of Gaul were far from being closely akin to the
ancient inhabitants of Scotland, although they belong to the same
general family. The latter were Picts and Goidels; the former, Brythons
or Britons, of the same race as those who settled in England and were
driven by the Saxon conquerors into Wales, as their kinsmen were driven
into Brittany by successive conquests of Gaul. In the south of Scotland,
Goidels and Brythons must at one period have met; but the result of the
meeting was to drive the Goidels into the Highlands, where the Goidelic
or Gaelic form of speech still remains different from the Welsh of the
descendants of the Britons. Thus the only reason for calling the
Scottish Highlanders "Celts" is that Caesar used that name to describe a
race cognate with another race from which the Highlanders ought to be
carefully distinguished. In none of our ancient records is the term
"Celt" ever employed to describe the Highlanders of Scotland. They never
called themselves Celtic; their neighbours never gave them such a name;
nor would the term have possessed any significance, as applied to them,
before the eighteenth century. In 1703, a French historian and Biblical
antiquary, Paul Yves Pezron, wrote a book about the people of Brittany,
entitled _Antiquite de la Nation et de la Langue des Celtes autrement
appellez Gaulois_. It was translated into English almost immediately,
and philologists soon discovered that the language of Caesar's Celts was
related to the Gaelic of the Scottish Highlanders. On this ground
progressed the extension of the name, and the Highlanders became
identified with, instead of being distinguished from, the Celts of Gaul.
The word Celt was used to describe both the whole family (including
Brythons and Goidels), and also the special branch of the family to
which Caesar applied the term. It is as if the word "Teutonic" had been
used to describe the whole Aryan Family, and had been specially employed
in speaking of the Romance peoples. The word "Celtic" has, however,
become a technical term as opposed to "Saxon" or "English", and it is
impossible to avoid its use.

Besides the Goidels, or so-called Celts, and the Brythonic Celts or
Britons, we find traces in Scotland of an earlier race who are known as
"Picts", a few fragments of whose language survive. About the identity
of these Picts another controversy has been waged. Some look upon the
Pictish tongue as closely allied to Scottish Gaelic; others rega