attention of mankind. Neglecting, therefore, all traditions, or
rather tales, concerning the more early history of Britain, we shall
only consider the state of the inhabitants as it appeared to the
Romans on their invasion of this country: we shall briefly run over
the events which attended the conquest made by that empire, as
belonging more to Roman than British story: we shall hasten through
the obscure and uninteresting period of Saxon annals: and shall
reserve a more full narration for those times when the truth is both
so well ascertained and so complete as to promise entertainment and
instruction to the reader.

All ancient writers agree in representing the first inhabitants of
Britain as a tribe of the Gauls or Celtae, who peopled that island
from the neighbouring continent. Their language was the same; their
manners, their government, their superstition, varied only by those
small differences which time or communication with the bordering
nations must necessarily introduce. The inhabitants of Gaul,
especially in those parts which lie contiguous to Italy, had acquired,
from a commerce with their southern neighbours, some refinement in the
arts, which gradually diffused themselves northwards, and spread but a
very faint light over this island. The Greek and Roman navigators or
merchants (for there were scarcely any other travellers in those ages)
brought back the most shocking accounts of the ferocity of the people,
which they magnified, as usual, in order to excite the admiration of
their countrymen. The south-east parts, however, of Britain had
already, before the age of Caesar, made the first, and most requisite
step towards a civil settlement; and the Britons, by tillage and
agriculture, had there increased to a great multitude [a]. The other
inhabitants of the island still maintained themselves by pasture:
they were clothed with skins of beasts. They dwelt in huts, which they