BRITAIN THE most considerable of the European islands, ex tends from fifty to fifty-eight and a half degrees of north latitude ; being, of course, about 500 geographical miles in length. Its greatest breadth, from the land's end to the north foreland in Kent, 320 geographical miles. In British miles, the length may be computed 580, and the breadth 370.
With the various etymologies of the word Albion and Britain, we need not trouble the reader ; most of them are fanciful, all of them seem conjectural. The earliest population of Britain is generally believed to have been Celtic. To the Celtic population of England succeed ed the Gothic. The Scythians or Goths, advancing from Asia, drove the Cimbri, or northern Celts, before them ; and, at a period long preceding the Christian xra, had seized upon that part of Gaul which is nearest to Great Britain, where they acquired the provincial de nomination of Belgx. Their passage to England fol lowed of course ; and, when Cxsar first explored this island, he tells us that the primitive inhabitants were driven into the interior parts, while the regions on the south-east were peopled with Belgic colonies. These Belgx may be justly regarded as the chief ancestors of the English nation. The Saxons, who made the second conquest of England, were inconsiderable in numbers; nor did they exterminate the natives, but made them slaves ; and, from the two Gothic dialects, of the conquerors and the conquered, being mingled, sprung the Anglo-Saxon, the parent of our English language. The opinion, it is true, of the population of all Britain being Celtic at the period of Cxsar's arrival, has found many supporters, but it labours under insuperable ob jections. The Anglo-Saxon, and the English language, have no traces of Celtic in them. They have even less of that Tudesque dialect of the Gothic, which the Angles and Saxons must have spoken at their arrival in Britain, than of the Belgic and Dutch dialects. This is what clearly must have sprung from our Danish and Jutland conquerors mixing a small portion of their dialect with the great body of the conquered people, who still retain ed the dialect of Belgium.
It has been objected to this statement of our early population, that Druidism, which is generally allowed to be a Celtic superstition, is mentioned by Caesar in the earliest accounts of the island.
But to this objection it is answered, that Caesar never speaks of having seen Druids ; nor is there mention of any Druid having been seen till the Romans had pene trated into South Wales.
The Welsh are confessed a Celtic race. The Gael or Southern Celts, called Guydels by the Welsh, seem to have been the primitive Celts of ancient Britain. The most ancient names in Wales are Guydelic, not Cumraig or Welsh. These southern Celts are sup posed to have been vanquished by the Cimbri of the north, the ancestors of the modern Welsh, who style themselves Cymri to this day.
Of the Gothic origin of the present inhabitants of the Lowlands of Scotland, we have the direct testi mony of Tacitus, who speaks of their red hair, and their large limbs, denoting German extraction. At what time the Goths of Scotland expelled the prior Celtic race, it would be as difficult as unprofitable to attempt to ascertain.
The Celts had been probably long expelled from the eastern coast before the arrival of Cxsar. The part of Scotland, called the Highlands, has been possessed by a Celtic population since the sixth century ; but this was a reflux of the Celts from Ireland, not the remnant of the aboriginal race. The settlement of the Dalriads or Attacotii in Argyleshire, is fixed by antiquarians at the year 258. Their repulsion to Ireland took place in the fifth century ; but, in the sixth century, they made another, and a permanent settlement. It has been indeed pretended by Boethius, Buchanan, and some Scottish antiquarians, who make high pretensions to antiquity, that the Celtic Scots reigned in Scotland 1000 years be fore the Christian xra ; but that fabulous millennium is now justly given up.