sent day possess at least
a fraction of Celtic blood.

"The people," says Professor Huxley, "are vastly less Teutonic than
their language." It is not likely that any absolutely pure-blooded
Anglo-Saxons now exist in our midst at all, except perhaps among the
farmer class in the most Teutonic and agricultural shires: and even this
exception is extremely doubtful. Persons bearing the most obviously
Celtic names--Welsh, Cornish, Irish, or Highland Scots--are to be found
in all our large towns, and scattered up and down through the country
districts. Hence we may conclude with great probability that the
Anglo-Saxon blood has long since been everywhere diluted by a strong
Celtic intermixture. Even in the earliest times and in the most Teutonic
counties, many serfs of non-Teutonic race existed from the very
beginning: their masters have ere now mixed with other non-Teutonic
families elsewhere, till even the restricted English people at the
present day can hardly claim to be much more than half Anglo-Saxon. Nor
do the Teutons now even retain their position as a ruling caste. Mixed
Celts in England itself have long since risen to many high places.
Leading families of Welsh, Cornish, Scotch, and Irish blood have also
been admitted into the peerage of the United Kingdom, and form a large
proportion of the House of Commons, of the official world, and of the
governing class in India, the Colonies, and the empire generally. These
families have again intermarried with the nobility and gentry of
English, Danish, or Norman extraction, and thus have added their part to
the intricate intermixture of the two races. At the present day, we can
only speak of the British people as Anglo-Saxons in a conventional
sense: so far as blood goes, we need hardly hesitate to set them down as
a pretty equal admixture of Teutonic and Celtic elements.

In _character_, the Anglo-Saxons have bequeathed to us much of the
German solidity, industry, and patience, traits which have been largely
amalgamated with the intellectual quickness and emotional nature of the
Celt, and have thus produced the prevailing English temperament as we
actually know it. To the Anglo-Saxon blood we may doubtless attribute
our general sobriety, steadiness, and persistence; our scientific
patience and thoroughness; our political moderation and endurance; our
marked love of individual freedom and impatience of arbitrary restraint.
The Anglo-Saxon was slow to learn, but retentive of