A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies | Page 4

ancient black character is called
English. You have a specimen as follows, viz.
[Illustration: the word Angel in "Roman", Italic, and Fraktur (which
they call "Old English")]
The Old English is seldom used but in acts of parliament,
proclamations, &c. The Roman is chiefly in vogue for books and
pamphlets, intermixed with Italic, to distinguish proper names, chapters,
arguments, words in any foreign language, texts of scripture, citations
from authors, speeches or sayings of any person, emphatical words, and
whatever is strongly significant.
The use of capitals, or great letters, is to begin every name of the
Supreme Being, as God, Lord, Almighty, Father, Son, &c. All proper
names of men and things, titles of distinction, as King, Duke, Lord,
Knight, &c. must also begin with a capital. So ought every book,
chapter, verse, paragraph, and sentence after a period. A saying, or
quotation from any author, should begin with a capital; as ought every
line in a poem. I and O, when they stand single, must always be
capitals; any words, particularly names or substantives, may begin with
a capital; but the common way of beginning every substantive with a
capital is not commendable, and is now much disused.
Capitals are likewise often used for ornament, as in the title of books;
and also to express numbers, and abbreviations.

[Illustration: Woodcut of Ancient Britons]
A CONCISE ACCOUNT OF ANCIENT BRITAIN. CHAP. I.
ENGLAND and Scotland, though but one island, are two kingdoms,
viz. the kingdom of England and the kingdom of Scotland; which two
kingdoms being united, were in the reign of James I. called
Great-Britain. The shape of it is triangular, as thus [triangle], and 'tis
surrounded by the seas. Its utmost extent or length is 812 miles, its
breadth is 320, and its circumference 1836; and it is reckoned one of
the finest islands in Europe. The whole island was anciently called
Albion, which seems to have been softened from Alpion; because the
word alp, in some of the original western languages, generally signifies
very high lands, or hills; as this isle appears to those who approach it
from the Continent. It was likewise called Olbion, which in the Greek
signifies happy; but of those times there is no certainty in history, more
than that it had the denomination, and was very little known by the rest
of the world.
The people that first lived in this island, according to the best historians,
were the Gauls, and afterwards the Britons. These Britons were tall,
well made, and yellow haired, and lived frequently a hundred and
twenty years, owing to their sobriety and temperance, and the
wholesomeness of the air. The use of clothes was scarce known among
them. Some of them that inhabited the southern parts covered their
nakedness with the skins of wild beasts carelessly thrown over them,
not so much to defend themselves against the cold as to avoid giving
offence to strangers that came to traffic among them. By way of
ornament they used to cut the shape of flowers, and trees, and animals,
on their skin, and afterwards painted it of a sky colour, with the juice of
woad, that never wore out. They lived in woods, in huts covered with
skins, boughs, or turfs. Their towns and villages were a confused parcel
of huts, placed at a little distance from each other, without any order or
distinction of streets. They were generally in the middle of a wood,
defended with ramparts, or mounds of earth thrown up. Ten or a dozen
of them, friends and brothers, lived together, and had their wives in
common. Their food was milk and flesh got by hunting, their woods

and plains being well stocked with game. Fish and tame fowls, which
they kept for pleasure, they were forbid by their religion to eat.
The chief commerce was with the the Phoenician merchants, who, after
the discovery of the island, exported every year great quantities of tin,
with which they drove a very gainful trade with distant nations.
In this situation were the Ancient Britons when Julius Cæsar, the first
Emperor of Rome, and a great conqueror, formed a design of invading
their island, which the Britons hearing of, they endeavoured to divert
him from his purpose by sending ambassadors with offers of obedience
to him, which he refused, and in the 55th year before the coming of our
Saviour upon earth, he embarked in Gaul (that is France) a great many
soldiers on board eighty ships.
At his arrival on the coast of Britain he saw the hills and cliffs that ran
out into the sea covered with troops, that could easily prevent his
landing, on which he sailed two leagues farther to a plain and open
shore, which the Britons perceiving sent their chariots and horse that