Essay Introductory to the ArchcBology of the JVest of England. 2 1 3 



probably to the Boii of Cisalpine Gaul j who extended themselves, the 

 Helvetii into Switzerland, and the Boii into Norica, where they founded 

 the clearly Celtic cities of Boio-durum and Arto-Briga. 



Such then were the Celts : a nation whose origin, long concealed and mys- 

 tified by those who professed to illustrate it, is now attributed upon almost 

 irrefragable evidence to the primal inhabitants of India, and whose language 

 does not appear to be second in antiquity even to the Hebrew itself — a peo- 

 ple, who, neither tainted by the enervating luxury of the one, nor suffering 

 under the moral incapacity which the divine displeasure seems to have in- 

 flicted upon the other branch of the great patriarchal family of nations, 

 burst forth like the sand of the sea shore for multitude, and rendering 

 themselves successively formidable to the inhabitants of east, west, and 

 north, marched from the banks of the Indus to those of the Tibur, and 

 struck terror into the hearts of the Romans themselves. 



But the empire which their valour had won, the political sagacity of the 

 Celts was not competent to maintain. Disunion among themselves, and 

 the disciplined valour of their enemies, seem to have been the efficient 

 causes of their decay, and of their almost general extirpation. Such at 

 least was the fate of the Celtic inhabitants of the plains, but wherever the 

 discipline of their enemies was rendered useless by the rugged nature of 

 the country, there they made a final and successful stand, and there thev 

 preserved their language and nationality, unshaken by the storms of Roman, 

 Saxon, and Norman tyranny, until the bright beams of Christian civilisa- 

 tion, by gradually converting bordering enemies into fellow-citizens and 

 friends, insured to them the enjoyment in peace of the independence 

 which they had so well maintained in war. 



Of the character of the Celtee of remote antiquity, we have no means of 

 becoming exactly informed j and even were such means extant, it would 

 be obviously unfair to apply any conclusions arrived at from them, without 

 also estimating, under similar circumstances, the character of other na- 

 tions. But if, from the remnant of the Celtic nation, still preserved along 

 the western shores of Great Britain and the mountains of Armorica, any 

 just conclusion can be drawn respecting the general Celtic character, that 

 conclusion will assuredly be a bright one. It must be admitted that they 

 are faithful to their religion, zealously attached to their country, loyal to 

 their monarchs, and severely jealous of their personal and political li- 

 berties J and if, on the one hand, they possess not some of those valuable 

 acquisitions in science and literature, which have been attained under far 

 more favourable circumstances by their Saxon or Norman neighbours, they 

 boast, on the other, a more ancient language and literature of their own, 

 and bards whose compositions, for vigour of conception and felicity of 

 expression, will not suffer from comparison with many far later poets of 

 Anglo-Saxon or Norman lineage. 



The language, the dialects of which wo have in this essay been attempt- 



