of wearied and depressed beings passed through the gates of Rome. Ostorius had enjoined that their entrance into the city should be managed with all possible secresy; the prisoners had, therefore, halted at some distance, till nightfall, in order to prevent a gathering of the people, whom curiosity would have brought tobugether. He preferred that they should remain concealed till the day of his anticipated triumph. 25GENCE Hd HISTORIC TALE OF ANCIENT BRITAIN. IRD SCENE IN THE LIFE OF CLAUDIA. 'Now the Silurian king Caractacus, Abash'd the Roman that confronted him. 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 streets; 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 I paraded through the streets of Rome, | hands of his wife or daughters. Those scarcely had the citizens arisen from their beds, when the loud, clear voice of a herald was heard, proclaiming, in the name of Claudius 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 bewil dered, without doubt, by the crowding, and unwonted sounds, gave way to abject lamentations; while a few of the youngest women wept bitterly, and wrung their hands as if in utter hopelessness. When the procession began to move, Ostarias ascended his triumphal car, bearing large oaken branch, to which was affired the armour of Caractacus. Soldiers followed in full military equipment, singing songs of triumph; and thus went on the long array of prisoners and armed men into the presence of Claudius and Agrippina. "A great victory has been achieved, in no respect inferior to conquests which shed immortal glory on the Roman arms; when Publius Scipio brought Syphax in chains to the imperial city; when Lucius Paulus led Perseus in captivity; and when other commanders exhibited, to the Roman people, 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 citizens, the senate bids you welcome." 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 com-descended from an illustrious line of an miseration, 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 "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 pos sessor to look unmoved on the calamities of other men, Rome had beheid me, not s captive, but a royal visitor and a friend. Perhaps even the alliance of a prince, cestors, a prince whose sway extended over many nations, might not have re mained unsought. A reverse of fortune is now the lot of Caractacus; the event to you is glorious-to me humiliating. I hadarms 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 monumen: of Roman clemency." Claudius gazed upon the scene before him. Among the men of patrician ran no formed his court, none, perhaps, in anly bearing and native dignity might e with Caractacus; he remembered, rhaps, his birth-place on the banks of e Danube, and companionship with ose whom the British hero brought vidly to his remembrance. Be this as may, he commanded the fetters of his isoners to be taken off, and granted em a free pardon. Agrippina was seated in great state, on lofty tribunal near at hand; the sight as altogether new. A Roman matron, ationed amid the ensigns and the armies Rome, presented a spectacle unknown the old republic; but, in an empire cquired by the valour of her ancestors, he high ambition and political character Agrippina obtained for her peculiar onours. Caractacus advanced with his wife, his aughter, and his brother, before the ribunal of the empress, where he returned hanks, and proffered the same homage she had paid to the emperor. No menon is made of Bran, the aged father f Caractacus; contemporary historians peak of his having passed the Alps and ntered Rome, but it is certain that he id not walk in the procession. Ostorius, ithout doubt, respected his age, and ould not subject him to a public humiation. "Why is it," said a Roman lady one ay to the wife of Caius Gracchus, "that › much kindness is shown to the British amily? Men of the highest rank call freuently upon that haughty chief; and as his wife and daughter, they are well eceived in the first patrician circles; nay, report says true, the empress herself dmits them to frequent interviews. That reat lady does not often award her ourtesies without some good reason for o doing; and in the present case, an xiled family cannot promote one single bject which she has in view." "Not so, exactly," replied her friend; 'Agrippina is fond of novelty, she desires o have something new to tell the mperor; and you know how greatly, ven in the senate, he has magnified the onquest 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 Gallio, proconsul of Achaia, who had recently arrived in Rome; she was accompanied by the young barbarian, as some were pleased to call the daughter of Caractacus, to whom the name of Claudia had been given by Agrippina, in commemoration of the emperor's clemency. The conversation then turned on general topics. In consequence of a recent event, no small suprise 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. 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."" veller 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 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 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." the One day, a middle-aged woman crossed the Tiber, and proceeding along the Via Flaminia through the suburbs, entered imperial Rome unnoticed and unattended. She had passed over plains varied with olives, vines, and corn-fields, besides 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 instruction. To whom I prayed I knew 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 tra “Oh! my father," replied Claudia, "how fervently do I wish that some bright sun might arise to shine upon darkness of my understanding; from the moment that you first taught my youn mind to desire a purer faith than the on which alone we knew, have I sought with fervent prayer for guidance and in not; but my ear once listened with in tense delight to words that fell from the lips of the Arch-Druid, when revealing an aspirant after knowledge somewhat that wisdom which is concealed fro |