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nearly all Europe. The word has been said to imply horsemen, warriors, men of the woods, men with long hair and with tails, but whether these tails were of long hair, or such as Lord Monboddo describes belonging to his men in one of the Nicobar islands, I dare not decide. They have been derived also from Celtus, a son of Hercules and Polyphemia, and from many other inapplicable etymons. From these, and others which I shall quote, you will, Mr. Editor, scarcely know the Celts; but I will endeavour to point out the import of their name satisfactorily to your readers.

In doing this, you must not expect me to begin with Gomer, nor to trace them from Noah to Wales; you will allow me to survey a small part of the globe only, to view its features and its provinces.

An antiquary or historian describes the remains of a people, a country, or place; but the import of the name by which this people, country, or place, is known, having rested in Cimmerian darkness from the earliest times, is always mistaken or omitted. I will therefore attempt to lay down a few more rules to dissipate this darkness. If, in doing this, I can arrest a mania with which Fancy has infected wise, learned, and really good men, of all ages, in tracing their descents, my labour will be fully compensated.

Settlements, districts, provinces, and Kingdoms, were in the earliest ages of the world, first named from their principal features. The Hill Border, the Head Border, or the Water Border, in description, often reach to a great extent withm of beyond this Hill, Head; or Water. The Dobuni of our own counfry were the Stream-Borderers, from Dob, a Stream, and En, or An, varied to Un, a term for Border Land. These were also called the Huiccii, from Ic, Vic, or Wick, Border Land; and some of these people lived far from the Stream which gave them name. The Canti inhabited lands far from their Head which gave them name. The Belge, derived from Bel Border, and Ge Land, had inhabitants far from their Border; and their name was translated Ham, or Border, by the Saxons, who never dreamt of their being any more the descendants of the Belge of the continent, than were the Canti, the Regni, or other nations of this island. Land' on the coast, often gave name to a great extent of land in the interior. Thus the Head of Lands in Spain which runs into the ocean, will be

found to have given name to the whole of that kingdom. In like manner, the Headland of France gave denomination to a great part of that kingdom. But Headlands and Hills were very often described by the same words; and hence the hills on the borders of kingdoms, may also appropriately give names to their Border Lands.

These principles being understood, I will now explain the name of a country referred to by all writers, ancient and mo dern. They say, that from Gomer came the Galata. I will not deny this pro-buble conjecture; but from the principles here laid down,. I am to shew that Galatia took its name from the features of the country only. It is easy to conceive that the increase of mankind must have produced nations, and national names, as above described: Galatia is such an one.

Monsieur Brigande says, "that it is the universal opinion of all authors who have written on the origin of nations, that the Celtes were the children of Go❤ mer, the eldest son of Japhet. This nation, from which so many others have sprung, have preserved the name of their progenitor from the most early age after the deluge, down to the present days.": I will not follow this author, but refer to him: he acknowledges that it is easier to find an etymology for the name Celts, than to prove it to be a true one; but he renders it from the Hebrew word Ga letha, thrust out at a distance, pushed forwards. The Greek and Latin lan guages, he says, offer no resource for this etymology. Monsieur Perron, on the Celtes, mistaking the root of Cal or Cale, a head or hill, in finding the name Celta, supposes it to mean an harbour or port, which signifies, he says, the same with the Celta. He here indeed exactly hits the spelling, but mistakes the root from whence it came, and consę.. quently the true meaning. He elsewhere however contradicts himself in this, as well as in a variety of other cases, and supposes "the word Celta, as well as Gaul, to imply powerful, valiant, or valorous." The Greeks, he says, also gave the name Galate to the Gauls.' But the Celta, at least a part of them, this author states, were called Cimbrians,' and Cimmerians. The word Cimbri, he inapplicably derives from the Latin Cimber, and this from Kimber or Kim. per, which, in the Celtic, (he says) is a warrior. As for Cimmerian, it is what the ancient Grecians (he says) softened out of Cimbri, or Cumbrian ; and here he

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