By the Rev. Preb. W. H. Jones. 



335 



boundary were evidently made by a people who came up from the 

 South, (a reason for this statement shall be mentioned presently), 

 that is from the coast, to separate themselves from the tribes of the 

 interior, there is nothing at the first blush unreasonable in 'this 

 supposition. It will have been observed, in the extract from 

 Caesar, that he says expressly that the Belgse who settled in 

 this country gave names to places occupied by them similar to those 

 of the country which they had left. As regards the larger districts 

 this is evident ; thus the Atrebatii of Belgica had their counterpart 

 in the Atrebatii of Wilts and Berks ; the Catalauni, in the Cateuch- 

 lani inhabiting the central parts north of the Thames. 1 But Caesar's 

 words would lead us to expect (at least I think they justify this ex- 

 tension of their meaning) a considerable number of what, for the 

 present, I will call Belgic names, in the district occupied by them. 

 Now the Belgse were without doubt a Celtic race in the main, and 

 a branch of the Celts nearly related to the Cymry. Strabo was no 

 careless or incorrect historian, and he not only states that the Celtic 

 name was given to all the Gauls, but distinctly affirms that the 

 language spoken by the Celts was, with few variations, the language 

 spoken by the Belgse. Have we then in Wiltshire, and in particular 

 in the neighbourhood of some of these large dykes, a large infusion 

 of the Celtic element in the local names ? Undoubtedly we have, 

 as has been attempted to be shewn in the pages of this Magazine. 2 

 I suppose there is no county in England in which we have so many 

 names of places derived from a Celtic source. This may go for 

 what it is worth, but it does seem to me to give some additional 

 interest to the conjecture which we are discussing. 



One other point may be noticed before I speak of each of the 

 dykes more particularly. As Dr. Guest puts it — C( It seems reason- 

 able to infer, that when one of these boundary-lines was drawn be- 

 tween two neighbouring tribes, the earth-work was constructed by 

 the more civilized race ; or, in other words, by the race which had 

 the clearest notions of the value and the rights of property. We 



1 See Nicholas' " Pedigree of the English People," p. 41. 

 55 See above pp. 156, 253— " On the Celtic Element in Wiltshire Local Names," 



2b2 



