Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/14

2 into this inquiry. Yet it is certainly one of much greater interest than the commentators on Cæsar have seemed to attach to it, as they have either passed over the subject altogether, or made such observations upon it as only served to show what little attention they had thought proper to give it. Thus, at length, we find one even accusing Cæsar of an error in the passage above cited, stating that his assertion of the difference of language was "not correct as regards the Belgæ and Celts, who merely spoke two different dialects of the same tongue, the former being of the Cymric, the latter of the Gallic stock. The Aquitani," it is added, "appear to have spoken a language of Iberian origin." Such are the views enunciated by the last commentator on Cæsar, Dr. Anthon, who has condensed in his notes the observations of previous writers; and as his edition seems now extensively admitted into our schools, it becomes so much the more important for us to examine the question whether this opinion may be considered correct. The country occupied by the Belgæ, we are informed, was separated from that of the Celts or Gauls proper, by the Marne and the Seine. It consequently comprised, not only the modern kingdoms of Holland and Belgium, but also Flanders, Picardy, and a small portion of Normandy, with other provinces of modern France to the East. The inhabitants of these districts were the most powerful of all Gaul, as being on the one side the furthest removed from the Roman territories, they had been the least subjected to the evil consequences of a contact with them, and on the other being nearest to the Germans with whom they were always at war, they had their warlike habits kept in constant exercise. But we learn, moreover, that they were themselves of German origin, having, not long before Cæsar wrote, themselves intruded into their then possessions, after driving out thence the Gauls who were their former occupants. They were, therefore, clearly a different people from the Gauls, as being Germans, and consequently we may conclude that Cæsar was not mistaken respecting them and their language, inasmuch as we may well suppose them to have spoken one kindred to that of the Germans from whom they had sprung, and distinct from either the Cymric or Gaelic. Of that language, however, we have unfortunately scarcely any traces, or indeed any but the scantiest notices of the people themselves, but such as they are, they lead irresistibly to the conclusion which we should in reason deduce from the account of their origin, and from the subsequent history of the country they occupied.