" Our present fashions in history
will not allow us to think, that we have much in common with those
natives, whom Tacitus describes: but fashions change, in history as in
other things; and in a wiser time we may come to know, and be proud to
acknowledge, that we have derived a part of our origin, and perhaps our
fairest accomplishments, from the Celtic Britons. The narrative of Tacitus
requires no explanation; and I will only bring to the memory of my
readers, Cowper's good poem on Boadicea. We have been dwelling upon the
glories of the Roman Empire: it may be pardonable in us, and it is not
unpleasing, to turn for a moment, I will not say to "the too vast orb" of
our fate, but rather to that Empire which is more extensive than the
Roman; and destined to be, I hope, more enduring, more united, and more
prosperous. Horace will hardly speak of the Britons, as humane beings, and
he was right; in his time, they were not a portion of the Roman World,
they had no part in the benefits of the Roman government: he talks of
them, as beyond the confines of civility, "in ultimos orbis Britannos;" as
cut off by "the estranging sea," and there jubilant in their native
practices, "Visum Britannos hospitibus feros.
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