102 Vestiges of the Earliest Inhabitants of Wiltshire. 



reality oflfshoots from some other race at a greater or less distance 

 of time from the general dispersion. Still of such tribes we know 

 nothing ; and as they have left no mark behind them, no distinctive 

 trace of any occupancy previous to that of the Celts, we may . 

 reasonably conclude that the latter were (as I said before) the first 

 colonizers of this country ; and they may therefore perhaps under 

 proper restrictions be termed the " aborigines " of Britain : at any 

 rate they seem to have been the substratum of the population of 

 this island. 



And now it will be proper to enquire who were these Celts, and 

 whence did they come ? for though crossing over immediately from 

 Gaul, we are not to suppose that they were the indigenous inhabit- 

 ants of that country. I am aware that I am treading on uncertain 

 ground, and that the position I advance may by some be thought 

 to be untenable, still after duly weighing all that has been put 

 forward, I incline to the opinion that the Cymry, Cimbri ' or 



' Straho lib : vii., 293, " uno prius nomine, omnes vel Scythoo vel nomades (lit 

 ab Homero) appellabantur ; ac postea temporis, cognitis regionibus occiduis, 

 Celtae, Ibeii, aut mixto nomine Celtiberi ac Cello-Scytha; dici Cisperiint." 

 Dtodorus Siculus lib : v., c. ix., and Plutarch in his life of Marius identifica 

 the Kimbri A\dth the Kimmerii. Ceesar, (Comment de Bell: Gall: lib. i.. 1) 

 says " qui ipsoium lingua Ccltse, nosti-a Galli appellantur." [See note to Caesar 

 i., p. 22, vol. viii. of Delphin Classics,] Appian also (de bell: civ: c. ii., s. 17) 

 and Tacitus (Agricola c. 11) believed the Britons without exception to be Keltic, 

 and though it is true that the Romans were no philologists, they could hardly 

 be mistaken in supposing that their interpreters employed only one language in 

 conversing with Gauls aud Britons. [Professor Pearson's Earl3' and Middle Ages 

 of England, p. 5.] " The Celts are the same as the Cymbri or Cymmerians, 

 who came from the noith of the Danube and Euxine, as mentioned in Herodotus 

 iv., 49." [The Celtic Druids, by Godfiey Iligfjias, p. 53.] 



" The English at Home," by Alphonse Esquiros. 



The Monthly Packet, x\iii., 318. 



Camden's Britannia p. 10. 



Sir R. Hoare's Ancient Wilts, i., 7. 



Speed's Historie of Great Britain p. 8. 



The Welsh i'riads quoted in Sharon Turner's History of England, vol. i., 

 p. 23. These Welsh Triads are collections of historical facts : they are three 

 events coupled together that were thought by the collector to have some mutual 

 analogy. It is the strange form into which their bards or ancient writers chose 

 to arrange the early circumstances of their history. One of the most complete, 

 series of these Triads^has been printed in the Archeeology of Wales, vol. ii., 

 pp. 57 — 75. 



