116 



Vestiges of the Earliest Inhabitants of Wiltshire. 



revengeful : 1 while hating industry, and for the most part slothful 

 and indolent, yet they were always eager for war and robbery. 



That being their general character, we shall not expect to find 

 them given to very laborious occupations, or with any great liking 

 for the practical works of industry ; but we shall be prepared to 

 see them adhering more willingly to a pastoral and agricultural 

 life, hunting, fishing, and the like. And in truth the Celt was no 

 lover of trades, but an ardent lover of the soil. 



Probably the first inhabitants of this island subsisted by eating 

 without dressing what the earth in its uncultivated wildness pro- 

 duced, such as berries, roots, and herbs, with which the vast forests 

 must have abounded. 2 But seeing themselves surrounded by a 

 prodigious number of animals of various kinds, a great portion of 

 their time would be occupied in entrapping and otherwise securing 

 game. 3 This is an employment in which the rudest savages have 

 always proved themselves extremely skilful. Indeed, according to 

 Ossian, the son of Fingal, (who flourished among that people,) 

 hunting was the only business of the heroes of this country in 

 time of peace. It has recently been conclusively proved by 

 Zoologists, as has long been surmised by Professor Owen, that 



1 " Be thou a storm in war, but mild when the foe is low : it was thus my 

 fame arose," was the advice of the brave Fingal to his son. (Ossian, Calthon 

 and Colmal.) 



Compare the fierceness, perhaps we may say ferocity of the Assyrians in war, 

 combined witb the general mildness and clemency of their disposition. [Raw- 

 linson's Ancient Monarchies, vol. i., p. 303.] And also the cruel conduct in war 

 of the Thracians, who were partially civilized, and certainly not reckoned among 

 the most barbaric people. This information we derive from Thucydides, who 

 must have known them thoroughly from living so long amongst them. [Book 

 vii., chap. 29. See too Bloomfield's Thucydides, in loco.] 



2 Ovid Metam: i., 103. 



Dion Cassius, quoted in Tyrrell's History of England, vol, i., p. 21. 

 Henry's History of Great Britain, vol. ii., p. 97, chap. v. 

 Horace Sat: i., 3, 100. 



3 The Britons were forbidden by their religion to eat either hare, fowls or 

 geese : at least so says Csesar u leporem et gallinam et anserem gustare fas non 

 putant: hsec tamen alunt animi voluptatisque causa:" (Bell : Gall: v., 12) com- 

 menting on which, the writer of an able article in the Quarterly Review, July, 

 1863, pertinently inquires, "did not the ancient Britons eat eggs?" [See 

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



