192 THE BRIGANTES. 



the * country of Summer/ and we intend no disrespect to the 

 Triad which preserves this statement, by leaving the intelligent 

 reader to choose between the ancient myth and the modern 

 conjecture. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

 THE BRIGANTES. 



THUS hath nature worked out her design, and given to York- 

 shire variety of mineral substance, surface feature, and organic 

 life, preparing it for active human existence. Man came last in 

 as great variety of aspect to occupy this surface. Distinct races, 

 in different degrees of civilization, inured to different modes of 

 life, arrived at successive periods from different quarters of the 

 globe. It is for the Ethnographer and the Antiquary to trace 

 the paths of these men, aud to distinguish their monuments 

 until the harmonious mixture of all the races constituted the 

 people of Yorkshire. 



The earliest of these inhabitants were the Britons, for by this 

 name were they known to the Greeks, who recorded what the 

 Phoenician or PhocaBan navigators had reported of their early 

 discoveries ; nor was any other title bestowed upon the whole 

 people by their Roman conquerors, though they distinguished 

 among them many independent tribes. 



This general title merely marked their locality ; just as Gauls 

 belonged to the country called Gallia, and Germans to the re- 

 gions beyond the Rhine ; it was not a distinction of race. Mo- 

 dern writers who call the Britons ' Celts/ have generally in view 

 to separate them as a race by this term from the ' Teutons ' 

 and those who designate them as ' Cymri/ claim them as spe- 



