“The original world is still retained in the Welch, Britain; and the Irish, Breact,—anything divided or striped; in the Irish Bricth, a fraction; the Irish Brisead, a rupture; and the Welch brig, a breach. And it was equally pronounced Brict, or Brit (as the Icitus of Cæsar, or the Itium of Strabo), Bris and Brig; and appears with this variety of terminations, in the usual appellation of the islanders, Britanni, in the present denomination of the Armorican Britons, and their language, Brez and Brezonic, and in the name of Brigantes. Brit is enlarged into Briton, or Brit-an in the plural, and Britan-ec in the relative adjective. And so forms the appellation Britones, Britani, and Britanici; as Brig is either changed into Briges, in the plural, and makes Allobroges, or Allo-broges, the name of a tribe on the continent, and of all the Belgæ in the island, is altered into Brigan and Brigants, and forms the denomination of Brigantes.” And again, “the original word appears to have been equally pronounced Brict, Brits, and Bricth, Breact, Breac, and Brig; and appears to be derived from the Gallic Bresche, a rupture, the Irish Bris, to break, and Brisead, a breach. And the word occurs with all this variety of termination in the Irish Breattain or Breatin, Bretam, and in Breathnach, Briotnach, and Breagnach, a Briton; in the Armorican names of Breton, Breiz, and Brezonnec, for an individual, the country, and the language of Armorica; in the Welch Brython and Brythoneg, the Britons and their language; and in the ancient synonymous appellations of Brigantes and Britanni.”
Doubtless the reader has been highly edified by this Britannic dissertation! He is, I am sure, as thorough master of the subject, now, as Mr. Whittaker himself!—can tell how many fractures, cross-lines, and diagonals have been made upon Britain ever since Noah’s flood! And as he cannot fail, in consequence, being in love with the Reverend Author, I will indulge his fondness by another spark of enlightenment.
“At this period,” he resumes (three hundred years before Christ), “many of the natives relinquishing their ancient seats to the Belgæ, found all the central and northern parts of England already occupied, and transported themselves into the uninhabited isle of Ireland!”
I will now be understood as to the promise made some while ago,[477] in reference to a definition for the word modern. A modern then, be it known, is a philosopher (?), who fancies that until three hundred years before Christ, the whole world was in darkness! physical as well as metaphysical! that it was even in a great measure uninhabited! by other than the brute creation!—but that suddenly when ever any mighty feat was to be achieved (in other words, whenever a modern theory was to be bolstered up) innumerable myrmidons armed cap-à-pié! full accoutred, booted and spurred! used to gush forth from some obscure corner of the earth! A miracle of production, to which even Cadmus’s soldiers can bear no parallel; for while the latter are located to a particular place, and stated to have been generated by regular seed, even though that was nothing more than a tooth of a dragon,[478] the former burst forward, nobody knows whence, nor will their machiners condescend to tell even so much as what may have been the elements of their composition!
To whom, however, is Mr. Whittaker beholden for this intellectual idea? Verily, to a half-senseless poor friar,[479] a few centuries deceased, who was no more competent—and no blame to him from his resources—to analyse this question, than he was to stop the revolutions of the celestial orbs!
Yet jejune and abortive as were Cirencester’s cerebral conceptions, he was not less dogmatic in the utterance of them than was his imitator. “It is most certain,” says he, “that the Damnii, Voluntii, Brigantes, Cangi, and other nations, were descended from the Britons, and passed over thither after Divitiacus, or Claudius, or Ostorius, or other victorious generals had invaded their original countries. Lastly, the ancient language, which resembles the old British and Gallic tongues, affords another argument, as is well known to persons skilled in both languages.”
Now, by what authority, may I ask, is all this “most certain?” And by authority I do not mean any quotation from previous historians. That I waive, and should not here require it, if either proof or probability were tendered of the occurrence. But as none such is vouchsafed—as all is mere assertion—and as I can prove the exact contrary to have been the actual fact, is not dogmatism too mild a name to apply to the scribbler who propounds such nonsense? And is not servility too dignified an epithet to brand upon the copyist, who takes such ipse dixit evidence upon so intricate a proposition as gospel truth? and that too when he must have absolute demonstration, and canvas every other statement, emanating from that fraternity, with the very eye of a Lynceus!
In the first place, then, the name Damnii (to begin with the beginning) is but a monkish Latinisation for Danaans; and these I have established to have been an eastern race, totally and universally distinct from Britain, until upon their overthrow in Ireland they fled for shelter to Scotland, whither on their way some straggling parties, reduced and humiliated, took up their residence in the northern parts of England; where, accordingly, to this hour we find evidences of their worship, such as sculptured crosses,[480] and other emblematic devices, but never a Round Tower, their impoverished circumstances not being now adequate to such an expense.
The Brigantes, again, is another Latin metamorphosis for the inhabitants of Breo-cean, in Spain, where the Phœnicians had fixed a colony, and whence they doubtless had brought some portion with them to work the mines at Cornwall. This Breo-cean the Romans, in conformity with the genius of their language, changed into Bri-gantia, which, however, was a very allowable commutation, the letters c and g being always convertible, and tia nothing more than an ordinary termination.
Seneca well knew that the Brigantes thus imported were a very different extraction from the native Britons.