4
So also the Cimbri, another Celtic tribe, that in all probability first colonised Britain[1]—that made the terrible invasion of Italy in the campaign rendered famous by Marius—are described by Tacitus as the remnant of a once powerful race.
I may mention that the proper pronunciation of the word Celt is Kelt. The words Gael, Gaul, Galli, Galatæ, are all forms of the same term. In Greek, the term is Keltæ or Galatæ. In our English translation, the letter C has been used instead of K or G; and, through a singular mistake, it is always pronounced as S.
The Celtic race is the substratum of all the early nations of Europe. Where their tribes were overcome in war, their surviving population became the serfs of the conquerors. Where a warlike nation of superior development settled amongst them, as the Franks amongst the Gaels of Gaul, they have finally become fused with their conquerors. And, at the present day, nineteen-twentieths of the population of France are of almost pure Celtic descent. Although the French Celts have adopted the language of ancient Rome, even now but slightly changed through climate, barbarism, and the lapse of 1,500 years—although they adopted, down to the first French revolution, the Feudalism of Germany—the spirit and temperament of the Celtic races pervades all France. But in the province of Britanny alone is the Celtic language still the language of the (Bas Breton) peasantry. So, though the mass of the people in the United Kingdom is largely leavened with the Celtic blood, the pure race only appears in the extremities of the islands—in the Gaels of the North of Scotland; in the Gaels of Wales; in Cornwall, where however the Celtic idiom is extinct; in the Manx of the Isle of Man; in the peasantry of the south and west of Ireland.
It may be observed that the Celtic races have ever been remarkable for sudden migrations. We do not find them well known to the early historians. Herodotus places them in the extreme West of Europe, beyond the pillars of Hercules. In the fourth century before the Christian Era, the Celts of Gaul crossed the Apennines and overran Central and Southern Italy. According to Livy, two hundred years before that period, one multitude of the Gauls crossed the Rhine, and settled in the Hercynian Forest; another crossed the Alps, settled in the valley of the Po, and founded Milan. In the Gaelic invasion of Italy, they defeated the Romans in the battle of the Allia (U.C. 365), and were in possession of Rome for six months, with the exception of the Capitol. But, unlike the northern invaders, during the decline of the Roman Empire, they established no states in Central or Southern Italy, and retired loaded with booty.
The Celts of Ireland now appear determined to try their fortunes in some other place, and are emigrating from this country at a rate that surpasses anything previously known and recorded in the history of the migrations of the human family. Up to the year
- ↑ Wales. Cymry.
