ENGLISH SETTLEMENT.

It has been usual to represent the English conquest of South-eastern
Britain as an absolute change of race throughout the greater part of our
island. The Anglo-Saxons, it is commonly believed, came to England and
the Lowlands of Scotland in overpowering numbers, and actually
exterminated or drove into the rugged west the native Celts. The
population of the whole country south of Forth and Clyde is supposed to
be now, and to have been ever since the conquest, purely Teutonic or
Scandinavian in blood, save only in Wales, Cornwall, and, perhaps,
Cumberland and Galloway. But of late years this belief has met with
strenuous opposition from several able scholars; and though many of our
greatest historians still uphold the Teutonic theory, with certain
modifications and admissions, there are, nevertheless, good reasons
which may lead us to believe that a large proportion of the Celts were
spared as tillers of the soil, and that Celtic blood may yet be found
abundantly even in the most Teutonic portions of England.

In the first place, it must be remembered that, by common consent, only
the east and south coasts and the country as far as the central
dividing ridge can be accounted as to any overwhelming extent English in
blood. It is admitted that the population of the Scottish Highlands, of
Wales, and of Cornwall is certainly Celtic. It is also admitted that
there exists a large mixed population of Celts and Teutons in
Strathclyde and Cumbria, in Lancashire, in the Severn Valley, in Devon,
Somerset, and Dorset. The northern and western half of Britain is
acknowledged to be mainly Celtic. Thus the question really narrows
itself down to the ethnical peculiarities of the south and east.

Here, the surest evidence is that of anthropology. We know that the pure
Anglo-Saxons were a round-skulled, fair-haired, light-eyed,
blonde-complexioned race; and we know that wherever (if anywhere) we
find unmixed Germanic races at the present day, High Dutch, Low Dutch,
or Scandinavian, we always meet with some of these same personal
peculiarities in almost every individual of the community. But we also
know that the Celts, originally themselves a similar blonde Aryan race,
mixed largely in Britain with one or more long-skulled dark-haired,
black-eyed, and brown-complexioned races, generally identified with the
Basques or Euskarians, and with the Ligurians. The nation which resulted
from this mixture showed traces of bo