THE MAKING OF THE ENGLISH NATION. 
187 
this voyage occurred when Carthage was at the zenith of power, 
about 240 B.C. Before the blood and life of Eome had entered on 
the historic stage, the inhabitants of Britain were an agglomeration 
mainly of Celts, belonging to different tribes, but possessing unity 
of race, and incorporated with them were the Iberians, together 
with some wandering Phoenicians and Carthaginians, and probably 
some Greeks. According to tradition there were also Jews in 
Cornwall, though as to this there was great doubt. The Jews, 
however, did begin to scatter themselves before the Eoman occu- 
pation, and it was quite possible that some might have wandered 
to this island. From the first arrival of Julius Csesar to the final 
departure of the Eoman legions was a period of 480 years, during 
350 years of which period Britain was a Eoman province. 
Between Caesar's own legions and the Britons the distinction was 
more in manners than in blood, the soldiers being chiefly Celts 
and Gauls. It was probable, therefore, that the influence of the 
Eomans on the original stock was to an inappreciable extent. Not 
so with the actual Eoman conquerors of Britain later on, who 
settled in the country, and after whose advent the pure-blooded 
Briton disappeared. In their place arose a mixed race of Britons 
and Eomans — a race in which the Eomans did not absorb the 
British, but in which the British absorbed the Eomans. The 
Eomans contributed to the language of the natives without 
changing or revolutionising it, and, above all, brought to this 
country the literature, politics, and religion of Eome. Within 
200 years after the departure of the Eoman legions Britain became 
the England of the Celtic-speaking people, excepting the districts 
of Wales and Cornwall, the kingdom of Strathclyde, the Highlands 
of Scotland, and Celtic Ireland. Passing then to the historical 
period in which Britain first assumed the name of England, and 
the invasions of Hengist and Horsa, when the Britons were exter- 
minated or driven far into the west, the lecturer came to the period 
of the Norman invasion. Unlike the Eomans, he said, who only 
introduced a few Latin words into the British language, and left it 
substantially as they found it, the Normans gave their language as 
well as their name to the country of their adoption. But English 
did not destroy the British, for the names of numerous rivers, 
mountains, and towns, remained as they were, and hundreds of 
our modern household words bore a distinctly Celtic parentage. 
The English took over as much of the Celtic language as they 
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