one or other of these, but chiefly from the former, all the ancient nations of Europe are descended. The Sarmatians or Sauromatæ, were the ancestors of the Sclavonian tribes, viz., the Poles, Russians, Bohemians, &c., who continue to this day a distinct and separate people, extremely different in their character, manners, laws and language, from the other race, which was that of the Celts, from whom (they will have it) were uniformly descended the old inhabitants of Gaul, Germany, Scandinavia, Britain and Spain, who were all included by the ancients under the general name of Hyperboreans, Scythians, and Celts, being all originally of one race and nation, and having all the same common language, religion, laws, customs and manners.

This is the position which these writers have adopted and maintained, with an uncommon display of deep erudition, and a great variety of specious arguments. But that their position, so far as relates to the Celts, is erroneous, and the arguments that support it inconclusive, will appear, if it can be shown, that ancient Germany, Scandinavia, Gaul and Britain, were not inhabited by the descendants of one single race; but on the contrary, divided between two very different people; the one of whom we shall call, with most of the Roman authors, Celtic, who were the ancestors of the Gauls, Britons, and Irish; the other Gothic or Teutonic, from whom the Germans, Belgians, Saxons and Scandinavians, derived their origin; and that these were ab origine two distinct people, very unlike in their manners, customs, religion, and laws.

As to the arguments by which Cluverius and Pelloutier support their hypothesis that the Gothic and Celtic nations were the same, they may all be reduced to two heads; viz., either to Quotations from the ancient Greek and Roman writers; or to Etymologies of the names of persons or places, &c.

With regard to the latter (viz., Etymologies), these two writers lay it down that the present high German is a genuine daughter of the ancient Celtic or Gaulish language*, because from it they can explain the etymology of innumerable names that were well known to be Gaulish or Celtic†;

* Pelloutier, vol. i. p. 165, &c.

† Vid. Cluv. lib. 1, cap. vi. vii. viii. &c. Pellout. liv. 1, chap. xv.

and this being admitted, it must follow that the Germans are a branch of the Celts, and consequently, that the Celtic and Teutonic nations were the same. In prosecuting this argument it must be acknowledged that they have produced many instances that appear at first sight very plausible. But whoever considers how little we can depend upon the etymology of obsolete words, derived from barbarous dead languages, in which there are no books extant, will not build very securely on proofs of this sort. No one will assert that the present German bears any resemblance now to the modern Welsh and Irish languages; and yet there are writers in abundance who will undertake to account for the name of almost every place, person or office, in ancient Europe, from one or other of these two living tongues, and will produce instances fully as plausible and conclusive, as any adduced by Cluverius or his followers*. After all, there is probably a good deal of truth on both sides; I can readily believe that all the names of places and persons in ancient Germany, or such other countries as any of the Teutonic nations at any time penetrated into, will be reducible to the language now spoken by their descendants: and that in like manner, from the Irish and Welsh languages, which may be allowed to be genuine daughters of the ancient Gallic or Celtic tongue, it will be easy to explain such names as were imposed by any of the ancient Celtic or Gallic tribes. Indeed in the very remote ages, prior to history, one cannot pretend to say what were the distinct bounds or limits of each people. They were, like all other barbarous nations, roving and unsettled; and often varied their situation; being sometimes spread over a country; at other times driven out by some stronger tribe of barbarians, or forsaking it themselves in search of new settlements. Cæsar informs us, that some of the Gallic tribes forced their way into Germany, and there established themselves. It is equally probable, that before his time, bands of Germans might at different periods penetrate into

* See that excellent antiquary Lluyd, in Archæologia Britannica, &c., not to mention many late writers of a different stamp, viz., Jones, Parsons, &c. &c.

† Fuit antea tempus cum Germanos Galli virtute superarent et ultrò bella inferrent, ac trans Rhenum colonias mitterent, &c. Vid. plura apud. Cæs. de Bell. Gall. lib. vi.

Gaul*; where, although their numbers might be too small to preserve them a distinct nation, yet these emigrants might import many names of persons and places that would outlive the remembrance of their founders. This will sufficiently account for the dispersion of words derived from both languages, and inform us why Celtic derivations may be found in Germany, and German names discovered in Gaul. So much for arguments derived from etymology; which are so very uncertain and precarious, that they can only amount to presumptions at best, and can never be opposed to solid positive proofs.

With regard to the other source of arguments, by which these learned writers support their opinion of the identity of the Gauls and Germans, viz., quotations from the ancient Greek and Roman authors; these they have produced in great abundance. But even if it should be granted that the Greeks and Romans applied sometimes the names of Celtic, Scythian or Hyperborean indiscriminately to the ancient inhabitants of Germany and Gaul, of Britain and Scandinavia, the inference will still be doubted by those that consider how little known all these nations were to the early writers of Greece and Rome; who, giving them all the general name of Barbarians, inquired little farther about them, and took very little pains to be accurately informed about their peculiar differences and distinctions. Even a long time after these rude nations had begun to press upon the empire, and had made the Romans dread their valour, still their writers continued to have so confused and indistinct a knowledge of their different descent and character, as to confound both the Celts and Goths with the Sarmatians, whom all writers allow to have been a distinct nation from them both t: thus Zosimus, an historian of the third century, includes them all under the common name of Scythians; and this, at a time when, after their long and frequent intercourse with the Romans, their historians ought to have been taught to distinguish them better.

* This Cæsar expressly tells us of the Belga, who were settled to the north of the Seine and the Marne. Plerosque Belgas esse ortos à Germania; Rhenumque antiquitus transductos, propter loci fertilitatem ibi consedisse; Gallosque qui ea loca incollerent, expulisse. De Bell. Gall. lib. ii. + See Pelloutier, vol. i. liv. i. chap. ii. passim.

See Pelloutier, vol. i. p. 17.

However, the Greek and Roman authors were not all equally indistinct and confused on this subject. It will be shown below, that some of their best and most discerning writers, when they had an opportunity of being well informed, knew how to distingush them accurately enough: so that both Cluverius and Pelloutier have found themselves much puzzled how to reconcile such stubborn passages with their own favourite. hypotheses, and have been entangled in great difficulties in endeavouring to get over the objections these occasion. Even with regard to the more early historians, they appear to have been sometimes more precise and accurate in their descriptions. There is a remarkable passage of this kind in Strabo *; in which he informs us that, although the old Greek authors gave all the northern nations the common name of Scythians or Celtoscythians, yet that writers still more ancient †, divided all "the nations who lived beyond the Euxine, the Danube, and the Adriatic Sea, into the Hyperboreans, the Sauromatæ, and Arimaspians; as they did those beyond the Caspian Sea into the Saca and Messageta." The Saca and Messagetæ might possibly be the ancestors of the Saxons and Goths, who, in the time of those very remote Greek writers, possibly had not penetrated so far westward as they did afterwards: as it is well known that the Germanii are mentioned by Herodotus ‡ as a Persian people. Now the most authentic historians and poets of the Teutonic nations all agree that their ancestors came at different emigrations from the more eastern countries §. But with regard to the three other nations, the Hyperboreans, the Sauromatæ and the Arimaspians; if we agree with Pel

* Strabo, lib. xi. Απαντας μὲν δὴ τοὺς προσβόρρους κοινῶς οἱ παλαιὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων συγγραφεῖς, Σκύθαι καὶ Κελτοσκύθαι ἐκαλοῦν, &c. Vid. Cluv. lib. i. p. 22. Pellout. vol. i. p. 2.

† Οἱ δὲ ΕΤΙ ΠΡΟΤΕΡΟΝ διέλοντες, &c.

Herod. in Clio. Edit. R. Steph. 1570, p. 34.

§ All the old northern Skalds and historians agree that their ancestors came thither from the East, but then some of them, to do the greater honour to their country, and to its antiquities, pretend that they first made an emigration into the East from Scandinavia. See Sheringham De Anglorum Gentis origine. Cantabrigia 1670, 8vo. passim. It is the great fault of Sheringham not to know how to distinguish what is true and credible from what is improbable and fabulous in the old northern Chronicles: because some parts are true, he receives all for authentic; as a late ingenious writer, because some parts are fabulous, is for rejecting all as false. (See Clarke, in his learned treatise on the connection between the Roman, Saxon, and Eng

loutier, that under the two former the Celts and Sarmatians are plainly designed; when he contends that the Arimaspians are a mere fabulous people, which never existed, who does not see that he is blinded by hypothesis? Why may not the ancient Finns or Laplanders have been intended by this term, which he himself interprets from Herodotus to signify One-eyed, and supposes it descriptive of some nation that excelled in archery, as alluding to their practice of winking with one eye in order to take aim. Tacitus expressly assures us that the Fenni were great archers §; and, it is highly probable that at some early period of time, both the Finns and Laplanders were possessed of much larger and better tracts of country than the northern deserts to which they are now confined.

But whether this interpretation be admitted or not, and whatever the more early Greek and Roman writers knew concerning the Celtic and Teutonic nations, it is very certain that in latter times, such of them as had most discernment, and the best opportunities of being informed, have plainly and clearly delivered that the Germans and Gauls were two distinct people, of different origin, manners, laws, religion and language, and have accurately pointed out the difference between them.

The more

Before we descend to particulars, it may be premised, that these two races of men were in many things alike, as would necessarily happen to two savage nations who lived nearly in the same climate, who were exposed to the same wants, and were obliged to relieve them by the same means. men approach to a state of wild and uncivilized life, the greater resemblance they will have in manners, because savage nature, reduced almost to mere brutal instinct, is simple and uniform; whereas art and refinement are infinitely various: thus one of the rude natives of Nova Zembla will bear a strong resemblance in his manner of life to a savage of New Holland:

lish coins, &c. Lond. 1767, 4to.) By the same rule we might reject the whole Grecian history: for that of the north has, like it, its fabulous, its doubtful, and more certain periods; which acute and judicious critics will easily distinguish.

Liv. i. chap. i. Pelloutier, ibid. Herod p. 129, 145. § Sola in sagittis spes.

+ Vol. i.

p. 9, 10.

Tac. de Mor. Germ. cap. ult.