224? BIMANA. 



this normal form, and degrees of approximation in some branches to 

 the Mongole, in others, even to the Negro type, are, however, to be 

 found ; serving to shew that the different ramifications of the human 

 family verge, at certain points, towards each other, losing the strong and 

 decided characters by which the main stems are distinguished. 



A few observations may now be offered on the principal branches of 

 the Japetic stock. 



CELTIC BRANCH. The earliest inhabitants of Gaul, Italy, Spain, and 

 the British Islands, as far as history enables us to judge, appear, either in 

 part or in whole, to have belonged to a race now reduced within the limits 

 of a few isolated portions of Europe, and which has received the appella- 

 tion of Celtic. The Galli, or Gael, the Cymri, Cumri, Umbri,* or Ombrici 

 (O/j,/3piKoi), the Veneti, the Osismii, the Lexovii, the Nannetes, Morini, 

 jEdui, Averni, &c., were all tribes of this great branch, the original seat of 

 which is to be traced to Asia Minor ; but of the influx of which, over the 

 regions it occupied in Europe, no records are extant. 



The traces of the Celtic tongue are widely spread, and are to be dis- 

 covered in languages which might not be suspected to have the remotest 

 connexion with it, but with the radical structure of which, it is, neverthe- 

 less, interwoven ; and among these is the Latin, f The Rev. Mr. 



* " Floras states, that the Umbri were the most ancient people of Italy (Antiquissimus Italias 

 populus, lib. i. cap. 17); Pliny, that they were deemed the most ancient nation of Italy, (Gens 

 antiquissima Italiae, lib. iii. cap. 17); Dionysius of Halicarnassus, that the Ombrici were a nation 

 of peculiar greatness and antiquity. Herodotus states, that the Lydian Tyrrhenians (according to him, 

 the germ of the Tuscan race), settled among the people called, by the Greeks, O/jL/3piKoi, and supposed, 

 by some of the writers, to have derived their name from their having survived the general deluge 

 (Ofjifipos, Umber, pluvia). We also learn from him, that their country was of great and indefinite 

 extent. In the words of Niebuhr, it stretched to the foot of the Alps, for the rivers Karpis and Alpis, 

 one of which is certainly represented by the Inn, flow from the Umbrici. According to Scylax, 

 Umbria included Picenum, as he places Ancona within its limits. From Pliny, it is farther learned, that 

 the Tuscans took no less than 300 towns from Umbri, or, in other words, that the whole Tuscan terri- 

 tory had once been Umbrian. From these authorities, it is evident that the Umbri, at a remote period, 

 occupied the greatest portion of northern Italy. The Ligurians, a nation confessedly Celtic, seemed to 

 have shared the country with them. In historical times, these are described as possessing the upper 

 vale of the Po, the maritime Alps, and the northern Apennines, while the Umbri were confined to the 

 central group, the most important natural fortresses of Italy. The whole of the original population of 

 eastern Italy, with the exception of those who took refuge in the central Apennines, was reduced 

 under the power and influence of the Hellenic colonists, who encircled the southern peninsula with a 

 line of Grecian cities, of surpassing wealth and magnificence, Sybaris, Crotona, Elea, and Psestum. 



"That the Ligurians were, themselves, Ambrones, or Ombrones, is evident from the story told by 

 Plutarch, in the life of Marius. The Ambrones came on, crying out 'Ambrones ! Ambrones !' This they 

 did, either to encourage each other, or to terrify the enemy with their name. The Ligurians were the 

 first that moved against them, and when they heard the enemy cry out ' Ambrones,' they echoed back 

 the word, which was their ancient name. The English reader may not know that the Cumrian name 

 for England, is, to this day, Loigur, or Liguria." Rev. Archdeacon Williams, Trans. Royal Soc. Ed. 

 vol. xiii., 1836. 



t " I speak from knowledge, when I say that the Anglo-Saxon is deeply tinged with the language 

 of the Britons of Wales, Cornwall, and Armorica, and that the meaning of countless words, commonly 

 regarded as pure Saxon, will in vain be sought in the forests of Germany, or the wilds of Scandina- 

 via. Even household words, the language of every-day life, without the aid of scholars acquainted with 

 the primitive languages of these islands, must be handed down to posterity as mystic signs, devoid of 

 meaning." Rev. Archdeacon Williams. 



