100 Vestiges of the Earliest Inhabitants of Wiltshire. 



It is time to ask who these colonists were, and what was their 

 origin ? Since we have no certain proof to rely upon, the field 

 is open to conjecture, and accordingly there has been no small 

 diversity of opinion on the point. 1 Some affirming that the 

 Phoenicians, others inclining to the Scythians, 2 others again to the 

 Phrygians, 3 and some even declaring that the Trojans 4 were the 

 first colonizers of Britain. But I believe that those most con- 

 versant with the subject are now pretty well agreed that it is to 

 some of the tribes of the vast Celtic nation, which peopled so large 

 a portion of Europe 5 as well as Asia, that we are indebted, as in 

 all probability, our first ancestors in this country. 6 I say, in all 

 probability, because groping as we are in the dusk, with so little 

 light to guide us, it would be presumptuous to assert that there 

 were no pre-Celtic inhabitants here : 7 and who shall venture to 



1 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says " the first inhabitants of this island came 

 from Armenia, and first settled in the South of Britain." 



Holinshed says "The Samothesans come to Britain anno mundi 1910. 

 [Chronicles, p. 3.] 



Sharon Turner's History of England, vol. i., p. 1. 



2 Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, vol. i., p. 141. 

 3 Carte's History of England, p. 34. 



4 Geoffrey of Monmouth, a Benedictine monk, who wrote the History of 

 England in Latin, but whose history is fictitious, says that Brutus, grandson of 

 iEneas, brought a colony of Trojans to Britain B.C. 1108: and then from the 

 name of the Trojan prince Brutus is derived the word Britain. [Rapin's History 

 of England, vol. i., p. 5. Camden's Britannia, p. 4 — 8. Carte's Hietory of 

 England, p. 75.] 



5 Herodotus, lib. ii., cap. 33. 

 6 Humes' History of England, chap. i. 

 Lingard's History of England, vol. i., p. 8. 

 Sharon Turner's History of England, vol. i., p. 1. 

 Carte's History of England, p. 7. 

 Rapin's History of England, vol. i., p. 5. 

 Keithley's History of Rome, p. 116. 

 Sir R. Hoare's Ancient Wilts, vol. i., p. 7. 

 7 Csesar testified that "by all the enquiry he could make, he found no more 

 than this, that the inland parts of Britain were inhabited by those who, they 

 said, were born in the verj' island, and the maritime coasts by such as from out 

 of Belgium passed over thither. [Bell: Gall: v., 12.] And Tacitus declared 

 that what manner of men the first inhabitants of Britain were, born in the 

 land, or brought in, as among barbarous people it is not certainly known. 

 [Camden's Britannia, p. 6.] 

 The Brigantes are by some thought to have been seated in this island prior to 



