adition; and that the
adventures of barbarous nations, even if they were recorded, could
afford little or no entertainment to men born in a more cultivated
age. The convulsions of a civilized state usually compose the most
instructive and most interesting part of its history; but the sudden,
violent, and unprepared revolutions incident to barbarians are so much
guided by caprice, and terminate so often in cruelty, that they
disgust us by the uniformity of their appearance; and it is rather
fortunate for letters that they are buried in silence and oblivion.
The only certain means by which nations can indulge their curiosity in
researches concerning their remote origin, is to consider the
language, manners, and customs of their ancestors, and to compare them
with those of the neighbouring nations. The fables which are commonly
employed to supply the place of true history ought entirely to be
disregarded; or if any exception be admitted to this general rule, it
can only be in favour of the ancient Grecian fictions, which are so
celebrated and so agreeable, that they will ever be the objects of the
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