is none the less true that the nation which rose upon the
ruins of Roman Britain was, in form and organisation, almost purely
English. The language spoken by the whole country was the same which had
been spoken in Sleswick. Only a few words of Welsh origin relating to
agriculture, household service, and smithcraft, were introduced by the
serfs into the tongue of their masters. The dialects of the Yorkshire
moors, of the Lake District, and of Dorset or Devon, spoken only by wild
herdsmen in the least cultivated tracts, retained a few more evident
traces of the Welsh vocabulary: but in York, in London, in Winchester,
and in all the large towns, the pure Anglo-Saxon of the old England by
the shores of the Baltic was alone spoken. The Celtic serfs and their
descendants quickly assumed English names, talked English to one
another, and soon forgot, in a few generations, that they had not always
been Englishmen in blood and tongue. The whole organisation of the
state, the whole social life of the people, was entirely Teutonic. "The
historical civilisation," as Canon Stubbs admirably puts it, "is English
and not Celtic." Though there may have been much Welsh blood left, it
ran in the veins of serfs and rent-paying churls, who were of no
political or social importance. These two aspects of the case should be
kept carefully distinct. Had they always been separated, much of the
discussion which has arisen on the subject would doubtless have been
avoided; for the strongest advocates of the Teutonic theory are
generally ready to allow that Celtic women, children, and slaves may
have been largely spared: while the Celtic enthusiasts have thought
incumbent upon them to derive English words from Welsh roots, and to
trace the origin of English social institutions to Celtic models. The
facts seem to indicate that while the modern English nation is largely
Welsh in blood, it is wholly Teutonic in form and language. Each of us
probably traces back his descent to mixed Celtic and Germanic ancestry:
but while the Celts have contributed the material alone, the Teutons
have contributed both the material and the form.

CHAPTER VIII.

HEATHEN ENGLAND.

We can now picture to ourselves the general aspect of the country after
the English colonies had established themselves as far west as the
Somersetshire marshes, the Severn, and the Dee. The whole land was
occupied by little groups of Teutonic settlers, each isolated by the
mark within