560 



BRITAIN, 



.Situation 

 and citeut 



Celti. 



Britain. J. HE most considerable of the European islands, ex- 

 tends from fifty to fifty-eight and a half degrees of 

 north latitude ; being, of course, about 500 geogra- 

 phical miles in length. Its greatest breadth, from 

 the land's end to the north foreland in Kent, 320 

 geographical miles. In British miles, the length 

 may be computed 580, and the breadth 370. 



With the various etymoligies of the word Albion 

 and Britain, we need not trouble the reader ; most of 

 them are fanciful, all of them seem conjectural. The 

 earliest population of Britain is generally believed to 

 have been Celtic. To the Celtic population of Eng- 

 land succeeded the Gothic. The Scythians or 

 Goths, advancing from Asia, drove the Cimbri, or 

 northern Celts, before them ; and, at a period long 

 preceding the Christian aera, had seized upon that 

 part of Gaul which is nearest to Great Britain, 

 where they acquired the provincal denomination of 

 Belgae. Their passage to England followed of 

 course ; and, when Cassar first explored this island, 

 he tells us that the primitive inhabitants were driven 

 into the interior parts, while the regions on the 

 south-east were peopled with Belgic colonies. These 

 Belgas may be justly regarded as the chief ancestors 

 of the English nation. The Saxons, who made the 

 second conquest "of England, were inconsiderable in 

 numbers ; nor did they exterminate the natives, but 

 made them slaves ; and, from the two Gothic dia- 

 lects, of the conquerors and the conquered, being 

 mingled, sprung the Anglo-Saxon, the parent of our 

 English language. The opinion, it is true, of the 

 population of all Britain being Celtic at the period 

 of Caesar's arrival, has found many supporters, but ic 

 labours under insuperable objections. The Anglo- 

 Saxon, and the English language, have no traces of 

 Celtic in them. They have even less of that Tu- 

 desque dialect of the Gothic, which the Angles and 

 Saxons must have spoken at their arrival in Britain, 

 than of the Belgic and Dutch dialects. This is 

 what clearly must have sprung from our Danish and 

 Jutland conquerors mixing a small portion of their 

 dialect with the great body of the conquered people, 

 who still retained the dialect of Belgium. 



It has been objected to this statement of our early 

 population, that Druidism, which is generally allow- 

 ed to be a Celtic superstition, is mentioned by Cassar 

 in the earliest accounts of the island. 



But to this objection it is answered, that Caesar 

 never speaks of having seen Druids ; nor is there 

 mention of any Druid having been seen till the Ro- 

 mans had penetrated into South Wales^ 



The Welsh are confessed a Celtic race. The 

 Gael or Southern Celts, called Guydels by the 

 Welsh, seem to have been the primitive Celts of an- 

 cient Britain. The most ancient names in Wales 

 are Guydelic, not Cumraig or Welsh. These 

 southern Celts are supposed to have been vanquished 

 by the Cimbri of the north, the ancestors of the 

 modern Welsh, who style themselves Cymri to this 

 day. 



Of the Gothic origin' of the present inhabitants of 

 the Lowlands of Scotland, we have the direct testi- ' 

 mony of Tacitus, who speaks of their red hair, and 

 their large limbs, denoting German extraction. At 

 what time the Goths of Scotland expelled the prior 

 Celtic race, it would be as difficult as unprofitable to 

 attempt to ascertain. 



The Celts had been probably long expelled from the 

 eastern coast before the arrival of Caesar. The part 

 of Scotland called the Highlands, has been possessed 

 by a Celtic population since the sixth century ; but 

 this was a reflux of the Celts from Ireland, not the 

 remnant of the aboriginal race. The settlement of the 

 Dalriads or Attacotiiin Argyleshire, is fixed by anti- 

 quarians at the year 258. Their repulsion to Ireland 

 took place in the fifth century ; but, in the sixth 

 century, they made another, and a permanent settle- 

 ment. It has been indeed pretended by Boethius, 

 Buchanan, and some Scottish antiquarians, who 

 make high pretensions to antiquity, that the Celtic 

 Scots reigned in Scotland 1000 years before the 

 Christian asra ; but that fabulous millennium is now 

 justly given up. 



The Britons, at the time of Caesar's arrival, like 

 the Gauls from whom they sprung, were divided 

 into many petty kingdoms ; in each of which there 

 were subordinate chieftains, who respectively govern- 

 ed their own tribes. On extraordinary occasions, 

 they united under a common leader ; but this king 

 of kings had but a short and limited rule ; and their 

 confederacies were neither numerous nor lasting. 

 " There was one thing," says Tacitus, " which 

 gave us an advantage over these powerful nations, 

 that they never consulted together for the advantage 

 of the whole. It was rare that even two or three of 

 them united against the common enemy." By this 

 means, as each of them fought separately, they were 

 all successively subdued. Little is known of the 

 limits of regal authority among the ancient Britons ; 

 but, if that power be changeable in its extent even 

 in enlightened societies, how dependent must it have 

 been on the personal character of the individual po- 

 tentate among a people so rude ! We have an in- 

 stance of a father excluding a son who had offended 

 him, from a share in his dominions ; we have in- 

 stances also of the public respect for hereditary 

 right, and of its extending to female succession. 

 From thejr similarity to the Gauls in other points, 

 Dr Henry has conjectured, that the popular power 

 was considerable ; but this is merely conjecture. 

 Whatever the royal or popular power might have 

 been, the priestly influence must have been para- 

 mount to both, wherever Druidism existed. No 

 public affair could be transacted without the sanction 

 of the Druids : they could forgive malefactors, as 

 well as sentence victims to the sacrifice : they could 

 excommunicate individuals from attending the holy 

 rites ; a sentence as terrible in those times as under 

 the Romish church. Their ceremonies were equally 

 mysterious and inhuman. Misleto, a plant produced 

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