rendered Vos docti Albani omnes, Vos exercitus peritorum, flavo-comatorum.* This is said to have been addressed to the Highlanders at the court of Malcolm III., A.D. 1057. There seems to be a constant tradition that the ancient Gaël were a fair-haired race. According to the old legends which contain the story of the Fîrbolg kings, one of them was named Fiacha Cinnfionnan. Cinnfionnan means "White heads;" and the former, as Keating says, had this designation, because most of the Irish of his time were remarkable for their white or fair hair.† If the Scots of king Malcolm's time were a yellow-haired race, they have forfeited that description, like their countrymen the Caledonians, and like the Germans and Gauls of the continent. The present Highlanders are by no means generally a xanthous people. In particular districts and in some valleys in the Highlands it is noted that most of the inhabitants have red hair, but this is only in limited tracts, where, however, there is nothing indicative of foreign colonisation. The prevalent characters in a great part of the Western Highlands are rather dark brown hair, uncurled, with a complexion not very fair, but with grey eyes. A man with coal-black and curled hair and black eyes looks singular in a groupe of the general complexion; and in places where this variation is frequent the opposite variety also occurs, viz. a fair skin with red or yellow hair. This at least I believe to be the case; and I compare the fact with one which has been mentioned to me by a gentleman of extensive observation in subjects connected with natural history, that on heaths and downs where wild rabbits are numerous they are often seen all to be of an uniform grey colour, but that where one variety displays itself, as where black rabbits are seen intermixed with the grey, there are generally others of a yellow colour. In different parts of England considerable varieties of complexion may be noted, but they are not referrible to particular races. In Cumberland, where the population is supposed to be * See Dr. O'Connor, Rerum Hibernicar. Scriptores, Prolegom. 124. Mr. Standerd of Taunton. in great part Celtic, the women are remarked as particularly fair and light-haired. In North Wales a fair complexion and blue eyes prevail, according to the observation both of Dr. Mucculloch and of Mr. Price. There is probably no part of Britain where the inhabitants are less intermixed with Saxon or German blood; certainly they are much less mingled than the South Welsh. In parts of South Wales, particularly in Glamorgan, and in Monmouthshire, black eyes are very prevalent, and the hair is frequently black. In the counties, further to the northwest, of Hereford, Chester, Worcester, light hair and blue eyes are prevalent. It has been observed, and I believe very correctly, that in cities and towns the complexion of the inhabitants and the colour of their eyes and hair are very generally darker and more frequently black than in the surrounding districts, especially when these are woody and mountainous.* One fact seems to be quite certain respecting the complexion prevalent through the British Islands, viz. that it has greatly varied from that of all the original tribes who are known to have jointly constituted the population. We have seen that the ancient Celtic tribes were a xanthous race; such likewise were the Saxons, Danes, and Normans; the Caledonians also and the Gaël were fair and yellow-haired. Not so the mixed descendants of all these blue-eyed tribes. It is very difficult in such an inquiry to come near to the true proportion; but I should have little hesitation in concluding that eight out of ten persons now living in Britain have dark hair, and of them a considerable part, dark eyes. Was there anything peculiar in the conformation of the head in the British and Gaulish races? I do not remember that any peculiarity of features has been observed by Roman writers in either Gauls or Britons. There are probably in existence sufficient means for deciding this inquiry in the skulls found in old British cairns or places of sepulture. I have seen about half a dozen skulls found in different parts of England in situations which rendered it highly probable that they * Mr. Price has made this remark, which agrees with my own impression. I cannot persuade myself that it is owing to the cause with which he connects it, viz. the use of coal-fires. The inhabitants of some coal districts have appeared to me to be quite as fair and as frequently xanthous as those of any other parts of England. belonged to ancient Britons. All these partook of one striking characteristic, viz. a remarkable narrowness of the forehead compared with the occiput, giving a very small space for the anterior lobes of the brain, and allowing room for a large development of the posterior lobes. There are some modern English and Welsh heads to be seen of a similar form, but they are not numerous.* It is to be hoped that such specimens of the craniology of our ancestors will not be suffered to fall into decay; they are occasionally discovered in places where British towns formerly existed. I have casts from two skulls in the collection of the Royal Irish Academy, which were found, together with the rest of the skeletons to which they belonged, in a tomb in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. In these, especially in one of them, there is a considerable approximation to the form of the Turanian skull; the face has somewhat of a lozenge form, a pyramidal elevation, with laterally eminent zygomata. CHAPTER IV. OF THE POPULATION OF ITALY. SECTION I.-General Observations. ITALY, before it was subdued by the arms of Rome, had been for ages divided between a variety of separate nations, who differed from each other in manners and in the degrees of civilization which they had severally attained. They were also distinguished by their languages and by traditions preserved among them respecting their origin. Such traditions bore record in several instances of a period when the tribes to which they belonged entered Italy from other countries. The last recorded immigration before the extension of the Roman arms, was that of the Gauls into the Cisalpine country, which may be said to fall within the period of history; and the reality of the event is confirmed by the fact that people of the same race were well known beyond the Alps. The arrival of Pelasgi in the northern, and of Oenotrians in the southern districts, testified by the traditions or by the mythical genealogies of the Greeks, is supposed to have been supported by indications of affinity with the people of Thessaly and the Peloponnesus. The origin of the Etruscans from an eastern country is not less positively asserted by ancient stories; but in this instance we do not find a similar confirmation, and many modern writers follow the opinion of Dionysius the Halicarnassian, and look upon the Etruscans as an indigenous people of Italy or its northern borders. Several learned men in ancient Rome, among whom the principal were Cato, Varro, Cincius, Fabius Maximus, Valerius Antias, Licinius Macer, occupied themselves in exploring the antiquity of the Italian nations while they yet existed as separate races and had their own languages and literature. If these writers had been aware of the importance of philological researches, they might have left us full and satisfactory information on the subject which they undertook to investigate. But this was far from being the case, and we can collect from the ancients very little knowledge concerning the idioms of primitive Italy and their mutual relations. The defect has been made up in part by the discovery of inscriptions on coins, and others on monuments of brass and stone, in different places; but many of these inscriptions, for want of a clue, have not been as yet satisfactorily deciphered. Still the information afforded by them is of great value, and has lately been applied successfully to the study of Italian ethnography. Several modern writers have endeavoured to explore the history of the Italian nations, by the aid of lights reflected upon it from different sources. The native Italians who have attempted this subject, have been chiefly collectors of antiquities: not one of them, without excepting even Lanzi, has brought to the task the spirit of critical and philosophical investigation which is requisite for success. Frêret, Gibbon, and Heyne entered upon it in a different manner. Niebuhr has brought to bear upon it the resources of his immense learning. If clear and consistent truth could be elicited from the multifarious traditions, and conjectural, and often contradictory hints, which are to be gleaned from the vast field of ancient literature, nothing would have remained after Niebuhr which any other writer could have attempted with a prospect of success. But sources of information exist of which Niebuhr has not availed himself, and the obscurity in which he has left many subjects connected with the old Italian history has been partially cleared up by some of his survivors, who are still employed in this investigation. In the following sections on the population of Italy, I shall briefly survey the principal facts which bear upon the subject, and shall endeavour to point out what are the results which have been established on satisfactory evidence, and what conclusions are probable, though as yet subject to doubts that may hereafter be solved. |