Germans or Scandinavians.

But populations neither Keltic nor Teutonic have, at different times, settled in England; populations which (like several branches of the Keltic stock) have either lost their distinctive characteristics, or become mixed in blood, but which (unlike such Kelts) were not indigenous to any of the islands. Like the Germans or Teutons, on the other hand, they were foreigners; but, unlike the Germans or Teutons, they have not preserved their separate substantive character. Still, some of their blood runs in both English and Keltic veins; some of their language has mixed itself with both tongues; and some of their customs[13] have either corrupted or improved our national character. Thus—

1. The battle of Hastings filled England with Normans, French in language, French and Scandinavian in blood, but (eventually) English in the majority of their matrimonial alliances. And before the Normans came—

2. The Danes—and before the Danes—

3. The Romans.—Such is the general view of the chief populations, past and present, of England; of which, however, the Keltic and the Angle are the chief.

The English-and-Scotch, the Normans, the Danes, and the Romans have all been introduced upon the island within the Historical period—some earlier than others, but all within the last 2,000 years, so that we have a fair amount of information as to their history; not so much, perhaps, as is generally believed, but still a fair amount. We know within a few degrees of latitude and longitude where they came from; and we know their ethnological relations to the occupants of the parts around them.

With the Kelts this is not the case. Of Gael or Manxman, Briton or Pict, we know next to nothing during their early history. We can guess where they came from, and we can infer their ethnological relations; but history, in the strict sense of the term, we have none; for the Keltic[14] period differs from that of all the others in being pre-historic. This is but another way of saying that the Keltic populations, and those only, are the aborigines of the island; or, if not aboriginal, the earliest known. Yet it is possible that these same Keltic populations, whose numerous tribes and clans and nations covered both the British and the Hibernian Isles for generations and generations before the discovery of the art of writing, or the existence of a historical record, may be as well understood as their invaders; since ethnology infers where history is silent, and history, even when speaking, may be indistinct. At any rate, the previous notice of the ethnology of the British Isles during the Historical period, prepares us with a little light for the dark walk in the field of its earliest antiquity.

Nothing, as has just been stated, in the earliest historical records of Britain, throws any light upon the original occupation of the British Islands by man; indeed, nothing tells us that Britain, when so occupied, was an island at all. The Straits of Dover may have existed when the first human being set foot upon what is now the soil of Kent, or an isthmus may have existed instead. Whether then it was by land, or whether it was by water, that the population of Europe propagated itself into England, is far beyond the evidence of any historical memorial—far beyond the[15] evidence of tradition. Nothing at present indicates the nature of the primary migration of our earliest ancestors. Neither does any historical record tell us what manner of men first established themselves along the valleys of the Thames and Trent, or cleared the forests along their watersheds. They may have been as much ruder than the rudest of the tribes seen by Paulinus and Agricola, as those tribes were ruder than ourselves. They may, on the other hand, have enjoyed a higher civilization, a civilization which Cæsar saw in its later stages only; one which Gallic wars, and other evil influences, may have impaired.

For the consideration of such questions as these it matters but little whether we begin with the information which the ambition of Cæsar gave the Romans the opportunity of acquiring, or such accounts of the Phœnician traders as found their way into the writings of the Greeks; Polybius (for instance), Aristotle, or Herodotus. A few centuries, more or less, are of trifling importance. The social condition in both cases is the same. There was tin in Cornwall, and iron swords in Kent; in other words, there was the civilization of men who knew the use of metals, both on the side of the soldiers who followed Cassibelaunus to fight against Cæsar, and amongst the miners and traders of the Land's-end. In both cases,[16] too, there was foreign intercourse; with Gaul, where there was a tincture of Roman, and with Spain, where there was a tincture of Phœnician, civilization. This is not the infancy of our species, nor yet that of any of its divisions. For this we must go backwards, and farther back still, from the domain of testimony to that of inference, admitting a pre-historic period, with its own proper and peculiar methods of investigation—methods that the ethnologist shares with the geologist and naturalist, rather than with the civil historian. In respect to their results, they may be barren or they may be fertile; but, whether barren or whether fertile, the practice and application of them is a healthy intellectual exercise.

It must not be thought that the use of metals, and the contact with the Continent, which have just been noticed, invalidate the statement as to the insufficiency of our earliest historical notices. It must not be thought that they tell us more than they really do. It is only at the first view that the knowledge of certain metallurgic processes, and the trade and power that such knowledge developes, are presumptions in favour of a certain degree of antiquity in the occupancy of our island on the parts of its islanders; and it is only by forgetting the insular character of Great Britain that we can allow ourselves to suppose that,[17] though our early arts tell us nothing about our first introduction, they at any rate prove that it was no recent event. "Time," we may fairly say, "must be allowed for such habits as are implied by the use of metals to have developed themselves, and, consequently, generations, centuries, and possibly even millenniums must have elapsed between the landing of the first vessel of the first Britons, and the beginning of the trade with the Kassiterides." As a general rule, such reasoning is valid; yet the earliest known phenomena of British civilization are compatible with a comparatively modern introduction of its population. For Great Britain may have been peopled like Iceland or Madeira, i.e., not a generation or two after the peopling of the nearest parts of the opposite Continent, but many ages later; in which case both the population and its civilization may be but things of yesterday. In the twelfth century, Iceland had an alphabet and the art of writing. Had these grown up within the island itself, the inference would be that its population was of great antiquity; since time must be allowed for their evolution—even as time must be allowed for the growth of acorns on an oak. But the art may be newer than the population, or the population and the art may be alike recent. Hence, as the civilization of the earliest Britons may be newer than the stock to which it belonged, the[18] testimony of ancient writers to its existence is anything but conclusive against the late origin of the stock itself. It is best to admit an absolutely pre-historic period, and that without reservation; and as a corollary, to allow that it may have differed in kind as well as degree from the historic.

There is another fact that should be noticed. The languages of Great Britain are reducible to