Blair Collection > Celtic gleanings, or, Notices of the history and literature of the Scottish Gael

LECTURE T. 19
rule of their own kings. Here, then, we have
the substratum of the population of England
a British or Celtic one, and upon this we find
next a Koman one superinduced. These two
form the first two courses in the edifice ; and,
if I am not mistaken, the second of these is, in
many respects, the most important of the
whole. I am disposed to maintain that the Ko-
mans, so far as the influence of race had to do
mth it, exerted a far more powerful influence on
the civilization of England than was ever ex-
erted by the Saxons. Everything that archaeo-
logy is revealing of the state of Eoman Britain,
indicates an advanced state of civilization, —
at least in all that appears to belong to the
physical comfort of a people. Nor does this civi-
lization appear in any way to have been aided,
but rather the opposite, by the introduction of
the Saxons. These latter would seem to have
partaken gradually of the civilization of Bri-
tain, and not to have communicated their own.
They came, drawn, no doubt, by the superior
wealth of the country as compared with their
own, and were encouraged by the state of
weakness in which they found the native popu-
lation. And yet some men trace to this irrup-
tion of the Saxons the civilization of the British
empire. Nothing can be more completely uur-