It is founded
on the exaggeration of the writers of history; but in these very
writers, when we come to look closely at what they say, we find the
confession that the remains of this people were reduced to a state of
strict servitude. Attached to the soil, they will have shared in
that emancipation which during the course of the middle ages
gradually restored to political life the mass of the population in
the countries of Western Europe; recovering by slow degrees their
rights without resuming their name, and rising gradually with the
rise of industry, they will have got spread through all ranks of
society. The gradualness of this movement, and the obscurity which
enwrapped its beginnings, allowed the contempt of the conqueror and
the shame of the conquered to become fixed feelings; and so it turns
out, that an Englishman who now thinks himself sprung from the Saxons
or the Normans, is often in reality the descendant of the Britons.'
So physiology, as well as language, incomplete though the application
of their tests to this matter has hitherto been, may lead us to
hesitate before accepting the round assertion that it is vain to
search for Celtic elements in any modern Englishman. But it is not
only by the tests of physiology and language that we can try this
matter.
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