point; and we fully admit, that genuine Celts, wherever their colonies spread, always came from Gaul. But what follows? If Gaul was their centre and source, they could not be an originally distinct nation. The Celtic people must have been formed in Gaul by a mixture of different original nations; as the English nation was formed, in Britain, whose colonies, now dispersed incomparably farther than those of the Celts ever were, have consequently all originated hence. No ancient author intimates, that more than two distinct original nations had reached the western countries of Europe, Disputes on this subject have arisen chiefly from the different modes of nomenclature customary among Greek and Roman writers. The Romans commonly described nations no otherwise than from the countries which they inhabited; and meant by the terms, Britons, Gauls, Germans, and Spaniards, only the people, in general, who inhabited the countries of Britain, Gaul, Germany, or Spain. The Greeks, on the contrary, usually denominated nations from their apparent affinities: and therefore distinguished the Aquitani, as resembling the Iberians, from other inhabitants of Gaul; while to these, whe ther Celts or Belge, and to the Germans in general, they gave the name of Celta or Galata: apprehending them (whether justly or not) to be branches of the same original nation. These diversities of nomenclature affected even their modes of describing the personal forms and languages of nations. Tacitus discrimi nated the Gallic from the German speech; but without intimat ing that variations of language existed among the Gauls. In like manner, he distinguished the British tongue, both from the German and the Gallic; but although he described three classes of the inhabitants of Britain, as varying in personal form and complexion, he omitted to state any diversity in their language, unless that those Britons who were situated nearest to the Gauls, differed little from them, in this, as well as in other respects. Julius Cæsar had observed, that "the interior of Britain was inhabited by natives of the island; but the sea-coast, by others, who had passed over from the Belgæ, for plunder and warfare; almost all of whom retained the names of those communities from which they originated and war becoming habitual, they remained there, and began to cultivate lands." Tacitus doubted, "whether the first inhabitants of Britain were indigenous or emigrants;" but remarked, that Their temperament of body was various, whence deductions might be formed of their different origin. Thus the ruddy hair and large limbs of the Caledonians point out a German derivation. The swarthy complexion and curled hair of the Silures, together with their situation oppo site to Spain, render it probable that a colony of the ancient Iberi possessed themselves of that territory. They who are nearest Gaul resemble the inhabitants of that country: which may be imputed either to the duration of hereditary influence, or to that similarity of climate, proceeding from the mutual approach of the coasts, which occasions similarity of constitution. On a general survey, however, it appears probable that the Gauls originally took possession of the neighbouring coast, The sacred rites and superstitions of these people are discernible among the Britons. The languages of the two nations do not greatly differ." * These passages remind us of our obligation to the Bible, for information, that men did not grow up, like trees, out of the various lands which they first inhabited; and, therefore, for our essential advantages over the best informed heathens, in tracing the remote origins of nations. We should also recollect, that the Greeks and Romans supposed the direction of the British Channel to be nearer south than west; so that they did not suspect Cornwall to have intervened between Wales and Spain. The Silures, who occupied both sides of the Bristol Channel, were a principal tribe of the original Britons; and doubtless were named by Tacitus as representatives of those inhabitants of the interior, whom Cæsar had mentioned. "Pars interior ab iis incolitur, quos natos in insulâ ipsâ, memoriâ proditum dicant." (Bell. Gall. v. 10.) The "proximi Gallis" of Tacitus, also, were evidently those of whom Cæsar had said, "Maritima pars ab iis, qui, prædæ ac belli inferendi causâ, ex Belgis transierant." The only maritime part with which Cæsar was acquainted was that which was nearest Gaul. Those inhabitants of Britain, therefore, whom Tacitus compared with the Gauls, were the Belgae, who had crossed the Channel from the opposite coast, and had settled in the southern and eastern parts of our island. Cæsar very seldom distinguishes Belgæ from Celts, mentioning them usually, in common only, as Gauls; * As this is the only express testimony of ancient writers to the origin of the first Britons, having quoted the version of Dr. Aikin, as a judicious and impartial translator, we subjoin the original, enclosing in brackets a part which Schoepflin (for a sufficiently obvious reason) excluded, on quoting the passage, Vind. Celt. p. 98. ' "Ceterum Britanniam qui mortales initio coluerint, indigenæ an advecti, ut inter barbaros, parum compertum, [Habitus corporum varii, atque ex eo argumenta : namque rutila Caledoniam habitantium comæ, magni artus, Germanicam originem adseverant; Silurum colorati vultus, et torti plerumque crines, et posita contra Hispaniam, Iberos veteres trajecisse, easque sedes occupasse, fidem faciunt ;] proximi Gallis et similes sunt, seu durante originis vi, seu procurrentibus in diversa terris, positio cœli corporibus habitum dedit; in universum tamen æstimanti, Gallos vicinum solum occupasse credibile est. Forum sacra deprehendas, superstitionum persuasione; sermo haud multo diversus." (Vit. Agricolæ, 11.) Dr. Aikin has considerably deviated from the original in the last sentence, by applying it to the two nations of Gauls and Britons. Tacitus appears to refer only to those who occupied the opposite coasts of the Channel, whom he had contrasted with the German Caledones and the Iberian Silures. but as he expressly states these to be Belgae, he would probably have intimated the inhabitants of the interior to be Celts, if he had known, or supposed, them to be so. He understood them, on the contrary, to have been immemorially natives of the island: Tacitus, from personal knowledge of them, observing that they strongly resembled the Iberians (whom Strabo contrasts both with the Celts and the Belgae) concluded, that they had come to Britain from Spain; and as he supposed that country to be opposite to theirs, he naturally referred to the circumstance, not as the foundation of his opinion, but as coinciding with it. He describes them as the reverse, in personal appearance, of the Caledonians, who occupied the northern part of Britain; whom he derived (without any hesitation) from the Germans. His decisions, in both respects, are the more to be depended upon, for his deliberation in judging, whether the inhabitants of the south coast of Britain, notwithstanding their resemblance of the Gauls on the opposite side of the channel, had migrated thence; or, dwelling (as he supposed) in the same latitude, had been assimilated by the influence of climate. The only ancient testimony, therefore, to the national origin of the earliest Britons, and that too of the most satisfactory nature, by the most acute and discriminative of all classical historians, and who possessed adequate means of judging, decides, that our British ancestors were NOT Celts, but IBERIANS, of a nation totally distinct from, and strongly contrasted with the CELTS. This conclusion strikes at the root of Schoepflin's hypothesis: for, if the Bâs-Bretons were descendants of the ancient Celts, then the Welch too, whose ancestors were the Silures, must be so; because they both still retain nearly the same language. Tacitus, however, could not but be summoned on this cause: and how should it be contrived to pervert his evidence, so as to make it seem to imply, that the earliest Britons were Celts?—The matter, doubtless, was difficult; but it was indispensable to accomplish it. Schoepflin, accordingly, quoted the beginning of the paragraph, in which Tacitus stated the general obscurity of the sources of barbarous nations: then, wholly excluding the descriptions which he had given of the Caledonians and the Silures, he leaps to what was said of those who dwelt nearest to the Gauls, representing what follows, to the end of the quotation, and no thing but that, to have been written by Tacitus, of all the inhabitants of Britain ! : To Schoepflin we readily accord eminent learning, talent, and industry but it appears to us impossible that any writer should act thus, who was not contending for victory, rather than for truth. Had he cited the whole testimony of Tacitus, and then sed in eam aliundè. nazis Noachida (cui nomen Celta Cluverius Colonia hæc, an ab Asche posteris ducta fuerit, atque a ponte Euxino; Danubii oras legens, ad Rhenum ascenderit, eoque transito, Sequanorum nostrorum caput, Vesontionem condiderit, quod juniores quidam nimia conjectandi libertata, tradiderunt, definiberit nemo. Nec asseruerimus idioma, quod antiquissimi in oram * nostram advenæ attulerunt, ipsum illud Celticum fecisse, quod ante Cesaris in hanc regionem adventum fuerat in usu. Ex primâ enim qualicunqae primorum hominum linguâ diverse dialecti, ex dialectis 3 linguæ novæ ex his novæ dialecti, longâ millenariorum seriè nasci potuerunt." (Lingua Alsatia sub Periodo Celtico, 1.). His admission, that a more ancient language than the Celtic may have been spoken in Gaul, affects the very ground on which he assumed the Celts to have been a distinct nation from the Germans and Iberians: for, supposing the Iberian language to have been spoken in Gaul before the Germans arrived, the Celtic language might be composed of this, intermixed with that of the Germans. Throughout his Vindiciae Celticæ, he has given no inti@mation whatever of any probable origin of the Celts. His whole haim was to maintain, that Gaul was the original seat of the Celtic nation; and that wherever else they were known to have dwelt, they came thither from Gaul. The last sentence of his preface is thus expressed off unting di Jay કરવા All Ex omnibus his is veterum documentis, quae elicienda sententia sit, judicet lector. Singulis in Republicâ literatâ senatoribus liberum est, suam proferre. Erunt fortassis, qui causâ examinatâ sentient; Galliam solam solum natale proprium extitisse Celtarum. Jo, Jool We think too highly of Schoepflin's discernment, to suppose that he was not aware of defects and incongruities in his hypothesis: but he had pledged himself, in his history of Alsace, to establish it; and he had probably taken too much pains for the purpose, before he discovered its fallacy, to be willing to abandon it. Besides, he had completely subverted the prevailing system, which Pelloutier had so recently brought to its greatest perfection: and accordingly, his work produced a revolution seldom paralleled in other branches of literature. Very few antiquaries or glossologists, comparatively, pretended any longer, to class both the German and the Welch languages as dialects of the ancient Celtic; but reasonably assigning the former to the Gothic na tions, they too hastily concluded that the ancient British language must be the Celtic, as Schoepflin had assumed it to be. Having been deemed such from the time of Ortelius (in common with other European languages), its right to that appellation remained undisputed, and the concurrence of so profound scholar as Michaelis, in Schoepflin's decision, could not but in VOL. XIX. NO. XXXVIII, 2 G £1191 za poloveni tu son fyeni tran |