THE HUMAN SPECIES. 407 



first Belgic branch (that which was expelled by the second 

 Belga?, who secured for themselves the sea-coast and the valley 

 of the Rhine), we may regard them as the purest Celtas now 

 remaining. They still much resemble the Vaudois, die Illyrian 

 Lombards, and the Walloon population, even more than that 

 of Lower Brittany. The Irish are in form athletic, rather spare 

 and wiry ; the forehead is narrow, and the head itself is elon- 

 gated ; the nose and mouth large, and the cheek-bones high. 

 The features are rather harsh ; and in character they are fiery, 

 brave, generous in their impulses, and very patient of fatigue. 

 Intellectually considered, they are acute, witty, ingenious, but 

 beset with the sense of drollery more than of the true and use- 

 ful ; they are deficient in sobriety of thought and breadth of 

 understanding ; they consequently want more excitement for 

 action and enduring reflecting power than the Getic family of 

 nations seems to require. The Finnic Celtas were the first 

 northern marine wanderers, who, having attained the Scottish 

 and Irish coasts, constituted the Gael Coch, or red-haired stran- 

 gers of Scandinavian origin, and first taught the pursuing Getae 

 — in part their kindred — to follow them to the south, under 

 the name of Northmen and Ostmen. 



The Cymbers were perhaps the last colony from the north 

 that had consanguinity with theCeltse; they broke into Gaul 

 B. C. 108, penetrated to Spain, and, in alliance with Teutonic 

 tribes, they were at length vanquished in the plains of Italy, 

 after they had destroyed several consular armies.* In Britain, 

 as already stated, there were a greater diversity of races than 

 is commonly admitted, besides a nameless population of sav- 

 ages, probably Finnic, in possession of the coast when the 

 Celtse first landed. There were among these, and protected 

 by the Hedui, the Veneti (Henyd) and Ligurians (Llogrwys), 



* They routed, between B. C. 302 and 307, the armies of Papyrius, of 

 Silanus, of Cassius Longinus, and of Crepio and Mallius, who were loaded 

 with the Celtic Measures of Tolosa, once plundered by the Gauls at 

 Grecian Delphos. 



