Blair Collection > Celtic researches, on the origin, traditions & language, of the ancient Britons

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strenuously mainlain that they were dlsthict from the real
founders of their nation.
Were not these giants a people which Λvcre scattered into
ail lands, whether desolate, or occupied by a more orderly
race of inhabitants ? In the former situation, their peculiar
traits became permanent; in the latter, they were lost by
admixture.
There Is scarcely a trait in their charaòler which either
sacred or profane history, or popular tradition, vouchsafes to
record, but their pride, their impiety, their violence, their
barbarity, their total overthrow, their dispersion, and their
final extinction.
Yes, their great size, and consequently their superior
strength, are additional traits which generally enter into the
pictiu-e; and these perhaps may be agreeable to nature and
to tmth.
It cannot indeed be supposed, that the associates of Nimrod
were originally either larger or stronger than the generality of
men in that age. But in a society which regarded the preva-
lence of force as the supreme law, a superior degTce of bodily
strength would create a distinction of rank, and must there-
fore have been a desirable obje6l. He that was possessed of
this qualification, would, of course, be constituted the leader
of a band. The most ready means of perpetuating such a
distinction, amongst his children, must have been to seleŵ,
for his consort, the stoutest and most robust of the females. —
Such a choice frequently repeated could not fail of producing,
in the human race, the same effed which experience as
certains in the brute creation. It would gradually enlarge
and strenuthen the breed.