Page:The Celtic Review volume 3.djvu/267

252 CELTIC CIVILIZATION

may safely be said that the prevailing opinion among educated British people with regard to the inhabitants of the British Isles at the time of Cæsar's invasion is that they were painted savages, vastly inferior to the Romans in everything that constitutes civilization. This, at any rate, was the common view a generation ago, and it is very clearly reflected in Gilbert A'Beckett's Comic History of England, a work which, although avowedly humorous in its method of treating the subject, professes nevertheless to convey actual historical truth. 'The best materials for getting at the early history of a country,' observes this author at the outset, 'are its coins, its architecture, and its manners.' He thereupon asserts that at the period in question there were no British coins, an error which was doubtless shown up by some reviewer when the book appeared. British architecture at its best he holds to be represented by such a structure as Stonehenge. And as for early British maimers, in both senses of tit word, he comes to this conclusion: 'There is every reason to believe that our forefathers lived in an exceedingly rude state; and it is therefore perhaps as well that their manners—or rather their want of manners—should be buried in oblivion. The first inhabitants of the island [Great Britain] lived by pasture, and not by trade. Their dress was picturesque rather than elegant. Skins, however, were much worn, for morning as well as for evening dress.' John Leech, who illustrated the book, is quite in accord with the author, for in his picture of 'The Landing of Julius Cæsar' he shows the natives as tattooed, half-clad savages, wearing skin garments, and armed with clubs and spears. Discounting the spirit of burlesque which pervades the book and its illustrations, one is led to believe that A'Beckett, Leech, and most of their contemporaries in London were under the impression that the