Excerpt from Valerius, Vol. 1 of 2: A Roman Story My father, as on all have heard, had come with his logion into this is and, and married a lady of British blood, some years before the first arrival of the great Agricola. In the wars of that illustrious commander, during the reigns of Vespasian and Titus, he had the good fortune to find many Opportunities of distinguishing imself but when his general was recalled to the capital by the mean jealousy of Domitian he retired from public life, and de termined to spend the remainder of his days in peace, on the lands which belonged to him (chiefly in right of his wife) here in Britain. He laid the foundations of the house in which I have now the pleasure of receiving you; and here, in the cultivation of his fields and in the super intendence of my education, he found abundant employ ment for the energies of a very active, though by no means an ambitious mind. Early in the reign of Trajan, he died, after being confined to his apartment for a few days by an illness which neither my mother nor myself considered as seriously dangerous, till the very evening of its termination. Our grief knew at first no bounds and well might it be so, for never did either Roman or British dwelling lament the departure of a more generous, kind, and affectionate master. My mother, who, in wedding him, had offended the greater part of her own kindred, now that he was gone, had no tie to bind her affections to the earth, excepting myself, her only child, who had scarcely yet entered the threshold of manhood. In my society, therefore, her only hope of human comfort re sided; while I, on my part, loved her with strong and undivided filial love, of which (however that circumstance may be counterbalanced by other advantages) I have never seen any examples among sons educated at a dis tance from the unwearied eye of parental affection. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.