tion, we find England massed with France under the term Gaul, and bounded by the "Caledonian rampart." Whereas in our own division, Caledonia, Hibernia, and Wales, are from the first considered as essential parts of Britain,[1] and the link with the continent is to be conceived as formed by the settlement of Britons in Britany, and not at all by Roman authority beyond the Humber.
25. Thus, then, once more reviewing our order of countries, and noting only that the British Islands, though for the most part thrown by measured degree much north of the rest of the north zone, are brought by the influence of the Gulf stream into the same climate;—you have, at the time when our
- ↑ Gibbon's more deliberate statement is clear enough. "From the coast or the extremity of Caithness and Ulster, the memory of Celtic origin was distinctly preserved in the perpetual resemblance of languages, religion, and manners, and the peculiar character of the British tribes might be naturally ascribed to the influence of accidental and local circumstances." The Lowland Scots, " wheat-eaters "' or Wanderers, and the Irish, are very positively identified by Gibbon at the time our own history begins. "It is certain" (italics his, not mine) "that in the declining age of the Roman Empire, Caledonia, Ireland, and the Isle of Man, were inhabited by the Scots."—Chap. 25, vol. iv., p. 279.
The higher civilization and feebler courage of the Lowland English rendered them either the victims of Scotland, or the grateful subjects of Rome. The mountaineers, Pict among the Grampians, or of their own colour in Cornwall and Wales, have never been either instructed or subdued, and remain to this day the artless and fearless strength of the British race.
