894 EEPOET — 1887. 



proves merely tbat the Saxons and Angles were already acquainted witb them 

 before they had quitted their primitive seats. 



The philological argument has thus been cut away from under the feet of the 

 advocates of the theory of extermination, and shown to tell precisely the contrary 

 tale. It has disappeared like the pliilological argument by which the theory of the 

 origin of the Aryans in Asia was once supposed to be supported. But there still 

 remains one difficulty in our path. 



This is the fact that the languages spoken in Wales, and till recently in Corn- 

 wall, are Keltic and not Latin. If Latin had been the language of the Keltic 

 population of southern Britain when the Romans left the island, how is it that 

 where the Keltic population still retains a language of its own that language is 

 Keltic ? The answer to this question is to be found in history and tradition. Up 

 to the sixth century the Teutonic invaders gained slowly but steadily upon the 

 resistuig Britons. They forced their way to the frontiers of what is now Wales, 

 and there their further course was checked. The period when this took place is 

 the period when A\^elsh literature first begins. But it begins, not in Wales, but in 

 Strathclyde or south-western Scotland, to the north of the Roman Wall. Its first 

 records relate to battles that took place in the neighbourhood of Carlisle. From 

 thence its bards and heroes moved southwards into North Wales. Ti'adition com- 

 memorated the event as the arrival in Wales of ' Cunedda's men.' The sons of 

 Cunedda founded the lines of princes who subsequent!}- rided in Wales, and the 

 old genealogies mark the event by suddenly substituting princes with "NN'elsh names 

 for princes with Latin names. The rude Keltic tribes of Strathclyde came to the 

 assistance of their more cultured brethren in the south, checking the further pro- 

 <^'Tess of the foreigner and imposing their domination and language upon the older 

 population of the country. It is probable that the disappearance of I .atin was further 

 Glided not only by the destruction of the cities and the increasing barbarism of the 

 people, but also by the settlement of Irish colonies, more especiallj' in Sotith Wales. 

 At all events the ruin of cities like Caerleon and Caerwent must be ascribed to 

 Irish marauders. We can now explain why it is not only that AValea speaks 

 Welsh and not Latin, but also why a part of the country, which, according to 

 Professor Rhys, was mostly peopled by Gaelic tribes before the Roman conquest, 

 speaks Cymric and not Gaelic. As for Cornish its affinities are with Breton, and 

 since history knows of frequent intercourse between ( 'ornwall and Brittany in the 

 age that followed the departure of the Romans we may see in the Cornish dialect 

 the traces of Breton influence. 



The arrival of ' Cunedda's men ' and the re-Keltisation of Wales lead me to the 

 second line of evidence to which I have alluded above. The bearing of the costume 

 of a people upon their ethnography is a matter which has been much neglected. 

 But there are few things about which a population — more especially in an early 

 stage of society — is so conservative as in the matter of dress. When we find the 

 Egyptian sculptor representing the Hittites of the warm plains of Palestine clad in 

 the snow-shoes of the mountaineer we are justified in concluding that they must 

 have descended from the ranges of the Taurus, where the bulk of their brethren 

 continued to live, just as the similar shoes with turned-up ends which the Turks 

 have introduced among the upper classes of Syria, Egypt, and northern Africa 

 point to the northern origin of the Turks themselves. Such shoes are utterly 

 unsuited for walking in over a country covered with grass, brushwood, or even 

 stones ; they are on the contrary admirably adapted for walking on snow. 



Now the dress of Keltic Gaul and of Southern Britain also when the Romans 

 first became acquainted with it was the same as the dress which 'linguistic 

 palaeontology ' teaches us had been worn by the primitive Aryans in their first 

 home. One of its chief constituents were the braccce, or trousers, which accordingly 

 became to the Roman the symbol of the barbarian. We learu, however, from 

 sculptures and other works of art that before the retirement of the Romans from 

 the northern part of Europe they had adopted this article of clothing, at all events 

 during the winter months. That the natives of southern Britain continued to wear 

 it after their separation from Rome is clear from a statement of Gildas (' Hist.' 1 9) 

 in which he refers in no flattering terms to the kilt of the Pict and the Scot. Yet 



