name which, as is well known, comprehended at one time all the regions forming the north of modern Germany and Denmark, the Cimbric Chersonesus, or Peninsula of Jutland, among the rest. Bede also informs us, that, before arriving in Britain, the Picts were driven towards Ireland, and touched in the first instance at that island. In this relation the venerable Saxon historian is confirmed by the Irish bardic histories, which, in like manner, represent the Picts to have sought a settlement in Ireland, before they resorted to Britain. Finally, it may be mentioned as a curious confirmation of the identity here assumed of the Cimbri and the modern Welsh, that the only word which has been preserved of the language of the former people, namely, the term Morimarusa, which Pliny quotes as meaning the Dead Sea, appears to be Welsh, Mor in that language signifying the sea, and Maru dead.*

That the Welsh, indeed, were in very ancient times established in Scotland, is matter of authentic and undoubted history. Their kingdom of Strathclyde, or Reged, otherwise called Regnum Cumbrense, or the kingdom of the Cymry, lay in the south-west of Scotland. There are certainly no probable grounds for believing that there were any Cymry in England till an age subsequent to the establishment of this northern kingdom. "Most

of the great Welsh pedigrees,' observes Mr. Moore, commence their line from princes of the Cumbrian kingdom, and the archaiologist Lhuyd himself boasts of his descent from ancestors in the 'province of Reged in Scotland, in the fourth century, before the Saxons came into Britain.' To this epoch of their northern kingdom, all the traditions of the modern Welsh refer for their most boasted antiquities and favourite themes of romance. The name of their chivalrous hero, Arthur, still lends a charm to much of the topography of North Britain; and among the many romantic traditions connected with Stirling Castle, is that of its having once been the scene of the festivities of the Round Table. Aneurin and Taliessin, the former born in the neighbourhood of the banks of the Clyde, graced the court, we are told, of Urien, the king of Reged or Cumbria; and the title Caledonius bestowed on the enchanter Merlin, who was also a native of Strath-Clyde, sufficiently attests his northern and Pictish race." †

The poets

We have thus, however cursorily, taken a survey of the subject of the original population of these islands, in its whole extent, and have endea

We find the following passage in a forgotten, and in most respects sufficiently absurd, book, entitled, "The Pronunciation of the English Language Vindicated," &c., by the Rev. James Adams, 8vo. Edin. 1799:-" The Welsh dialect (of the English language) is characterized by a peculiar intonation, and by the vicarious change of consonants, k for g, t for d and p, f for v, and s for z. Now this twang and change being common to the Germans, and moreover not being found in Irish or Highland English (the author means the pronunciation of English by the Scotch Highlanders), there is an opening for a curious inquiry I never met with."-pp. 144, 145.

History of Ireland, p. 103. The view that has been taken of the origin of the Welsh is substantially the same with that given both by Mr. Moore and by Sir William Betham,

voured, as we went along, both to note the principal of the various opinions that have been entertained on the many obscure and difficult questions it presents, and to collect, from the lights of history and the evidence of facts together, what appears to be the most consistent and otherwise probable conclusion on each controverted point. The following may be given as a summary of the views that have been offered. Beginning with Ireland, it may be affirmed that everything in that country indicates the decidedly Celtic character of its primitive population; and taking the geographical position of the island along with the traditions of the people, we can have little doubt that the quarter from which chiefly it was originally colonized was the opposite peninsula of Spain. That settlements were also effected in various parts of it, before the dawn of recorded history, by bodies of people from other parts of the continent-from Gaul, from Germany, from Scandinavia, and even possibly from the neighbouring coast of Britain-is highly probable; but although several of these foreign bands of other blood seem to have acquired in succession the dominion of the country, their numbers do not appear in any instance to have been considerable enough to alter the thoroughly Celtic character of the great body of the population, of their language, of their customs, and even of their institutions. Thus, the Scots, who appear to have been originally a Teutonic people from the northern parts of the European continent, although they eventually subjugated the divided native Irish so completely as to impose their own name upon the island and the whole of its inhabitants, were yet themselves more truly subjugated, by being melted down and absorbed into the mass of the more numerous Celtic race among whom they had settled. The invasion of Ireland by the Scots, and the subsequent intermixture of the conquerors with the conquered, resembled the subjugation of Saxon Britain by the Normans, or still more nearly that of Celtic or Romanized Gaul by the Franks, in which latter case the conquerors, indeed, as happened in Ireland, gave their name to the country, but the native inhabitants in turn gave their language to the conquerors. In this manner it happened that the Irish, after they came to be called Scots, were really as much a Celtic or Gaelic people as ever. The Scots from Ireland who colonized the western coast of North Britain, and came at last to give their name to the whole of that part of our island, were undoubtedly a race of Gael. They were called Scots merely because the whole of Ireland had, by that time, come to be known by the name of the country of the Scots, who had obtained the dominion of it. The original population of ancient Caledonia, however, appears to have been of Gothic lineage, and to have come from the opposite coasts of Germany, and what is now called Denmark. Long after the arrival of the Irish Scots in the western part of the country, this original Gothic race, or possibly another body of settlers who had subsequently poured in from the

querors. With respect to Druidism, Britain perhaps stood in the same relation to Gaul that the island of Mona or Anglesey bore to Britain; and when the Romans had established themselves in Gaul they had the same motives for attacking our island that they had a century later when they had fixed themselves in Britain, for falling upon Anglesey, as the centre of the Druids and of British union, and the source of the remaining national resistance.

It is to be remembered, also, that, whatever may have been the views of personal ambition from which Cæsar principally acted, the Romans really had the best of all pleas for their wars with the Gauls, who had been their constant enemies for centuries, and originally their assailants. Their possession of Italy, indeed, could not be considered as secure until they had subdued, or at least impressed with a sufficient dread of their arms, the fierce and restless nations both of Gaul and Germany, some of whom-down almost to the age of Cæsar-had not ceased occasionally to break through the barrier of the Alps, and to carry fire and sword into the home territories of the republic. These and the other northern barbarians, as they were called, had had their eye upon the cultivated fields of the Italic peninsula ever since the irruption of Bellovesus in the time of the elder Tarquin; and the war the Gauls were now carrying on with Cæsar was only a part of the long contest which did not terminate till the empire was overpowered at last by its natural enemies nearly five centuries afterwards. In the meantime it was the turn of the Gauls to find the Roman valour, in its highest condition of discipline and efficiency, irresistible; and the Britons, as the active allies of the Gauls, could not expect to escape sharing in their chastisement.

According to a curious passage in Suetonius, it was reported that Cæsar was tempted to invade Britain by the hopes of finding pearls.* Such an inducement seems scarcely of sufficient importance, although we know that pearls were very highly esteemed by the ancients, and Pliny, the naturalist, tells us that Cæsar offered or dedicated a breastplate to Venus ornamented with pearls which he pretended to have found in Britain. But Cæsar might be tempted by other real and more valuable productions, and he could not be ignorant of the existence of the British lead and tin which the Phoenicians had imported into the Mediterranean ages before his time, and in which the Phocæan colony of Massilia or Marseilles was actually carrying on a trade. Cæsar himself, indeed, says nothing of this; but within a few miles of our coasts, and among a people with whom the British had constant intercourse, he must have acquired more information than appears respecting the natural fertility of the soil, and the mineral and other productions of the island. From evident reasons, indeed, the Gauls in general might not be very communicative on these subjects; but among that people Cæsar had allies and some

Vit. Jul. Cæs, ch. 47.

steady friends, who must have been able and ready to satisfy all his inquiries. His subservient instrument Comius, who will presently appear upon the scene, must have possessed much of the information required. His love of conquest and glory alone might have been a sufficient incentive to Cæsar, but a recent and philosophic writer assigns other probable motives for his expeditions into Britain, such as his desire of dazzling his countrymen, and of seeming to be absorbed by objects remote from internal ambition by expeditions against a new world, or of furnishing himself with a pretence for prolonging his provincial command, and keeping up an army devoted to him, till the time should arrive for the execution of his projects against liberty at Rome.*

From a Copper Coin in the British Museum.

Whatever were his motives, in the year 55 before Christ, Cæsar resolved to cross the British Channel, not, as he has himself told us, to make then a conquest, for which the season was too far advanced, but in order merely to take a view of the island, learn the nature of the inhabitants, and survey the coasts, harbours, and landing-places. He says that the Gauls were ignorant of all these things; that few of them, except merchants, ever visited the island; and that the merchants themselves only knew the sea-coasts opposite to Gaul. Having called together the merchants from all parts of Gaul, he questioned them concerning the size of the island, the power and customs of its inhabitants, their mode of warfare, and the harbours they had capable of receiving large ships. He adds, that on none of these points could they give him information; but, on this public occasion, the silence of the traders probably proceeded rather from unwillingness and caution than ignoSir James Mackintosh, Hist. Eng. vol. i. p. 12.