, their allegiance, and confers on them a freedom which they have no longer the sense to value nor the virtue to defend.  The princes whom after this desertion they raised and deposed with a stupid inconstancy were styled Emperors.  So hard it is to change ideas to which men have been long accustomed, especially in government, that the Britons had no notion of a sovereign who was not to be emperor, nor of an emperor who was not to be master of the Western world.  This single idea ruined Britain.  Constantine, a native of this island, one of those shadows of imperial majesty, no sooner found himself established at home than, fatally for himself and his country, he turned his eyes towards the continent.  Thither he carried the flower of the British youth,—­all who were any ways eminent for birth, for courage, for their skill in the military or mechanic arts; but his success was not equal to his hopes or his forces.  The remains of his routed army joined their countrymen in Armorica, and a baffled attempt upon the Empire a second time recruited Gaul and exhausted Britain.