( xxxix )
Gaul, renders it probable that they were rather a branch of the German people, than of a race in constant enmity with them, like the Celts, and who, upon that account, would have been opposed in their passage; especially as the Germans appear in these countries rather to have prevailed over the Celts, and to have forced them westward, driving them out of many of their settlements. But lastly, if the Cimbri had been a Celtic people, then such of them as were left behind in their own country, and were afterwards swallowed up among the succeeding Gothic Tribes who invaded Scandinavia, would have given a tincture of their Celtic Language to that branch of the Teutonic, which was spoke in these countries: Or, at least, we should have found more Celtic names of Mountains, Rivers, &c. in the Cimbric Chersonese than in other Gothic Settlements: But I do not find that either of thefe is the case; the old Icelandic seems to be as free from any Celtic mixture, as any other Gothic Dialect; nor is there any remarkable prevalence of Celtic names in the peninsula of Jutland, more than in any part of Germany; where I believe its former Celtic inhabitants have up and down left behind them a few names of places, chiefly of natural situations, as of Rivers, Mountains, &c. This at least is the case in England, where, although the Britons were so intirely extirpated, that scarce a single word of the Welsh Language was admitted by the Saxons; and although the names of Towns and Villages are almost universally of Anglo-Saxon derivation, yet the Hills, Forests, Rivers, &c. have generally retained their old Celtic names[1].
But whether the old Cimbri were Celts or Goths, yet forasmuch as from the time of Odin, both the Cimbrica Chersonesus, and all the neighbouring regions were become entirely Gothic settlements, the Gothic Dialect which prevailed in these countries is called by Antiquaries Cimbric, and
- ↑ See Penigent, Arden, Avon, &c. in Camden's Britannia, and that Author passim.
