84 Br Daniel Wilson on ike Intrusion of 



intermixture with Hellenic and Kelto-Italian Mood, to produce 

 the permanent differences between the two great nations of 

 classic antiquity. 



That the Keltic ethnological element has exercised no bene- 

 ficial influence either on the intellectual or physical condition 

 of medieval and modern Europe, is no less problematic. The 

 blood of the Gaul still gives no partial hue to the complexion 

 of Gallic France, nor can we assume that no portion of our 

 peculiar Anglo-Saxon national character — so different, in some 

 respects, from that of our continental Saxon congeners—is de- 

 rived from the early intermixture of the Saxon and Scandi- 

 navian with the native Celtic blood. The invasion of the 

 Anglo-Saxons, as of the Danes and Northmen, was one of 

 warriors, not of colonists with their wives and families, and 

 their first settlement musi have involved some extent of al- 

 liance and mingling of races, such as we see taking place in 

 our own day with aborigines whose physical and moral cha- 

 racteristics present a far more antagonistic diversity of aspect. 

 But viewing the ancient Gauls as they first appear on the stage 

 of history, unaffected as yet by those Germanic or Anglo- 

 Saxon elements which temper 



« The Wind hysterics of the Celt,' ? 



the justice of one portion, at least, of Dr Arnold's remarks 

 may be perceived, if we look to the transitory nature of the 

 Keltic philological influence on our own English tongue, and 

 consider that while, for upwards of seven centuries after the 

 date here referred to, no other intrusion of foreign races had 

 taken place in the British islands than the very partial mili- 

 tary occupation by the Roman legions, yet the English lan- 

 guage retains no grammatical or constructive elements of the 

 ancient native Keltic or British tongues, and has so few ety- 

 mological elements incorporated into its composite vocabulary, 

 excepting such as are indirectly derived through the Latin, 

 that the whole of such might be expunged without sensibly 

 marring the richness and copiousness of the language. His- 

 torically speaking, the English language of the British islands 

 stands in precisely the same relation to its ancient geogra- 

 phical area as the English of Canada and the United States 



