98 Essay Introductory to the ArchcBology of the West of England. 



tory, was applied subsequently to Gaul generally ; and the terms Celts 

 and Gauls became synonymous for its inhabitants. Much of the evidence 

 eoncerniug the Celtic and Belgic inhabitants of Gaul depends upon ob- 

 servations made upon Britain, concerning which it will therefore be neces- 

 sary in the first place to say a few words. 



Caesar, to whose pen the earliest accounts of that island are due, landed 

 there, a. a. c. 5.5 ; but being ill prepared for a campaign, speedily retired, 

 purposing to return iu the following year. This intention he accordingly 

 carried into effect j and seizing upon the capital (Verulam) of Cassibelau, 

 chief of the Cassii, and leader of the British confederacy, thus obtained a 

 permanent footing in Britain. At the period of Caesar's arrival, as we 

 learn from himself, and subsequently from Tacitus, the British isles were 

 thickly peopled. Ujton the southern frontier, south of the aestuaries of the 

 Thames and Severn, and of a line connecting them, the tribes described 

 themselves as of Belgic descent ; and this opinion was corroborated by the 

 similarity of their religion, customs, speech, and the names of their tribes, 

 with those of the Belgians of the neighbouring coasts of Gaul. Thus 

 Hampshire and Wilts were occupied by a tribe called "Belgae," Gloucester 

 and Berks by the " Atrebatii," names obviously connected with the Belgae 

 and Atrebates of the continent. 



Beyond these, the latest emigrants from Gaul, were a race of men oc- 

 cupying the central and northern parts of England, more barbarous and 

 fiercer than the Belgae, who considered themselves to be Celtae, the offspring 

 of the original inhabitants of the land, and who appear to have been related 

 to the Celtae of central, as the Belgians to the Belgae of northern or 

 maritime Gaul, having been driven over as an earlier wave of emigration. 

 The proofs of their Celtic origin are numerous. 



In Gaul the Celtae were the chief depositaries of Druidism, so were the 

 central tribes of England, as witness their college at Mona or Anglesey. 



In Wales, Cornwall, and the isles, the stone circles. Cromlechs, &c. evi- 

 dences of a remote and pagan worship, are similar to others in Celtic Gaul, 

 and more especially in Brittany. The language spoken by the Welsh is so 

 nearly allied to, or rather so identical with that spoken by the Britons or 

 Armoricans, that the people are able to comprehend each other, and the 

 names of places occurring through a great part of Brittauy are significant in 

 AVelsh. With respect to the emigration at a later period of certain insular 

 Britons to Brittany, an event, which though abundantly exaggerated as to 

 its circumstances, did beyond a doubt take place, it will be found by no 

 means adequate to explain the above coincidences ; and on the v;hole it 

 seems nearly certain, that the emigrants soon became mingled with, and 

 lost in a people who spoke a language so closely resembling their own, the 

 dialects of Celtic Britain and Celtic Gaul being cognate. 



We next arrive at the Belgae, both of Gaul and Britain, inhabiting the 

 neighbouring shores of each. The origin of the Belgae has been much 



