or Teutons, on the other hand,
they were foreigners; but, unlike the Germans or Teutons, they have not
preserved their separate substantive character. Still, some of their
blood runs in both English and Keltic veins; some of their language has
mixed itself with both tongues; and some of their customs have either
corrupted or improved our national character. Thus--

1. The battle of Hastings filled England with Normans, French in
language, French and Scandinavian in blood, but (eventually) English in
the majority of their matrimonial alliances. And before the Normans
came--

2. The Danes--and before the Danes--

3. The Romans.--Such is the general view of the chief populations, past
and present, of England; of which, however, the Keltic and the Angle are
the chief.

The English-and-Scotch, the Normans, the Danes, and the Romans have all
been introduced upon the island within the Historical period--some
earlier than others, but all within the last 2,000 years, so that we
have a fair amount of information as to their history; not so much,
perhaps, as is generally believed, but still a fair amount. We know
within a few degrees of latitude and longitude where they came from; and
we know their ethnological relations to the occupants of the parts
around them.

With the Kelts this is not the case. Of Gael or Manxman, Briton or Pict,
we know next to nothing during their early history. We can guess where
they came from, and we can infer their ethnological relations; but
history, in the strict sense of the term, we have none; for the Keltic
period differs from that of all the others in being pre-historic. This
is but another way of saying that the Keltic populations, and those
only, are the aborigines of the island; or, if not aboriginal, the
earliest known. Yet it is possible that these same Keltic populations,
whose numerous tribes and clans and nations covered both the British and
the Hibernian Isles for generations and generations before the discovery
of the art of writing, or the existence of a historical record, may be
as well understood as their invaders; since ethnology infers where
history is silent, and history, even when speaking, may be indistinct.
At any rate, the previous notice of the ethnology of the British Isles
during the Historical period, prepares us with a little light for the
dark walk in the field of its earliest antiquity.

Nothing, as has just been stated, in the earliest historical records of
Br