Classes and Breeds of British Horses. 181 



formed larger communities, under a system rather feudal 

 than patriarchal. The people, although influenced by a wild 

 superstition, were tenacious of individual rights, like the free 

 Scythians in every age. They had horses, whose flesh they 

 sometimes used as food, and wiiich they off'ered up in sacri- 

 fices to their divinities, but which, so far as is known, they 

 never attached to chariots of war, like the true Celtse. 



The Celtse, continually pressed upon and driven westward, 

 were found, at the period of the Roman conquests, in Spain, 

 Graul, part of Germany, and the Islands of Britain ; and the 

 latter islands appear to have been in their exclusive posses- 

 sion at the time of the Roman invasion. Some, indeed, have 

 tsupposed, that at this period a nation of Gothic origin had 

 found its way to Britain, and occupied, under the name of 

 fielgae, the part of the country where Caesar landed. This 

 is probable ; but, at the same time, the Belgae rather appear 

 to have been themselves a Celtic people, at least the testi- 

 mony of Strabo, and the description which Csesar gives of 

 them, seem to shew that they were a race differing in no 

 essential respects from the other Britons. But be this as it 

 may, it was not for many ages afterwards, during the decline 

 of the Roman empire, that the really Gothic nations found 

 their way in such numbers into Britain as to reduce the 

 greater part of it to subjection, and impose upon it their cus- 

 toms, laws, and language. At the time of our Saviour, and 

 long afterwards, the inhabitants of these islands were essen- 

 tially Celtic ; and that the same race had inhabited the 

 country from an early time, appears from innumerable re- 

 mains of ancient forts, sepulchral tumuli and cairns, rude al- 

 tars, and circles of stones and other monuments, which can 

 be referred to no other race but the Celtic ; and from the 

 names of mountains, rivers, promontories, and other natural 

 olgecta, which to this hour retain the designations imposed 

 upon them by the Celtic inhabitants. 



When these islands, then, became the prey of Roman am- 

 bition, the horses of the country were those of the Celtic 

 natives, either brought in a state of domestication from the 

 East, or derived from the wild races existing in the wastes 

 of Europe. That they were in great numbers, we learn from 

 the Roman writers. Caesar continually refers to the daring 



