f which
three possible suppositions I prefer the last as the likeliest. Nor am I
the less inclined to choose it, because these very English historians go
on to clear the ground in a like convenient way of the Celtic
inhabitants, exterminating them as they exterminated the Romans,
with a wave of the hand, quite in the fashion of Mr Podsnap. 'This is
un-English: therefore for me it merely ceases to exist.'

'_Probable extirpation of the Celtic inhabitants_' jots down Freeman in
his margin, and proceeds to write:

In short, though the literal extirpation of a nation is an
impossibility, there is every reason to believe that the Celtic
inhabitants of those parts of Britain which had become English at the
end of the sixth century had been as nearly extinguished as a nation
could be. The women doubtless would be largely spared, but as far as
the male sex is concerned we may feel sure that death, emigration, or
personal slavery were the only alternatives which the vanquished found
at the hands of our fathers.

Upon this passage, if brought to me in an undergraduate essay, I should
have much to say. The style, with its abstract nouns ('the literal
extirpation of a nation is an impossibility'), its padding and
periphrasis ('there is every reason to believe' ... 'as far as the male
sex is concerned we may feel sure') betrays the loose thought. It begins
with 'in short' and proceeds to be long-winded. It commits what even
schoolboys know to be a solecism by inviting us to consider three
'alternatives'; and what can I say of 'the women doubtless would be
largely spared,' save that besides scanning in iambics it says what
Freeman never meant and what no-one outside of an Aristophanic comedy
could ever suggest? 'The women doubtless would be largely spared'! It
reminds me of the young lady in Cornwall who, asked by her vicar if she
had been confirmed, admitted blushingly that 'she had reason to believe,
partially so.'

'The women doubtless would be largely spared'!--But I thank the Professor
for teaching me that phrase, because it tries to convey just what I am
driving at. The Jutes, Angles, Saxons, did not extirpate the Britons,
whatever you may hold concerning the Romans. For, once again, men do not
behave in that way, and certainly will not when a live slave is worth
money. Secondly, the very horror with which men spoke, centuries after,
of Anderida quite plainly indicates that such a wholesale massacre