EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE BRITISH ISLES BY CELTS. 311 



substantive form of speech, being merely a mixture." According to 

 the reasoning of Adelung, therefore, the earliest settlers of the 

 British Isles were those Celts who spoke Gaelic and whose descend- 

 ants ai'e the Gaels of Scotland and Ireland ; and the Cimbri, whose 

 descendants the Welsh are, entered Britain at a later date. 



Nicholas, in his preface to The Pedigree of the English People, 

 (p. 7), thus writes respecting the argument which he pursues in his 

 book : " It is first shown that the numerous tribes found by the 

 Romans in possession of the British Isles were all presumably of 

 what is called the Celtic race, and presented only such dissimilarities 

 as would arise from separation into independent Clans or States. 

 Although among these numerous tribes, the Cymry may 

 rightfully claim pi'e-eminence, as that branch of the family which 

 both sustained the heaviest shock from the Teutonic invasion and 

 tinged most deeply the new race with Celtic blood — the Gaels 

 having from remote ages pushed their way northward and into 

 Ireland — the term ancient Britons cannot be confined to them, but 

 must be made to comprehend in short all the early Celtic inhabitants 

 of Britain and Ireland." 



It is important to notice that in the judgment of Nicholas, the 

 Gaels pushed their way in the far-off past and before the arrival of 

 the Cymry, northward and into Ireland : in other words, that the 

 Gaels arrived before the Cymry in the British Isles, and that enter- 

 ing these Isles in the south of England, they gradually extended to 

 Scotland and Ireland. According to Nicholas (p. 34), Meyer assigns 

 two principal routes to the Celtic tribes in their westward progress 

 from Asia : " One route he traces through Syria and Egypt, along 

 the northern coast of Africa, across the Straits of Gibraltar, and 

 through Spain to Gaul, where it separates into three branches, one 

 terminating in the British Isles, the other in Italy, and the third 

 near the Black Sea. The other great stream of migration ran less 

 circuitously and more northwards through Scythia in Europe, the 

 shores of the Black Sea, Scandinavia, or Jutland, Prussia, through 

 Northern Germany, the plains of the Elbe, and to Britain across the 

 German Ocean. It is conjectured that the stream which came by 

 Africa and Spain was the earliest to reach Britain. They may have 

 been the Gaels." 



As to who the Cimbri were, and as to where their home on the 

 Continent of Europe was, Nicholas thus writes (p. 31) : " Local 



