By the same Author,

THE

HISTORY OF ENGLAND

DURING THE MIDDLE AGES,

From the Accession of William the Conqueror to the Death of Henry VII.

In Three Volumes Quarto.

The early Division of Mankind into the Civilized and Nomadic Nations. -The most ancient Population of Britain proceeded from the Nomadic.

I.

NO subject has been more disputed by antiqua- CHAP. rian writers, than the origin of the population of Europe; and no discussions have been more fanciful, more ill-tempered, or more contradictory. As vehement and pertinacious have been the controversies on the peopling of Great Britain. Few topics would seem to be more remote from the usual currents of human passions, than the enquiry from what nations our primeval ancestors descended and yet the works of our historical polemics, on investigations so little connected with any present interest or feeling, abound with all the abusive anger that irritability can furnish, as well as with all the dogmatism, confusion, errors, dreams, and contradictions, that egotism could generate, or wranglers and adversaries pursue.

BOOK Ir is not intended in this work to renew dis

I.

putations so interminable and so useless. But in
order to present the reader with a complete view
of the History of England, from the earliest pe-
riod to the Norman Conquest, when the Anglo-
Saxon dynasty ceased, the first book of this history
will be devoted to collect, from an impartial con-
sideration of the original and ancient writers, that
series of facts and those reasoned inferences, which
most deserve the attention and belief of an enlight-
ened age.
The authentic will be distinguished
from the conjectural; and the nearest approach to
unbiassed judgment and to historical truth, that
can be effected on periods so obscure, because so
remote, will be dispassionately attempted.

AFTER a succession of controversies, which only increased the labyrinths of investigation, and made the doubtful more uncertain, Dr. Percy, in 1770, struck out a clear and certain path, by distinguishing the Keltic from the Gothic tribes; and by arranging the principal languages of Europe, under these two distinct genera, with specimens of the Lord's prayer in each.'