they were still so little seen or heard of in Italy in comparison of the Celts, that this description must belong to the latter people. We find the same characters ascribed to the Gauls as general traits, in the following passages. By Lucan:* ........ tam flavos gerit altera crines, Ut nullas Rheni Cæsar se dicat in arvis Tam rutilas vidisse comas. By Silius Italicus :+ Auro certantem et rutilum sub vertice nodum. And Claudian (in Rufinum): Inde truces flavo comitantur vertice Galli. And in his second panegyric of Stilicho: Gallia crine ferox, evinctaque torque decoro Binaque gæsa tenens, animoso pectore fatur. Diodorus Siculus described the Celts. Niebuhr is of opinion that he drew his account from "the excellent ethnographer Posidonius." He says, Oi Taλárai rois μèv owμaoív eioiv εὐμηκεῖς, ταῖς δὲ σαρξὶ κάθυδροι καὶ λευκοί. In another passage the same writer says that the Gauls are not only by original constitution—¿‹ púσɛws—xanthous, but endeavour by art to increase their national peculiarity.|| The large stature which is often the accompaniment of a sanguine constitution and xanthous complexion, is ascribed to the Gauls by several other writers.¶ The same characters are ascribed to the Galatians of Asia Minor, who, as we have seen, were Volca and Celtic nations from the Roman province, and from the part of it most remote from Germany and Belgica. Livy thus speaks of them, "Inter mitissimum genus hominum ferox natio, pervagata bello prope * Lib. X. + B. iv. 200; B. xvi. 471. See also Petronius and Adam Reidenbrog. ad Ammian. § See Polyb. b. ii. c. 2. The great stature of the Gauls is attested by Cæsar, lib. iii. c. 30. For the same fact see Pausanias, x. 10. Florus, i. 13. Diodor. lib. v. c. 2. et c. 28. ¶ Cæsar says: "Plerumque hominibus Gallis præ magnitudine corporum suorum brevitas nostra contemptui est." (Bell. Gall. ii. 30.) Pausanias declares that the Celti-Kɛλroì-exceed all other nations by far in the tallness of their stature. (Pausan. Phoc. 20.). Arrian calls them "μɛyáλoι rà owμara.” (Arrian, b. iv.) 66 orbem terrarum, sedem cepit. Procera corpora, promissæ et rutilatæ comæ, vasta scuta, prælongi gladii; ad hoc cantus inchoantium prælium, et ululatus, et tripudia, et quatientium scuta in patrium quendam morem, horrendus armorum crepitus; omnia de industria composita ad terrorem."* From the description itself, even without the certainty of historical proof otherwise obtained, we might conclude without the least hesitation that Gauls are here described, and that the characteristics of the xanthous complexion are attributed to a Celtic people. On the whole it must be concluded that the Gauls are universally described by the ancients as a remarkably tall, large-bodied, fair, blue-eyed, yellow-haired people. As however Niebuhr observed that the Germans are no longer redhaired, so the Gauls or their descendants have lost the yellow hair of their forefathers. Although there is a great intermixture of Northern German races in the present population of France, the Visigoths and Burgundians having settled in the South, and the Allemanni, Franks, and Northmen in the northern parts, all of whom had a complexion at least equally fair with that of the ancient Gauls, yet the modern French are far from a very fair people. Black hair is in the middle provinces of France more frequent than very light. In Paris it has been observed that a chestnut colour is the most frequent hue of the hair. This appears from the average numbers of admissions in some hospitals. Neither are the French so huge and almost gigantic in their stature as were the ancient Gauls. We must infer that the physical character of the race has varied materially within fifteen centuries. Paragraph 2.-Of the physical characters of the Britons. The ancients have left us very little information as to the physical characters of the Britons. The passage already cited in Strabo is the most particular. It is as follows: “The men, viz. the Britons, are taller-evμηKÉσTEρo-than the Gauls and less yellow-haired—ñoσov Eavoórpixes-and more infirm and relaxed in their bodily fabric-χαυνότεροι τοῖς σώμασιν. As a speci * Tit. Liv. lib. xxxviii. c. 17. Livy also describes them nearly in the same terms as Diodorus. “Sunt fusa et candida corpora, ut quæ nunquam nisi in pugnâ nudentur.” (Lib. xxxviii.) men of their stature is this fact: we ourselves saw at Rome young men from Britain who in height exceeded the tallest men there by half a foot, and were crooked in their legs and not well formed as to the make of their bodies." In their manners, he adds that they were in some respects similar to the Gauls, in others more simple and barbarous.* Tacitus, in a passage often alluded to, describes the Britons as differing in different parts, the Silurians being of dark complexion, with curled hair; the Caledonians of huge limbs and red hair; and the inhabitants of the countries nearest to Gaul, viz. the South of England, resembling the Gauls. This is nearly the sum of all that the Greek and Roman writers have told us respecting the physical characters of the Gauls and Britons. A few additional notices may be gleaned from writers of the middle ages. Dr. J. G. Radlof, a most diligent investigator of Celtic antiquity, in a work published at Bonn in 1822, entitled "Neue Untersuchungen des Keltenthums," has found the Celts described as a fair" milk-white people" by two writers of the middle ages. "Galli à candore corporis primùm Galatæ appellati sunt," says Bishop Eucharius of Lyons, in his treatise "on Tribes." The same observation was made by Rabanus Maurus. The Gaelic Highlanders of Scotland spoke the same language and were the same people as the Irish Gaël in the time of St. Patrick, and in that of the earliest Irish bards whose poems are extant. They are generally supposed to have been a different race from the old Caledonians, both by those who hold that the Caledonians were a British or Welsh race, and by those who agree with Pinkerton in looking upon them as Germans. It is curious that the oldest Irish composition extant represents the Gaël as a fair, yellow-haired people. A poetical chronicle, which is supposed by Dr. O'Connor to be the most ancient historical poem existing in the Gaëlic language, thus addresses the people: A eolca Albain uile, A shluagh feta folt-buidhe, * Strabo, lib. iv. p. 200. rendered Vos docti Albani omnes, Vos exercitus peritorum, flavo-comatorum.* This is said to have been addressed to the Highlanders at the court of Malcolm III., A.D. 1057. There seems to be a constant tradition that the ancient Gaël were a fair-haired race. According to the old legends which contain the story of the Fîrbolg kings, one of them was named Fiacha Cinnfionnan. Cinnfionnan means "White heads;" and the former, as Keating says, had this designation, because most of the Irish of his time were remarkable for their white or fair hair.+ If the Scots of king Malcolm's time were a yellow-haired race, they have forfeited that description, like their countrymen the Caledonians, and like the Germans and Gauls of the continent. The present Highlanders are by no means generally a xanthous people. In particular districts and in some valleys in the Highlands it is noted that most of the inhabitants have red hair, but this is only in limited tracts, where, however, there is nothing indicative of foreign colonisation. The prevalent characters in a great part of the Western Highlands are rather dark brown hair, uncurled, with a complexion not very fair, but with grey eyes. A man with coal-black and curled hair and black eyes looks singular in a groupe of the general complexion; and in places where this variation is frequent the opposite variety also occurs, viz. a fair skin with red or yellow hair. This at least I believe to be the case; and I compare the fact with one which has been mentioned to me by a gentleman of extensive observation in subjects connected with natural history,+ that on heaths and downs where wild rabbits are numerous they are often seen all to be of an uniform grey colour, but that where one variety displays itself, as where black rabbits are seen intermixed with the grey, there are generally others of a yellow colour. In different parts of England considerable varieties of complexion may be noted, but they are not referrible to particular races. In Cumberland, where the population is supposed to be * See Dr. O'Connor, Rerum Hibernicar. Scriptores, Prolegom. 124. Mr. Standerd of Taunton. in great part Celtic, the women are remarked as particularly fair and light-haired. In North Wales a fair complexion and blue eyes prevail, according to the observation both of Dr. Mucculloch and of Mr. Price. There is probably no part of Britain where the inhabitants are less intermixed with Saxon or German blood; certainly they are much less mingled than the South Welsh. In parts of South Wales, particularly in Glamorgan, and in Monmouthshire, black eyes are very prevalent, and the hair is frequently black. In the counties, further to the northwest, of Hereford, Chester, Worcester, light hair and blue eyes are prevalent. It has been observed, and I believe very correctly, that in cities and towns the complexion of the inhabitants and the colour of their eyes and hair are very generally darker and more frequently black than in the surrounding districts, especially when these are woody and mountainous.* One fact seems to be quite certain respecting the complexion prevalent through the British Islands, viz. that it has greatly varied from that of all the original tribes who are known to have jointly constituted the population. We have seen that the ancient Celtic tribes were a xanthous race; such likewise were the Saxons, Danes, and Normans; the Caledonians also and the Gaël were fair and yellow-haired. Not so the mixed descendants of all these blue-eyed tribes. It is very difficult in such an inquiry to come near to the true proportion; but I should have little hesitation in concluding that eight out of ten persons now living in Britain have dark hair, and of them a considerable part, dark eyes. Was there anything peculiar in the conformation of the head in the British and Gaulish races ? I do not remember that any peculiarity of features has been observed by Roman writers in either Gauls or Britons. There are probably in existence sufficient means for deciding this inquiry in the skulls found in old British cairns or places of sepulture. I have seen about half a dozen skulls found in different parts of England in situations which rendered it highly probable that they * Mr. Price has made this remark, which agrees with my own impression. I cannot persuade myself that it is owing to the cause with which he connects it, viz. the use of coal-fires. The inhabitants of some coal districts have appeared to me to be quite as fair and as frequently xanthous as those of any other parts of England. |