butalso extensive territories in both of the western comers of the
peninsula, .where a population-cither wholly ol partly o,f Celtic
descent remained at the period, of the Roman conquest. The
British isles are- generally*supposed have derived their
original population from the Celts. In Italy, .at an early
period after the build ip g of Rome, the Gel tse/disposse&sed the
Etruscans and the Umbrians of the northern imparts of .their
respective countries, which thenceforward obtained<the name of
Cisalpine Gaul. In Germany, it is“difficult to conjecture, the
extent of their dominions. Helvetia and the Heroynian forest
are said to have afforded a path to numerous hordes
ing from Gaul towards the. north and the e a s t; and Bohemia
and Bavaria still bear names which the^*. derived from the
tribes of Celtic Boii, who formerly inhabited them. • From Bohemia
there is reason to believe that some bodies of the^Celtie
race almost reached the banks of the Vistula. It has been
disputed, whether the Cimbri in Denmark were pf the Celtic or
German family, but there are strong grounds, as we shall find,
for believing them to have been a branch of the former race.
The countries on the D a n ^% Hiepeum and Pannonia w ejl
the seats of powerful Celtic communities. Thrace was long in
the possession of the Celt®. Under a second Brpnnus they
followed the footsteps of Xerxefeinfo Greece, and, like the
Persian despot attempted to plunder the tempi©,'of Delphi.,
Lastly, Asia Minor was long under their sway from the high
countries in the interior, which were the abddeof a> Celtic
population, they exacted tribute from the surrounding states,,
after dividing them by lot under their several clans.
Such was the extension of the Celtic race, before their
power became broken in their contest with , the Roman arms,
whose ascendency prepared them for a final subjugation under
the Teutonic conquerors of Europe.,The earlier history of the
Celtic people is a subject of great interest but of difficult investigation.
Were they the aborigines of Gaul or of Germany ?
According to all the testimony of history, or rather of ancient
tradition collected by the writers of the Roman empire, the
migrations of the Gauls were always from west to e a s t; the
Celtic nations in Germany as well as in Italy and in the East
were supposed to have been colonies from Gaul, and the Celt®
hate been èonsiderëdms the immemorial inhabitants of Western
E teppd. But the remains of the'' Celtic language prove them
to hawlrbeen a branch of the InâoiËtirbpean stock ; they came
therefore from the East, arid as we find sd many parts of Germany
overspread byi'lhem^ in' eatly times, w-henCe they were
afterwards expelledi ?ny German tribell,** a- strong suspicion
forces itself upon our’minds, that a part of4fe> Celtic population
may* have always remained'to-the eâstward of tbe Rhini,
which perhaps received àccessïons from; , tribes'of th é ism e
ra.ee returning' in abater agë'from Gaul. 5'HTbe Cimbri appear
to have remained inf th^NôrthKriiMltltfi.©^ period of thëir
celebrate# 'expedition, and for <?lrl Boii who were so widely
spread in Germany,, no e-xacUposition or-primitive seat cari bê
discovered atiàbàg'the proper inhabitants of Gaul.*
It is impossible to determine with certainty, whether the
west of Europe was wholljjri^ninhabited at the; era when the
Celt® first occupied fin If, as it îé^probablè, they preceded
the Teutonic téfbes-fïf the north of Germany, ‘they must* have
come, oirtilifebores 5f the Baltic^ into contact with the Jotuhs
or Finngy whom the Teutonicpieepte afterwards’found in possession
of Scandinavia. Whether the sa£me people^Nijor any
otherracefbreign to the Indo-European family, was expelled
from Gaul and Britain by the*Celts, or conquered and amalgamated
withritenselves, are as yet matters of conjecture* atml
the only resources for elucidating such an inquiry* are -by a
comparison of the vocabularies of the Celtic dialects with
those of the Finnish and Lapponic nations.*!*
Paragraph 2.-—
Of the language of the, anciept _ tTqïta^ermè^&ts no undoubted
relic on the continent, of Europe, except the numerous
* From the name of their leader Boiorix, we might conjecture the Cimbri to
have been connected with the Boii. Boiorix seems to mean supreme over the Boii.
Mannert supposes the original sèat of the Boii to have been in Pannonia.—See
Mannert’s Géographie der Griechen und Romer.
t By Arndt and sômê other writers, it has been supposed that the Celtæ are in
part a Finnish race. There is no resettiblance whatever in the grammatical sfrdc-
tme of - their respective languages, and I believe that the vocabularies will be
found to contain very few common or analogous ..words.