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The Celts and Druids and Their Story from the Earliest Times
The Celts and Druids and Their Story from the Earliest Times Author:A. Scott Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VI. Britain and the Britons, with the Nobility of the Celtae. The origin of the Celtae, a retrospect into the early period and state of Britain,... more » the character, the arts, and the customs of its primitive inhabitants, is not an exercise of idle and simple curiosity, . but critical importance in the pursuit of historical and philosophical truth. It not only delights the imagination with a view of our hills, valleys, and plains as they presented themselves to the eye 3,000 years ago, and shows to us the simple native and his first occupations, but also points out the origin, progress, and improvement of such knowledge as to this day constitutes the ornament and comfort of society. Therefore no apology is required for attempts to discriminate facts relative to the Celtic nations, the original possessors of the British Islands, and the remote progenitors of their occupiers. The government, the institutions, and the customs of that nation were in great measure obliterated by the Eomans, who discovered little curiosity either to examine the history of strangers whom they despised, or to enter minutely into the value of establishments which had been doomed by their decree to ruin. Consequently, the notices which they have left us respecting the Celtae are slight and superficial. These documents, however, such as they are, have been attentively weighed, and men of discernment have engrafted one general conclusion that the Celtae, though comparatively to others a simple race of men, were possessed of some useful knowledge not common to them with neighbours more polished, and which deserved a better fate than total oblivion. But the Celts' nobility are described in a manner which entitles them to respect; they were by no means destitute of culture. Ancient Britain was p...« less