112 Vestiges of the Earliest Inhabitants of Wiltshire. 



to the ancient Britons, but practised in the infancy of their occupa- 

 tion in Greece, Germany, Spain, and several other countries. This 

 practice of composing their laws in verse and forming them into 

 songs was owing to that surprising love which the nations of anti- 

 quity bore to music and poetry : and thus they rendered their laws 

 more, agreeable to a poetical people, and made it easier for them to 

 get them by heart, and retain them in their memory. For the same 

 reason they held their bards in the greatest honour; exempting 

 them from serving in war and from all taxes, and showing them 

 on all occasions the highest marks of respect : 1 wherein again we 

 see an identity of custom with other nations of the same period, 

 as recorded in the poems of Homer and others. 



It is time to enquire what was the personal appearance of the 

 ancient Britons, and what their characteristics. We are told that 

 between the numerous branches of the great Celtic race, which 

 under different titles occupied Germany, Gaul, Spain and Britain, 

 there was a very close resemblance in person as well as in manners: 

 so that what we read of one applies in a great degree to all. They 

 were of a fair light complexion, with long flaxen or yellow hair, 2 

 though in many various gradations : and they had blue eyes ; of 

 both which national peculiarities they appear to have been not a 

 little vain. 3 So far they shared in the general characteristics of 



Lingard's History of England, vol. i., p. 18. 

 Sharon Turner's History of England, vol. i., p. 73. 

 Henry's History of Great Britain, vol. i., p. 315, ii., chap. v. 

 Speed's Historie of Great Britaine, p. 21. 



1 Lingard's History of England, vol. i., p. 21. 



In Homer, throughout the poems, we see astonishing marks of reverence and 

 respect shown to the bards or poets. For example see Odyssey viii., 62, xiii., 27, 

 xxii., 330. 



2 Tacit : Germania, iv. 



Henry's History of Great Britain, vol. ii., chap. vii. 

 Sharon Turner's History of England, vol. i., p, 67. 

 Speed's Historie of Great Britain, p. 21. 

 Prichard's Physical History of Mankind, vol. i., p. 150. 



3 Compare the pride in their long hair, of the Spartan warriors, as exemplified 

 before the battle of Thermopylae. [Herod : vii., 208, 209.] Pliny, iii., 20. 



" Whene'er the Spartans, one and all 

 For deadliest risk prepare, 

 Like men who hold high festival 

 They comb their long dark hair." 



[Bode's Ballads from Herodotus, p. 211.] 



