By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



113 



the whole Celtic family ; but the ancient Britons were remarkable 

 for their high cheek bones, their broad chests, their long arms, 1 

 and in fine, for the largeness of their bodies, and the tallness of 

 their stature : 2 they are said to have had a strange fierceness in 

 their looks, as they advanced to battle, which inspired terror ; their 

 voices were loud and terrific ; they were of great strength, as well 

 as size ; very swift of foot, and excelled in all kinds of bodily exer- 

 cises ; they were also very patient of toil, hardships and pain ; in 

 short, they were a tall, strong, nimble, comely people. 



With regard to dress, the first inhabitants of Britain were almost 

 or entirely without it, from ignorance of the clothing arts. 3 In the 

 coldest seasons they were partially covered with the bark and branches 

 of trees, and such things as they could use without art or preparation : 

 and a very meagre and ineffectual protection against inclement 

 weather it must have been. It was probably with the same view 

 i to supply the want of clothes, and to secure themselves from the 

 \ severest cold, that they besmeared their bodies with such things as 

 ' they found most proper to their purpose . 4 and as the people of 

 I Britain continued much longer in this condition than many nations 

 on the continent, they acquired the distinctive epithet of " painted :" 5 



1 Pearson's Early and Middle Ages of England, p. 8. 



2 Juvenal Satire, viii., 252, 

 Tacit: Germania, iv. 



| Strabo, Kb. v., p. 200. 



Henry's History of Great Britain, ii., p. 279, chap. vii. 

 Sharon Turner's History of England, vol. i., p. 69. 

 Cartes' History of England, p. 72. 

 Tyrrell's History of England, vol. i., p. 21. 



3 Henry's History of Great Britain, vol. ii., p, 117. 

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



Dion Cassius* says " the Britons went naked and barefooted." Tyrrell's 

 History of England, vol. i., p. 21. 



4 So some of the natives of Yan Diemen's Land are described as "without 

 clothes, but covering their skins with dirt-" [Prichard's Physical History of 

 Mankind, vol. i., p. 405.] And the ferocious natives of the Andaman Islands, 

 (by some thought to be the most degraded savages on the face of the earth) are 

 thus described, " they go quite naked, and daub themselves over with mud to 

 keep off the insects, and fill their woolly hair with red ochre or cinnabar. 

 [Prichard's Physical History, vol. i., p. 471.] 



5 " Coeruleis' Britannis " says Martial, while Tertullian calls these branding or 



VOL. IX. NO. XXVI. 



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