Essay Introductory to the Archceology of the fVest of England. 99 



disputed, but although it is highly probable that many of their tribes bor- 

 dering on the Rhine had connected themselves with the Teutonic nations 

 beyond it, and might therefore be considered as in some sort of Teutonic 

 originals, yet this descent can hardly be predicated of the whole nation, 

 which was probably of Celtic stock. Strabo speaks of the difference be- 

 tween the Celtic and Belgic tongues as slight, and only dialectic, in which 

 opinion he is supported by the implied authority of Tacitus. 



The names of the Belgic waters, of their headlands, and even of their 

 towns, so far as they have been analysed, are all Celtic, and the term 

 " Venta " expressed a capital city among both nations. 



The language of the Celts remains, as we have said, in Brittany, and its 

 dialects tlie Cambro-Celtic, and Erse, along the western side of Great 

 Britain. That of the Belgians is now extinct, but it is considered by Dr. 

 Prichard to have been a dialect akin to the Erse. 



Tliere is, then, every reason to conclude, that both the central and 

 southern parts of Britain were peopled by Celtic emigrants from Gaul, at 

 a remote period ; and that the Belgse were also Celtic emigrants, but given 

 off at a later period, and impelled by a later wave towards the coasts of 

 Gaul and Britain. 



Next comes the question concerning the inhabitants of Scotland. The five 

 northern tribes of England, whose territory lying south of the Friths of 

 Forth and Clyde, and the wall built by Antoninus which subsequently con- 

 nected them, was named by the Romans Valentia, seem all to have been 

 of Celtic origin, and to have spoken the Cambro-Celtic dialect j they may 

 therefore be considered as out of the question. Mr. Chalmers proves be' 

 yond a doubt, by an immense mass of existing evidence, chiefly topogra- 

 phical, and therefore of the most irrefragable character, that the Celtic 

 language must have prevailed, at some time or other, over the whole of 

 Scotland and Ireland. Tacitus, to whose account we are indebted for the 

 first mention of the Caledonians, describes them as of tall stature with 

 flaxen hair ; and after the Silures, or South Wallians, the rudest and most 

 warlike inhabitants of Britain. Caledonia, or Celyddon in the Erse or 

 Gaelic, is the same with Coed in the Cambro-Celtic, and signifies a wood, 

 or woody ; — a term very descriptive of the ancient condition of the regions 

 around the Grampians. 



At a later period, about the fourth century, the Caledonians were na 

 longer heard of, and the Picts and Scots supplied their place, aud equalled 

 them in ferocity. The Picts arc supposed to have been a race of invaders 

 from the north-east, and therefore possibly of German origin, wlio had gained 

 footing in the west of Scotland, before the departure of the Romans from 

 Britain, They were finally conquered by, and merged in, the Scots, 

 A.D. 843. 



The Scots, or Gael, appear to have been an Irish colony, who like the 

 I'icts, invaded the Celto-Calcdonian people, and established themselves. 



