408 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



who, we have shown, had, through their Ulyrinn origin, like- 

 wise Finnic affinities; the purer Celtse, such as the Morini and 

 the nautical clans coming from the coast of Spain, and the 

 Belgce of Semi-Teutonic origin, such as the Cantii and others 

 occupying the east coast of Britain. The intercommunication 

 of knowledge and civilization among tribes, who, in different 

 parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe, had been in contact with 

 nations far more advanced in the arts of life, some perhaps, 

 with little delay, passing west in their coracles the whole dis- 

 tance from the regions of Phoenicia and Carthage to Britain, 

 brought dogmas, such as the religious and moral dicta of the 

 Druids attest. They had, no doubt, possession of rudiments of 

 literature and reminiscences of science, and, reaching a home 

 rich in mines, not only became miners and metallurgists — as 

 more than one line of their progenitors had been in the east 

 and in Spain — but, stimulated by the example of the Etruscans 

 in the arts of smelting ores, they must have accelerated the 

 progress of development, which inroads of new hordes, the 

 tendency to intestine factions and open war, too often, and, in 

 the end, too fatally arrested. 



This imprudent irritability of temperament caused the Celtic 

 races, notwithstanding their military prowess, to be ever sub- 

 dued and ruled by strangers, both in Asia and Eastern Europe, 

 in Gaul and Britain. Without reference to the universally 

 known facts in history, we may add one or two more not so 

 commonly noticed. It was the Veneto-British fleet, defeated 

 by Caesar's navy, off the mouth of the Seine, which produced 

 the Roman invasion.* The struggles between the Christian 

 municipal towns of foreign colonists left by the Romans, and 

 the Pagan Reguli of native race, brought in the Caledonians 

 and then the Saxons. So, again, the force of 12,000 Britons 

 under Prothamus (Pritham?), which crossed over to Gaul in 



* It was more likely a fleet of Gallic and British Veneti united, who 

 fought D. Brutus in Quiberon Bay, in order to recover Vannes, Blavet, 

 and Henneboa, all Henyd, or Venetic towns. 



