Blair Collection > Critical dissertations on the origin, antiquities, language, government, manners, and religion, of the antient Caledonians, their posterity the Picts, and the British and Irish Scots

of the Caledonians, Pi Sis and Scots. 127
having their wives in common, has fome plaufible
fou .dation. In thofe times of remote antiquity,
it is very natural to fuppofe that the Caledonians
were not very well lodged. The whole people of
the family, with their occafional guefts, lay on
rulhes, on the lame floor, and in the fame apart-
ment. This cuftom, till of late, prevailed amongfl
the mod U')civilized part of the Highlanders, and
was once univerfal over Britain. If we may judge
of the ancient inhabitants of North Britain, by the
prefeiit rudeft part of the Highlanders, this cir-
cumftance of fleeping in the fame apartment was
not prcdu<5tive of that conjugal infidelity mention-
ed by Dion and the holy father.
The inhabitants of South Britain were, in CsE-
far's time, equally unpolifhed, their domeftic oecc-
nomy much the fame, and their habitations juft
as mean as thofe of the rudeft Highlanders. It
was natural for a ftranger, of any delicacy, who
faw the whole fam.ily lying together promifcuoufly,
upon one continued bed of rufhes, fern, or leaves,
to imagine that the wives and children belonged
to the males in common. Hence it was, that
Csefar entertained that falfe opinion of the South
Britons : and hence Dion and Jerom's opinion with
regard to thofe of the North. But nothir g could
have been more rafh than the conclufions which
they drew from thefe appearances. The people
of Germany lay almoft indifcriminately together
in the very fame manner * : and we have been
already told, by a very intelligent writer, that
* In omni domo nudi ac fordid' in hos artus in hsc ccrpora
qux miramur excrelcunt. Liter eadem p. cora in eademhiuno,
degunt, occ. Tacit, de mor. Germ. cap. 20.
there