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subject in its more general form, and 1 seize the opportunity 
for offering a few remarks on the ante-Roman ethnology of 
Britain. It is a subject which has been singularly obscured 
by baseless theories and speculations, arising out of the 
ignorance and prejudice of writers who have treated upon 
it in anything but a carefully scientific spirit. It is a subject 
on which the ethnologist has need of the co-operation of the 
archaeologist ; and yet, in this country at least, archaeology 
is a younger science than ethnology itself. Both are, I fear, 
too much exposed to the two great dangers of a love for 
theoretic speculation on the one hand, and a tendency to 
generalise too hastily on the other. 
In the geography of Ptolemy, we see our island distributed 
among numerous tribes, differing much in name, and differing 
also in the extent of their territories. Caesar, the first who 
describes the island from personal observation and inquiry 
on the spot, tells us that the interior of the island was 
inhabited by people who were said, by tradition, to be the 
indigenous race, but that the sea coasts were occupied by 
Belgian settlers. We learn further, from his account, that 
there was in his time a wide difference in the decree of 
civilization between these midland aborigines and the 
inhabitants of the maritime settlements. Caesar assures 
us that the Belgae on the continent were mostly of German 
blood, (plerosque Belgas esse ortos ab Germanis,) and that 
they had crossed the Rhine to settle in districts from which 
they had expelled the Gauls. In another place he tells us 
that the Belgae of his time differed as much from the Gauls 
in language and manners, as the Gauls themselves differed 
from the Aquitani, which we know was an entire difference of 
race and language. Without wishing to enter, at present, on 
a much debated question, I would remark that Caesar's state- 
ments amount to a declaration of facts, which do not seem to 
me to be overruled by the theory of modern ethnologists ; and 
