the Low-German stem, and speak the Flemish language, which they themselves call Neder-duitsch (Low-German)—a tongue closely kindred to, and well-nigh identical with, Dutch.
Now, is it right, in speaking of the origin of the Belgians of old, simply to pass by the striking and decisive passage in Cæsar? Or did Professor Rhys not know it? The omission seems to me all the more strange as he acknowledges "the truth of the tradition reported by Cæsar, that Belgic tribes had made themselves a home in the south of the island"—that is, of Britain—long before Jutes, Frisians, Angles, and Saxons conquered this country. In Ireland, again, as early as the first part of the second century, Ptolemaios mentions a Belgian and an undoubtedly German tribe in the neighbourhood of Dublin.
I mention this with all due respect to a distinguished Keltic scholar, whose papers on "Manx Folk-lore and Superstitions" I have heard and read with much interest. But being accustomed—I may say without fear of contradiction—to investigate all such matters without undue bias, I avow I cannot understand why, in this case, the things which are Cæsar's were not rendered unto Cæsar.
June 19.
