the story existed in the time of Gildas, a cotemporary of Taliessin, he might, notwithstanding his partiality to Rome, reject it, through contempt for his countrymen. We are, therefore, inclined to assign to it so early a date; and to regard it as a substitute for the rude genealogy of Hisichion, designed to reconcile the more literary Britons to a pretended consanguinity with Rome.

In this fable, Hisichion is metamorphosed into Ascanius, the son of Æneas: but it comprises, both in Nennius's outline, and in Geoffrey's finished picture, allusions to facts which are recorded in the Triads, as well as to some which they have not noticed. It sends Brutus and his Trojan followers to Africa; and thence it brings them to the banks of the Loire, from which the Triads assert the second colony of Britons to have migrated to our island. To this colony, Mr. Roberts has very properly referred the story of Brutus; but he has overlooked a curious circumstance relating to it. The Gallic antagonist of Brutus is called, in the Welsh chronicles, Goffar the Pict; an appellation which they likewise give to the ancient inhabitants of Scotland, including the Celyddon, or Caledonians. It appears to have been from the Southern Britons, that the Romans, in the third century, adopted their use of the former denomination, for the northern inhabitants of our island: but wherefore were these identified by them, with their ancient enemies in Gaul?

The name of Poictou, by which, till lately, the vicinity of the river Loire was known, from remote antiquity, was inhabited, at the commencement of the Christian era, by a tribe which Strabo calls TXTOVES (Falconer's ed. T. I. p. 263, 264.) bordering on the Aquitani, but, from their position, undoubtedly CELTS. Strabo demonstrates the Celts of Gaul to be of the same original nation with the Belge and Germans; and radically different from the Aquitani, whom he proves to be Iberians; as Tacitus shews the Silures, or Cymry, likewise to have been. The Triads assert clearly and strongly, that the three colonies from Gaul which first peopled Britain, "descended from the original race of the Cymry, and spoke the same language." The second colony, therefore, which had occupied the banks of the Loire, could be no other than Iberian Gauls; and it is hardly questionable, that they migrated to Britain to escape from the Pictish Celts, who thenceforward occupied the district of Gaul which they had conquered, and which derived from them the naine of Poictou.

Mr. Roberts adopts the specious error of Whitaker and others, who imagined Gael, the native appellation of the Scotch Highlanders, to be synonymous with Galli, or Gauls. The latter was incorrectly substituted by the Romans, for

the appellations of Galate and Celta, which the Greeks applied to the German tribes in general, and the Latins to that powerful branch of them, which possessed the greater part of Gaul and of Spain, before these countries were subdued by the Roman forces. The Welsh denominate various tribes of that nation, Celtiaid, Celyddon, and Galedin; and it seems to have been from the Iberian Gauls, that both Greeks and Romans learned these appellations, and the modes in which they applied them. But Gael is well known to be only a contraction of Gaoithel, which the Welsh call Gwyddyl, and have always applied only to the Irish and the Highland Scots. We have no doubt of its identity with the Tarea of the Greeks, and the Getuli of the Latins; as it is generally acknowledged that the Iberians (from whom both Welsh and Irish have certainly descended) originated from Africa. Mr. Roberts imagines the Irish to be of a nation radically different from the Welsh: but in this notion he differs from the best judges of the two languages; who have personally assured us, that, of 2400 terms, which comprise all the primitive words of the Irish tongue, one third are purely Welsh. All the Irish traditions, moreover, however irreconcileable in other respects, concur in deriving their population from Spain; whence the Iberian Cymry must have passed into Gaul, long before they migrated thence to Britain.

The terms Gael and Gaul, therefore, (similar as they seem) are of entirely distinct etymologies; the former coming from Farha, Gætuli, Gatheli, Gwyddyl, and Gaoithel, (which is, in Ersc, pronounced Gael;) and Gaul, from Keλrai, Taλarai, Celta, and Galli, which last was usually applied indiscriminately to all inhabitants of Gaul, whether Beige, Celtæ, or Aquitani. The confusion of these two radically different appellations, has been so tenaciously persisted in by modern mutilators of Antiquities, and their reviewers, that we hope our readers will excuse a digression from the immediate subject before us, in which the obstinate blunders of others have irresistibly involved us. Our return to the question, why the ancient Britons are called the Caledonian Picts, is facilitated by this discussion. It was simply because they found the Caledonians, upon the arrival of the latter in North Britain, to be of the same pation with the Picts, whose invasion of the districts on the Loire had compelled them to migrate to our island. They therefore called the new comers not only Celyddon, or Celts, the generic title which they had affixed to the German nation, but with less propriety also Phichti, or Picts: as if (which is possible, but not probable) they had belonged to the same branch of that nation which then occupied the banks of the Loire. Afterwards, when

the Gwyddyl passed from Ireland to North Britain, and participated with the Celyddon, both in their occupation of that country, and in their hostilities with the Southern Britons, the latter naturally (though still more inaccurately) extended to them also, the denomination of Picts; distinguishing them from the Celyddon, only as the Gwyddyl Phichti, or Irish

Hence, likewise, sprung the appellations of Northern and Southern Picts: but that the Welsh of much later times still used that of Picts by way of national distinction, is proved by a passage which we have already quoted from the work before us. The Picts and the Scots are there distinguished as two nations: and the latter, as well as the Northern Picts, being Irish, the Celyddon, or Southern Picts, must have been designated by the former appellation.

The fable of Brutus, relating to the second British colony, called Lloegrwys (from whom England is still named Lloegr by the Welsh) was adapted to gratify their pride at the expence of their predecessors the Cymry; who always jealously insisted on their own priority, and have preserved in their Triads satisfactory evidence of their claims. The new tale of Troy represents Britain to have been occupied only by a remnant of giants, previous to the arrival of Brutus, the Lloegrian chief, and Corineus, the Cornish, (who constituted a branch of the Lloegrwys), by whose prowess the land was soon cleared of these monsters. The arrival of a third British colony, which the Triads denominate Brython or Warriors, was less derogatory to the honour of the Lloegrwys, than the acknowledgment of an earlier British colony would have been but, as it was still incompatible with their pretensions to the complete occupation of Britain, it was necessary to suppress the distinction between the Lloegrwys and the Brython, when alluding to circumstances that were really connected with the migration of the latter. Accordingly Evrawe, and his son Bryttys, (whose name, perhaps, suggested that assigned to the Lloegrian chief) are represented by the chronicles, as lineal descendants of Brutus, and, like him, invaders of Gaul, instead of emigrants from that country. The chroniclers surname Bryttys Tarianlas, or Green-shield; under which title Spenser, in the Fairy Queen, alludes to conflicts which he seems to have maintained against the Celtic (or Belgic) invaders of the north of Gaul, before the Brython were compelled to evacuate their territories in that country. Milton (Hist. of England, p. 22. first ed.) quotes the passage, and refers to Jacobus Bergomas, and Lessabeus, authors with whom we have no acquaintance, in confirmation of Evrawe's contests and defeats in Hainault; while the chroniclers, perhaps to reconcile the Brython to the extinction of their name,

depict him as a triumphant invader; and provide for the affinity of the second Brutus, as well as the first, with Rome, by sending his nineteen brethren and sisters thither; the latter to be nobly married, and the former to obtain military aid, with which they conquered Germany!

Hence it appears, that the leading facts to which the Triads bear testimony, were known by the inventors of this fable; and were suppressed, disguised, or distorted by them, as they judged expedient for the purpose of establishing the affinity of Britons and Romans. The story thus digested, seems to have been drawn up in the form of ancient annals of Rome; and Nennius was imposed upon, doubtless with multitudes of his countrymen, by so gross, but yet so alluring, a forgery. It was likely to meet with ready acceptance from the Lloegrwys, (who chiefly occupied England, and were more Romanised than the Cymry of Wales) as it was calculated for their aggrandisement. To other Britons, the imposture would naturally be less acceptable. The Brython might be cajoled into acquiescence, but the Cymry, in general, would the more closely adhere to their Triads; and, perhaps on this account, commit to writing what had before been entrusted to memorial tradition. Hu, the mighty and the eminent, celebrated in so many of these brief records, could on no pretence be obliterated or degraded by his immediate relatives and descendants. Some of them, however, more accommodating than the rest, wished to reconcile his supremacy with the honours of a Trojan descent, and a Roman affinity. Hence, probably, originated, what was imposed upon Nennius for an extract from "ancient books of their ancestors.". It admits the derivation of the Britons from Brutus, but gives him Hisichion (or Hu-ysgwn) for his father, deriving the latter from Eneas and Ascanius, at the distance of four generations. The interval is filled up by Alanus, or Alawn, whom the "Tradition" likewise makes father of Hisichion; his mother Rhea Silvia; and his grandfather Numa Pompilius!! It is not surprising, that such a pedigree obtained little credit, even among the primitive Britons. Both the "tradition" and the ancient books," derive the Britons from Japheth: while the story of Brutus, as it stands in Nennius, deduces them, more credibly, from Ham.

This forgery, which, gross as it appears, deserved to prevail over its rivals, necessarily perverted some subsequent parts of the chronicles. Having derived the name, as well as the inhabitants of Britain from Brutus, they could not consistently introduce Prydain, from whom the Triads assert the country to have been named, in consequence of a federative union which he established among the three colonies of Britons

Certain it is, that the Welsh still call our island by his name: and there hardly seems room to doubt, that, from this, the Greeks formed their Bpertanian, and the Latins, Britannia. In the Triads, Prydain's celebrity eclipses even that of Hu, the mighty; and he is extolled, in several of them, for a variety of unparalleled excellencies. The chroniclers appear to have considered his credit as irreconcilable with that of their fictitious personages and events; and therefore cut the Gordian knot, by passing over him in profound silence, and proceeding to his next eminent successor in legislation, Dyfnwal Moelmud, in whose praises they cordially agree with the Triads. It was certainly wisest to do so; for the history of Prydain would have given the lie to their long list of monarchs, who divided England, Wales, and Scotland, among their sons, or, if they had none, among their daughters; according to a custom in Wales, when its three little principalities happened to become united under one sovereign. That most of the names inserted in the Welsh Chronicles, belonged to real persons, we can easily conceive; because they are preserved in the most ancient pedigrees; and because they were unlikely to have been invented, when nothing else was recorded of them. The name of Prydain appears in the pedigrees, as in the Triads, though excluded from the chronicles: but while we regard the pedigrees as confirmations of either, where they coincide, and as proofs that persons so named existed, we are far from admitting the certainty of the respective genealogies; much less the probability of a hereditary monarchy among the ancient Britons. Authenticated facts appear to us to demonstrate, that, from the first population of our country, they were split into namerous independent states; rarely united, even in confederacy; and only subject to any individual, when necessitated to elect a military sovereign. Such was Caractacus; whose name, like that of Prydain, is suppressed in the chronicles, because his history would have disproved their forgeries.

From this view of the work which Mr. Roberts has translated, it cannot be received, in any respect, as historical evidence; but it throws light on some interesting events that are otherwise authenticated. It is a compilation from detached romances, connected by a thread of dubious genealogies, and fabricated for political purposes. The compiler might be as innocent as he was ignorant: but the authors whose forgeries he amalgamated, seem purposely to have omitted, or perverted, facts, which the historical Triads au→ thenticate.

These, we apprehend to be the sole genuine records of ancient British history, not only that are extant, but that ever