i
I
176 CRANIA BRITANNICA. [CHAP. VI.
always oppress. The islanders would gradually learn the arts and some of the refinements,
and participate in the ameliorating influence of those manners, which the Romans practised and
displayed. Their blood, being mainly unmixed, was to be transmitted more or less pure to their
distant offspring of the present day. The Roman colonization of Gaul was more complete than
that of Britain, especially along the Mediterranean coast and the banks of the Rhone. The
language of the immigrants superseded that of the Gauls much more entirely, indeed so completely
as to have withstood all subsequent influences *. The Britons at first despised the
tongue of their conquerors, and such has been the spirit of the British race at aU periods t ; but
they were not long in perceiving its beauties and in cultivating an acquaintance with them,
which Tacitus ascribed to the influence of Agricola, in that passage in which he pays the South
Britons the remarkable compliment of a preference, by reason of their natural talent, over the
Gauls with their acquirements J. Here the vernacular tongue was not superseded by that of the
Romans, although the latter would of necessity be the lengua franca of their troops, derived
from such various countries, and, even independent of the Latin-speaking population in and
about the garrisons, was probably colloquial in the principal part of the island. " The speech of
the Romanized Britons remained, after the retreat of the Romans, the same as the language of
the extra-provincial Britons of Caledonia"§; and the language used by the bards of this period is
found to be radically British. From all which, it may be concluded that the mixture of Roman
blood also was much less in Britain than in Gaul. And that the efi'ects of this mixture are to be
regarded as eliminated may, with much confidence, be admitted, from the fact that the present
population of Belgic Gaul, where the Romans were settled perhaps more numerously and quite
as permanently as in any part of Britain, at this time exhibits no trace of Roman descent. The
people are of the taUer and xanthous description ||, whilst the Romans were, and are to this day,
Council on the Aborigines," Victoria, 1858-9. " Observations
on the state of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of New Zealand,"
by F. D. Fenton, 1859.
* Vaughan's "Revolutions in Enghsh History," 1859,
i. 93.
t Chalmers," Caledonia," i. 220. Notwithstanding the pride
and prejudice of Englishmen, and the resultant incuriosity and
laziness, notwithstanding all efforts to the contrary, every one
of the well-authenticated Celtic dialects, save the Cornish, remains
a living language—we hope, long to continue such.
J " Ingénia Britannorura studiis Gallorum anteferre."—Vita
Agricolte, c. xsi.
§ Chalmers, ibid. Much weight has been attached to, and
important doctrines based upon the passage in Beda (Hist.
Eccles. L. i. c. i.), of the eighth century, where he parallels
the number of the languages in which the study of divine
truth was cultivated in Britain to the five books of Moses—
making them those of the English, Britons, Scots, Picts,
and Latins. "We should rather expect such a fanciful parallel
not to bear any deep impress of correctness. If the dialect
spoken by the Britons differed from that of the Picts, the difference
was probably the influence of the Latin language upon
the native tongue—an influence to which the Picts were not exposed.
II In an ingenious essay on the Roman garrison of Mancunium,
composed of the First Auxiliary Cohort of Frisians, Dr.
Jas. Black has brought together much curious information
which has an immediate bearing upon this question. He concludes
that this garrison consisted of /60 able-bodied Frisians,
who, with their recruits, remained at Mancunium for upwards
of three centuries. Dr. Black is evidently inclined to admit
the hkelihood that the cohort would be recruited from the
country of the Frisii. The Germanic tribes were the readiest
source for recruits during the greater period of the Roman
rule in Britain. He argues that this great and long-continued
aggregation of Frisians in South Lancashire has had a material
influence upon the population of the county; which is still to
be traced in the peculiar habits, customs, social condition,
dialect, and even physical characteristics of the inhabitants.
This position is well sustained, notwithstanding the difficulty
with which its support is clogged by the close aiiinity of the
Saxon invaders to the Frisians, whether of Roman or post-
Roman times. But Dr. Black's own observations upon the
personal peculiarities of the natives of Friesland, and the confirmatory
testimony of others to this branch of his argument,
appear to be singularly unsubstantial and inappropriate. The
account he gives of the people he has seen on the coast of
Friesland, " as well as in the islands of Beveland," is that
"many of them are tall and have dark complexions" (p.
14), and his quotation from Whitaker, and the reference he
makes to Emmius, he considers to be confirmatory of this.
The former, in alluding to the description of the Silures by
Tacitus, adds, " The Britons of Wales were distinguished, as
the mountaineers of it and Lancashire are at this day, by their
CHAP. VI.] ETHNOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF SUCCESSIVE POPULATIONS. 177
a dark-haired race. The principle denominated "reversion" has been in full operation, and
the Roman strain in the breed is wholly dissipated *.
Before the end of the third century, the Pranks and Saxona began to infest the northern
coasts of Gaul. And within another hundred years, there is historical evidence also that the
Picts and Soots ravaged Britain. Ammianus MarceUinus, who flourished at this latter period,
and was himself a military officer at one time serving in Gaul, notices these nations, the Picts,
the Saxons, and the Scots, with the Attacotti, as engaged in a series of calamitous inroads on
the southern Britons t- Commencing from this era, a succession of predatory incursions, hostile
invasions, and permanent settlements of Britain by various races began, which thickened as the
power of Rome declined, and may be said not to have flnaUy terminated till the Norman
Conquest, 700 years afterwards.
The first in importance of these invaders were the Picts and Scots, who harassed the
parts of the Island which the Romans had subjected, long before they were compelled to withdraw
their legions. The earliest mention of the Picts is by Eumenius, the panegyrist, quite at
the close of the third century, who expressly allies them with the Caledonians, including the
latter under the same designation Í. There is sufficient reason to regard the term Picti as
having been used, amidst changing designations and subsequently, pretty much as a synonym
of Caledonii, and to look upon both as applied at first to those unsubdued northern British
tribes inhabiting the country beyond Valentia and the Wall of Antoninus. They may be considered
to have embraced, before the invasion of the Dalriadic Scots, the tribes of Epidü, Venicontes,
Horesti, Caledonii, Vacomagi, Tesali, Cerones, Creones, Cantse, Carnonacse, Mertse,
Logi, Careni, and Cornabü, the inhabitants of the " septentrionales plagas Britanniae " of Beda.
As we learn from Beda, the Picts were distinguished into northern and southern. In its strictest
import, the appellation Picti was appropriated to the more eastern tribes. Chalmers has shown
that the ancient topographical names of the Pictish territory are most closely allied to the
Cymric dialects § ; but Mr. Garnett concludes, notwithstanding, that the Pictish and Cymraeg,
or Welsh, dialects were so diverse as to justify Beda's making the Pictish and British languages
curled hair, which is generally black, and their fresh-coloured
countenances." This latter feature does not consist with Dr.
Black's inference from Emmius, nor with his own observations ;
and the whole of the statements are greatly at variance with
the physical traits both of the Frisians and of the rural population
of Lancashire. Dr. Beddoe, the most attentive observer
of these special features, says, " The eyes of the Frisians are
usually light blue or light grey ; the hair is much more often
flaxen or light brown than strongly yellow: I met with but
one doubtful example of black in the Frisian countries."
—Phys. Char, of the Anc. and Mod. Germans., Meet. Brit.
Ass. 1857.
• Antea, p. 8. We are quite aware that a different doctrine
has been maintained. In a book entitled " Analytical Ethnology,"
it is asserted " that wherever we meet with Roman
remains, we may also notice traces of ancient Rome in the
features and manners of the present race " {oj}. cit., by R. T.
Massy, M.D. 1855, p. 61). This we believe to be an entu-ely
groundless assertion.
Mr. Thos. Wright argues vigorously, amongst other things,
for a considerable change in the population at the close of the
Roman period. " That tlie Roman population, distributed in
cities and towns with independent municipal governments,"
and in these almost exclusively, " consisted of a mixture of very
different races, among which there was probably but little
pure Roman blood, and no British blood." "The remains of
the original Celtic population were very small, and perhaps
consisted chiefly or entirely of the peasantry, who cultivated
the land as serfs."—Ethnol. of South. Brit. Trans. Hist. Soc.
Lane, and Chesh. viii. 144.
+ Lib. xxvi. c. iv.
t Mr. Garnett alhes the Latin Picti with the Welsh trith,
variegated, and Bresounek, from BreSj the present name of the
Bretons, also meaning variegated, and synonymous with Picti.
Philol. Essays, p. 202. "There are some reasons for believing
that the woods on the Chiltern Hills were known to the
Welsh by the name of Celyddon."—Dr. Edwin Guest. Mr.
Garnett affirms the designation Cruithne likewise to own a similar
source, and that it is merely the Gaelic form of Brython,
by substituting, as usual, the guttural for the labial. If it
be the native name of the northern Picts, it must have
been of Scotic origin, as we first hear of Cruithne in Hihernia.
§ Caledonia, i. 207, 214.