came, as well as that in which they live; the concurrent historic causes
which have conspired to form and influence the literature. We shall find,
as we advance in this study, that the life and literature of a people are
reciprocally reflective.


I. CELTS AND CYMRY.--Thus, in undertaking the study of English literature,
we must begin with the history of the Celts and Cymry, the first
inhabitants of the British Islands of whom we have any record, who had
come from Asia in the first great wave of western migration; a rude,
aboriginal people, whose languages, at the beginning of the Christian era,
were included in one family, the _Celtic_, comprising the _British_ or
_Cambrian_, and the _Gadhelic_ classes. In process of time these were
subdivided thus:

The British into
_Welsh_, at present spoken in Wales.
_Cornish_, extinct only within a century.
_Armorican_, Bas Breton, spoken in French Brittany.
The Gadhelic into
_Gaelic_, still spoken in the Scottish Highlands.
_Irish_, or _Erse_, spoken in Ireland.
_Manx_, spoken in the Isle of Man.

Such are the first people and dialects to be considered as the antecedent
occupants of the country in which English literature was to have its
birth.


II. ROMAN CONQUEST.--But these Celtic peoples were conquered by the Romans