ENQUIRY

INTO THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE

Ancient Britons, and of British Druidism.

THERE are few subjects of investigation which should be more interesting to any individual than the early history of his native land. And yet, though this has been generally admitted, and ours offers a powerful stimulant to curiosity, through the darkness which involves it, there are few subjects upon which the intellectual powers of Englishmen are so little occupied, or occupied to so little purpose.

Now that the records upon which our forefathers rested their faith, and which supplied a Milton and a Shakspeare with subjects for immortal verse, have been flung (perhaps too hastily) to the moles and the bats, we seem to have given up all idea of the usefulness of the enquiry; and to have settled down with the impression that nothing can be known. Our historians, more used to matters of detail than to curious investigation, unable perhaps to separate the little truth which apparently shone here and there among our traditions, from the mass of error with which they were encompassed, have given them up altogether as fables; and heedless both of theological and traditionary evidence, have traced us out an origin which our fathers would not own; or left our early history untouched, and commenced their details with the Conquest of the Romans. Because British Druidism had in some measure extended itself over the west of Europe, and a tribe of Belgians had settled in later years on our western coast, as well as on account of the proximity of our shores to those of Gaul, modern historians almost universally have considered the aborigines of Britain to be a wandering tribe of the Celts or Cimmerians: albeit, by so doing they impugned the truth of records which for ages were considered authentic, and which have latterly been supported by collateral evidence unknown in the Elizabethan

era.

The Pictorial History of England, certainly, differs from most others as regards the fact of investigation. Its author has entered into an elaborate and interesting enquiry. But it has only been directed towards one part of the subject. He has taken it for granted, that Britain was peopled direct from either the Celtic or Cimmerian races of the neighbouring continent though there are reasons for supposition to the contrary, almost, if not quite, as strong as those which have led him to conclude that the aborigines of Ireland came direct from the east, or were a company of Milesians newly arrived from thence. If he had taken more notice of the evidence to be derived from the religion of the early inhabitants of our isle, he might have seen less reason to think them descendants of Gomer. For their system of Druidism, while it bore the closest resemblance to the sacerdotal rites of the Hammonians, differed, in all respects, from the rude corruptions of early truth almost universally prevalent among the sons of Japhet.

Had not Suetonius Paulinus, like another Cambyses, cut off all communication between the then future and the past, matters so interesting might not have been left to mere probability and conjecture. By his barbarous ravages in the Isle of Mona, when he burned the sacred groves of the Druids, sacrificed them upon their own altars, and cut off both the remnant and the name, he put an end perhaps to all certainty as regards the early history of our land. As the literature of the ancient world was destroyed by the Persian conqueror, when he swept away the glory of Egypt, so the literature of Ancient Britain shared a similar fate from the Roman general. For as the one was contained in those immense and invaluable libraries which were sacrificed as a burnt-offering upon the shrine of ferocious ignorance, so the other was vested in oral tradition, and carried down from age to age in the songs of the bards; and those living records too of our early history and literature were burnt in the flames of their own forests, whose dying embers were extinguished with their blood.

Now, he who would push his investigations to an earlier period than the conquest of Cæsar, bears some resemblance to a wanderer in the bush of Australia. He is doomed to tread a dark, entangled, and uncertain path. And if sometimes when comparing incident with incident, record with record, and custom with custom, a gleam of light bursts upon him, and for a moment he fancies he is approaching the termination of his difficult path, he finds he has but opened on an occasional glade, or, at best, has but come to a vista, which will speedily terminate, and leave him enveloped in the thick forest again.

Yet, what has been done with respect to one portion of the world's literature, may possibly be done with regard to another. For a long series of ages the ancient history of Egypt was veiled in the thickest darkness. But the mind of a Bryant pierced through the gloom, and by an a priori glance at the little that remained, came to nearly the same

conclusions to which analysis and deduction have brought those more modern searchers after truth, who have been aided by a knowledge of the hieroglyphic languages. And now, thanks to the spirit of enquiry which originated with him, the infidel has been deprived of one of his favourite strong holds; and those "eternal monuments," the pyramids of Egypt, have been wrested from his grasp.

At the very outset of an enquiry like the present, it may be thought needful for the author to state why he objects to the plausible theories of a Hume and a Goldsmith, a Rapin and a Sharon Turner. His reasons shall be briefly stated. The first ground for objection is, that these theories contradict in every way our own national annals, and the annals of other countries; while they bring nothing to establish themselves but probability and conjecture. The second ground of objection is, the well known fact that Britain was the seat of Druidism, from which it had extended more or less in the time of Cæsar among the Celtic and Cimmerian nations of Belgium, Gaul and Spain; whereas, had Britain been only a colony of wanderers from Gaul, the probability is very much against its being made the seat of philosophical and ecclesiastical learning; an academy for the supply of priests, philosophers, and bards, for the nations on the continent. This objection, however, gains its chief force from the evidence still existing, that Druidism was of Eastern origin, and was more perfect in Britain than in any nation on that side of Egypt. The striking resemblance between the rites and ceremonies of the Druids of Britain, the Magi of Persia, the Chaldeans of Babylonia, the Brahmins of India, and the Priests of Egypt, bespeaks them of one common origin; and manifests them to be of date anterior to the time when the Greeks and Romans refined upon the superstitions of their fathers, and produced those "elegant mythologies," which, though far more heterodox than the superstitions in which they originated, have for centuries, nay, throughout the whole christian era, held so prominent a position in the regions of poetry and fable. The resemblance here alluded to, as well as that between the names of the British gods and those of some of the eastern nations, it is my intention, as far as is needful for my purpose, shortly to develope.

The third main ground of objection which may be brought against the theory of modern historians is, that the imperishable monuments, as well as the records, of antiquity are against them. The huge circles of stones found only in Britain and Asia, the enormous cromlechs and ponderous rocking stones in various parts of our isle, the latter so immense as to puzzle the best architect of the present day as to what means could have been used to raise them to their present position, yet so nicely balanced that a child might rock them, bespeak in their founders a knowledge of the arts and sciences, far surpassing what was ever manifested in ancient days by the wild Celtic or Cimmerian race. Finding their counterparts only in the east, they necessarily point the enquiring mind to Phoenicia, or some part of Asia Minor, when far advanced in the

knowledge of architecture and other arts of life; or to those lofty spirits of Hammonian race, who raised the standard of rebellion at Babel, and who, expelled from thence by the judgments of God "over the face of every region," have left us in various portions of the world everlasting monuments of their greatness.

Various other and minor reasons for objecting to the theory, that the aborigines of Britain were of Celtic or Cimmerian origin, will appear in the course of this enquiry. One more I may mention here. Modern research has added something to our knowledge even since Sharon Turner wrote his history of the Anglo Saxons. Within the last few years there has been found among the sacred writings of the Hindoos, in the language of the Shasters, a particular description of Britain, which is there denominated the "Sacred Isle;" a description so accurate as regards its situation and form, and the number, position, and magnitude of its rivers, that no doubt whatever exists as to the identity of the island described. This, by demonstrating a very early and intimate intercourse between us and the east, goes far to prove our eastern original.

The natural deductions from the existence of such a document, bear apparently with equal force against the Gallic theory, and the Trojan one of Geoffry of Monmouth. The manners and customs, too, of the early Britons, and the names of their gods, would point us rather to Phoenicia than to Troy, as the place from which the colonists originally came. Considering, however, that the machinery of the Iliad may be Homer's own, and that the worship and superstitions of the Trojans at the time that event took place, might bear much closer resemblance to those originally extant among the early Haminonians than he has made them appear; considering, moreover, that two of the most erudite men of modern times, Jacob Bryant, and the author of "Nimrod, or some passages of History and Fable," have come to the conclusion that all the traditions of Troy may be referred to Babel; as my purpose is not to write a history, but to institute an enquiry, I shall not condemn the Monmouth chronicler unheard, any more than I shall his Gallic opponents. I am the more inclined to shew this lenity to Geoffry, because most historians pass over his records with nothing more than a sneer; and because most of the objections brought against him are not, if well considered, (which it would seem they never yet have been) so valid as at first sight they appear to be.

It is brought as an accusation against Geoffry's records, that he is the first among our annalists who makes mention of Brute or Brutus, the grandson of Æneas. But if his book be, as he relates, chiefly a translation from a manuscript brought out of Wales by Walter Archdeacon of Exeter, that is not to be wondered at, after the destruction of British literature, in all but the northern and western parts of the island, by the Romans. It is objected too that the silence of the Roman historians concerning Brutus, the son of Sylvius, if he had, as related in our anuals, been exiled

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from Latium for accidentally killing his father, would be wholly unpardonable. It must be remembered, however, that the Latin annals were as obscure to the historians of Rome, at the time they wrote, as the British are to us at the present day. This, the fables and monstrous mythological statements they have made, are sufficient to demonstrate. Nor are their dark annals without some tradition concerning a Brutus, who is not mentioned in them; for it is clearly stated, that when the wife of Tarquin gave that name to Lucius Junius, it was given as one rendered infamous. It is objected also against Geoffry, that when Cæsar invaded Britain, he found it in a very different state from what his records would have led us to suppose; and that instead of the southern part being governed by one monarch, it was divided into many petty principalities. The record, however, from which that historian, or fable writer-which ever he may be-has drawn so largely, appears to be almost confined, (especially in the latter part of it) to the nation of the Trinovaunts, with only occasional allusions to the neighbouring states. There is, moreover, for many generations before the invasion of Cæsar, so little said, as to leave room for the subdivision of the island, the settling of other colonists, and the narrowing of the boundaries of Trinovantine rule, without, in any way, contradicting a single passage. Or even supposing the chronology to apply to the whole island, the kings mentioned may be the heads or Vergobreti.* Neither does it seem quite logical to allow Cæsar so full a knowledge of our country, by what he could gather during a military campaign, as to render his testimony conclusive. We should not suppose in the present day that the account of Pizarro, had he written one, of his American expedition, was sufficient to overthrow the royal commentaries of Peru. As to the matter that Cæsar found the Britons in too barbarous a state to admit of their being a colony from the east, it must be remembered that a thousand years had passed between the supposed landing of Brute and the invasion of Julius Cæsar; and, also, that the Romans termed all barbarians whose manners and customs differed from their own.

The last objection against our chronicler it may be needful to notice, is, that at the time of the Romish invasion, the language of the Gauls and Britons was very much the saine. This, however, seems almost a gratuitous assertion, as there is evidence enough in being that the Britons themselves did not all speak one language. The Roman historians might take the idea from some of the maritime nations lately settled on the coast, which living tradition in their time stated the Belgae to have done. But even granting that this was true of the whole island, a thousand years' intercourse be

* Before the time of Cæsar's invasion, the island was divided into three parts, Lloegria or England, Albania or Scotland, and Cambria or the province of Wales. Each of these was subdivided into districts under their respective reguli, over which they presided with a limited authority.-Warrington's Cambria Triumphans, p. 3. Whittaker's History of Manchester, p. 336. Humphrey Lloyd's Breviary, p. 10.