390 
P I C T. 
led to difcover five languages in Britain, agreeably to the 
five boohs of MoJ'es: a conceit from which the good man 
derived a great deal of harmlefs fatisfadlion. 
This language has been confidered, by judicious wri¬ 
ters; as mafculine, copious, and poetical. Although, from 
not feeing it in its primitive orthography, it feems to be 
harlh, in its founds, to the ears of ftrangers, yet, when it 
is put into verfe, and is read with its genuine pronun¬ 
ciation, it is, like the Greek and Hebrew, melodious and 
ftrong. As the Celts were the original fettlers of Weitern 
Europe, they tranfmitted to their pollerity an energetic 
paflion for impofing their own fignificant names on all 
the prominent objects of nature. -In exercifing this 
peculiar prerogative of firll difcoverers, they difplayed 
thofe appropriate qualities of their language which have 
been remarked; its ftrength and difcrimination, its co- 
pioufnefs of epithet, and its frequency of metaphor. 
In the fubfequent progrefs of the Gothic tribes over. 
Europe, they adopted the names of mountains, rivers, 
&c. which had been impofed upon them by the Celts, 
who had previoufly occupied the countries of which they 
took pofielfion ; and the Saxons, who fettled in Britain, 
were prompted, by their poverty of fpeech, to follow the 
example of their Gothic fathers. The Anglo-Saxons, 
who, in more recent times, acquired fettlements in North 
Britain, borrowed many words from the Celts and Bri¬ 
tons, and Scoto-Irilh, which have maintained their place, 
and which give ftrength, copioufnefs, and ornament, to 
the Scoto-Saxon of the prefent times. 
The religion, as well as the language, of the Pidls, 
derived its origin from thofe of the Gauls; and hence we 
may conclude that the Pidts and the Britons were the 
fame people, as well as from the identity of their fpeech, 
topography, and monuments. The tenets and the forms 
of the Pidtifh religion were Druid in the fixth century; 
as we know from a thoufand relics of ftone that ftill en¬ 
gage attention within the diftridl of the Piftifh country. 
The modes of fepulture were the fame among the Pidls 
as thofe of the Caledonians, and the fepulchral rites of 
the latter w'ere the fame as thofe of the Britons. Their 
liill-forts, their weapons of war, their ornaments, and 
their modes of life, were the fame as thofe of the Caledo¬ 
nian Britons, of whom the Pidts were the immediate 
del’cendants. That the Caledonians and Pidls were the 
fame people is now univerfally allowed. Buchanan, 
Camden, Lloyd, Jones, the M £ Pherfons, O’Connor, d’An- 
ville, and Stillingfieet, however they may differ in other 
points, are here all agreed. But fome have afferted, 
without proof, and againft probability, that the Caledo¬ 
nians were a Gothic colony, who conquered North Bri¬ 
tain in fome unknown age. With regard to any Gothic 
expedition for this purpofe, hiftory is filent. Few quef- 
tions have engaged more general attention among learned 
antiquaries than that of the origin of the Pidls. Mr. 
Chalmers has given a minute detail of the different opi¬ 
nions that have been maintained with regard to this 
queftion ; and he concludes with adducing the teftimony 
of the learned antiquary Mr. Edward King, the author 
of the “ Munimenta Antiqua;” who maintains, that the 
Pidls were defcended from the aboriginal Britons. 
With him concurs the late Dr. Henry, who fays, that 
we hear nothing of any invafion of the Caledonians by 
any fuch diftindl people as the Pidts; and he therefore 
concludes, as Innes had done before him, that this deno¬ 
mination was merely a new name, which was given to 
the old fettlers. Upon the whole, Mr. Chalmers ob- 
ferves, the twenty-one Britilh tribes, who occupied North 
Britain during the firft century, remained for ages in 
their ancient fettlements. Five of thofe tribes were 
fubdued by the Roman arms, and civilized by the Roman 
arts. After the Roman abdication, thefe five tribes 
continued, in their appropriate country, on the fouth of 
the. Iriths, diltinguilhed by no other circumftance than 
their, civilization from the fixteen tribes, who equally 
remained unfubdued on the north of the fame friths, and 
who obtained ihe name of Picls. Thefe were as much 
the descendants of the Cambro-Britons as their fouthern 
neighbours of Strathclyde, who were noticed, till recent 
times, as genuine Welfti. 
Upon the death of Bred, the laft Piflifh king, A. D. 
843, Kenneth, the fon of Alpin, king of the Scots, 
obtained the Pidlilh government; in his perfon a new 
dynafty commenced : the king was changed, but the 
government remained the fame. The Pidls and Scots, 
who were a congenial people, from a common origin, 
and fpoke cognate tongues, the Britilh and the Gaelic, 
readily coalefced; and the union of the Pidls with the 
Scots, A.D. 143, conjoined the feparate dominions of both, 
and led on to the annexation of other territories. The 
Pidls had been confined, for ages before that epoch, by 
the Forth on the fouth, by Drumalban on the weft, and 
by the German Ocean on the eaft and north. Their 
fouthern limits had been fixed at an early period by the 
prevalence of the Roman power. They were induced, 
probably by the long continuance of that power, to con- 
folidate the diftant diftridls of the various tribes, which 
had, from the earlieft times, divided their country by 
their fpirit of independence, and enfeebled their ftrength 
by their defires of revenge. Tradition reported, even fo 
lately as the twelfth century, that Pidlavia had been 
once feparated into fix kingdoms: but thefe fidlitious 
monarchies had long ceafed to' exift before the memor¬ 
able union of the Pidls and Scots, except in the natural 
divifions of the country, as they had been named by a 
Celtic people. The Scots, at that epoch, poffeffed the 
whole weftern coaft, from the Clyde to Loch-Toridon, 
with the adjacent ifles. In the days of Bede, their 
colonies extended from the northern margin of the 
Clyde, along the fiiores of the Irilh Sea, far into the north: 
and in the courfe of another century, they occupied the 
ample extent of Argyle, from the river Clyde on the 
fouth to Loch-Ew and Loch-Maree on the north, and 
from the fea on the weft to Drumalban on the eaft. 
Such were the dominions which the Scots brought with 
them, when, by overpowering the Pidls, an union was 
effedled between them, both of authority and of territo¬ 
ries. Chalmer's Caledonia, vol. i. » 
Picts* Wall, a famed piece of Roman work, begun 
by the emperor Adrian, A. D. 124, on the northern 
bounds of England, to prevent the incurfions of the 
Pidls and Scots. At firft it was made only of turf, 
ftrengthened with palifadoes ; till the emperor Severus, 
coming in perfon into Britain, repaired it, as fome fay, 
with lolid ftone, reaching eighty miles in length, from 
the Irifh to the German Sea, through Carlifle and New- 
caftle ; with watch-towers garrifoned, now called caftle- 
fteeds, at the diftance of a mile from each other. 
It does not appear quite certain that Severus’s wall 
was formed of ftone : Bede exprefsly afferts the contrary, 
though Spartian intimates that Severus built both a 
mums, i. e.<ia wall of ftone, and a vallum, or wall of turf. 
Bede's words are thefe : “Severus., after leveral great and 
difficult engagements, thought it neceflary to feparate 
that part of the illand which he had recovered from 
the other nations that were unconquered ; not with a 
mums, as fome think, but with a vallum: now a mums 
(fays he) is of ftone; but a vallum, fuch as they made 
round a camp, to fecure it againft the attacks of the 
enemy, is made of turf cut regularly out of the ground, 
and built high above ground like a wall, with the ditch 
before it out of which the turf has been dug, and ftrong 
flakes of wood all along the brink. Severus, therefore, 
drew a great ditch, and built a ftrong earthen wall, for¬ 
tified with leveral turrets, from fea to fea.” The learned 
Camden adopts this opinion; and adds, that Severus’s 
wall is expreffed by no other word than vallum, either in 
Antoninus or the Notitia. 
This wall was ruined leveral times by the P'tfts, and as 
often repaired by the Romans. At laft ALtius, a Roman 
general, ordered it to be rebuilt of ftone about the year 
420 3 
