Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/40

28 Passing by as entirely unworthy of notice the theories of those who have written or talked about autochtones and different creations of primitive men, the first probability which suggests itself to every one who thinks rationally on the question of the earliest population of Britain is that it must have proceeded from the neighbouring continent. The earliest writers assume it as an indisputable fact, as the Venerable Bede (Hist. Eccles. lib. i. cap. 1) and Tacitus long before him who gives as a reason, that they resembled them in form and manners and had the same religion, and a language somewhat similar. In universum tamen æstimanti Gallos vicinum solum occupasse credibile est; eorum sacra deprhendas, superstitionum persuasione; sermo haud multum diversus." (Vit. Agric. cap. 2). This conclusion indeed is so palpable that it requires only further to be proved not so much of the fact itself as of the particular people at the period to which we refer. The question then arises for us to decide who were the people inhabiting the neighbouring parts of Europe at the period when Britain first became known to the Romans.

All the principal writers of antiquity whose works have reached us on the subject, such as Cæsar, Strabo and Pliny agree in dividing ancient Gaul into three principal divisions, Belgic, Celtic and Aquitaine. But while each enumerates many different nations or tribes in the several divisions, Cæsar alone describes the people of the three great divisions as distinct from each other in language, institutions and laws. Hi omnes in linguâ, institutis legibus inter se differunt. (De Bello Gall. lib. i. § 1.) Thus while the Geographer and the Naturalist leave unnoticed such an important and interesting fact, the Soldier alone informs us there were three distinct nationalities, of which the tribes severally mentioned were only fractional members. The Belgæ, Cæsar further tells us, were for the most part of German origin, a people who had driven away the Gauls the former occupants of the country. Sic reperiebat plerosque Belgas esse ortos a Germanis, Rhenumque antiquitus traductos, propter loci fertilitatem ibi consedisse, Gallosque qui ea loca incolerent expulisse. (De Bello Gall. lib. 2. § 4.). Of these Belgæ then as the first in order, we will first endeavour to trace their subsequent affinities.

After the information Cæsar gives us of the Belgæ having been mostly of German origin, who had driven away the Gauls the former inhabitants of the country, we may be well prepared to learn from Celsus (as quoted by Oudendorp) that they refused to be called Gauls and would be