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

LECTURE r. 21
tomed to a life like tlieirs usually have ; though,
perhaps, they had as much atleast with their own
as with that of others — a species of weakness,
if it may be so called, by no means uncommon.
These invaders at once took a leading place
among the Britons, enervated by their con-
nection with Roman luxury and their depend-
ence on Roman protection ; but that they ex-
tirpated the Britons is hardly to be conceived.
Their number, as compared with the Britons
who inhabited the land, must have been small.
But while such was the case, they became
the head, while the Britons were merely the
hands. Over the whole kingdom, with the ex-
ception of Wales, they became the masters, like
the Magyars of Hungary, while the Britons be-
came the hewers of wood and the drawers of
water. The Saxons, from their position, influ-
enced powerfully the language of the nation ;
indeed, between the Romans and themselves,
they were able almost wholly to put the original
British language aside, and to supplant it by a
language made up almost altogether of both
their own. Yet, while that is true, there is no
reason for supposing that the original popula-
tion was extirpated by the Saxons any more
than by the Romans. There may have been a
considerable immigration of Celts into Brittany ;