105 

 DRESS, MANNERS, AND HABITATIONS 



OF THE 



ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF DEVONSHIRE. 



It is a trite, but here necessary, remark, that the 

 primitive inhabitants of this island maintained the 

 independence of its western shores, long after the 

 rest had been subdued by various invaders : a rapid 

 glance over the state of the Britons, followed by a 

 yet slighter notice of the Roman conquest, will bring 

 us to the reign of Egbert, and the site of our re- 

 searches, as a border district, lying between them 

 and the Anglo-Saxons. After that, we shall notice 

 some local mcidents, connected with " our invaders, 

 the Danes,'' until these also, in their turn, gave way 

 to the superior merit or fortunes of the Normans. 



Our long accredited descent from "the Brut," 

 and his Trojan emigrants, has now quietly vanished 

 in the light of reason and common sense : the legend, 

 which has alike supplied theme to the minstrel's 

 song, and the pen of the chronicler, and which af- 

 forded our first Edward, a plea for his assumed 

 supremacy over Scotland, rests on frail grounds at 

 best ; Geoftiy of Monmouth, who has preserved the 

 tradition, was assailed by the bitterness of cotem- 

 porary critics on account of it ; and yet the tale, now 

 considered as a legendary romance,^ has drawn the 

 attention of some antiquarians to a degree, greater 

 perhaps than it merited ; others, in abandoning it, 

 ^have laboured to establish notions equally wild and 

 theoretical. So long since as Tacitus' day, it had been 

 remarked, that the complexions of Biitain, varied 

 from the florid hue of the Teutonic hordes, to the 

 darker tinge of Spain; but the neighbourhood, their 



* CaQiden, in ascertaining our genuine antiquities, was obliged 

 to undermine the error with modest scepticism. 



VOL. VII. — 1836. o 



