Essay Introductory to the Archeeology of the fVest of England. 21 1 



Galli appellantur;" and the etymology of the term Celtae, which was thus 

 uuknown in Ctesar's day, is at least equally so in our own. The ancients, 

 however, of whom may be cited Pausanias (lib. I. 3), Appian (Bell. Hisp.)' 

 and Strabo, seem to have been of opinion that the term TaXarai, or Galii,' 

 was of later origin, and that the more ancient denomination of tiie people' 

 was Celtae. ^ 



There existed also, during the centuries succeeding the middle age, much 

 difference of opinion, as to the people designated by the term Celt^, and 

 the extent of their territory. 



Schoepflin enumerates four opinions upon these points:—* 



I. That which considered the term Celts as originallv comprehending 

 all the European nations. 



II. That which confined the term to the ancient inhabitants of Spain, 

 Gaul, Britain, Germany, and Illyria, excluding the people of Italy, and the 

 nations south of the Vistula. 



III. That which limited the term more strictly to the Germans and peo- 

 ple of Gaul, ^ 



IV. That which considered the Germans alone as the primitive Celtae 

 and denied the appellation to the Gauls, save as of secondary application. ' 



These opinions have each been supported by a host of learned author- 

 ities, but they are all now known to be erroneous. 



The Celtic was one only of the great primitive tribes, by which, through 

 the intervention of Persia, Europe is supposed, upon pretty strong grounds, 

 to have been peopled from the East. These have been enumerated as the 

 Celtae ; the Teutones, progenitors of the Gothic, Scandinavian, Saxon 

 and German nations ; the Slavonians, already noticed at length by Dr' 

 Prichard, in our first and second numbers j and the Pelasgians, of whose 

 language the idioms of Greece and, in some degree, of Rome are to be 

 considered as dialects ; languages all belonging to a single class, com- 

 mon also to Persia and to India. 



We have already seen that the dawn of history exhibits to us Western 

 Europe, with the exception of the Iberian peninsula, as occupied by the 

 Celts or Gauls, and that they existed under the principal, but probably 

 only dialectic distinctions of Celtae and Belgae. 



Dr. Prichard has shewn that there exists tolerably conclusive evidence 

 in favour of the Celtic origin of the earliest inhabitants of the north of 

 Italy, by whom tlie cities of Kimini and Ravenna were founded, and who 

 were thence expelled by the maritime colony of the Etruscans. 



• Vindicia. Celtica;, 4to. 17.54 ; a book, the conclusions of which are not indeed 

 always to be relied upon, but which contains very considerable information con- 

 cernmg the Celtic people: to it may be applied the words of its author, concerninK 

 thcworkof Athena,us.-"Repletu8 est liber, uti constat, vario eruditionis genere 

 ex multis scnptonbns diligcnter congestus, et ei .juidem mcthodo, ut semper scrip* 

 tons, undesuinptum est. aliqui.l noinen adjecerit." 



