The theory of the Germanic origin of the Picts removes another difficulty. How is the disappearance of the Celtic tongue from England to be accounted for? The Saxons, on seizing the soil, would not exterminate the inhabitants, but retain them as bondsmen. Had the majority of the occupants of England been the original Britons or Romanized Celts, we should have found in our daily speech, and in the names of our towns and villages, a large intermixture of Gaelic and Latin; but such is not the case. Grant that the Picts were a branch of the great Gothic family—and that successive waves of them had, long before the time of Cerdic, poured from the lowlands of Scotland over the plains of England, and the almost entire extermination of the ancient British is easily accounted for.
If the theory here advocated, cannot be sustained, it must at least be allowed, that the population of North Britain was largely leavened with individuals of the Saxon race. These strangers would doubtless obtain that supremacy over the natives which the Franks did in Gaul; so that, even upon this limited view of the question, the influence of the Germanic race in fixing the destinies of Britain, at this critical period, is apparent.
[11]. The whole of these are accurately figured and described in the "Materials for the History of Britain," published by the government. It is to be hoped that a work so auspiciously begun will not be strangled in its birth, by a false application of the principles of national economy.
[12]. Whitaker’s History of Manchester, i. 228.
[13]. "Politically speaking, Rome is now the city of the dead."
Times, March 18th, 1850.
[14]. Hodgson states the mean of nineteen measurements to be one hundred and twenty six yards.—Northumberland, II. iii. 310. This high number is obtained by its including the mountain districts, where the works are widely separated.
[15]. Harl. MSS. 374,—impr. Hodg. North’d. II. iii. 273.
[16]. Harl. MSS. 373,—impr. Richardson’s Reprints and Imprints, divis. Miscell.
[17]. It will be observed here that the erection of this structure has not been always ascribed to Severus.