settling here, presumably
driving away the inhabitants whom they found. They so specially occupied
the parts where now Hampshire is, that the capital city, Went, was named
from them by the Latins Venta Belgarum, Belgian Venta; to return in later
times to its old name of Caer Went, this is, Went Castle, Winchester.
Indeed, the Belgae are credited with the occupation of territory up to the
borders of Devon. The British tribe of the Atrebates, again, were the
same people as the Gauls in the district of Arras; and they occupied a
large tract of country stretching away from the immediate west of London.
Caesar remarks on this fact that the immigrant Gauls retained the names of
their continental districts and cities. The Parisii on the east coast,
north of the Humber, afford another illustration.

Now when Jerome, about the year 367, was at Treves, the capital of Gaul,
situate in Belgic Gaul, he learned the native tongue of the Belgic Gauls;
and when later in his life he travelled through Galatia, in Asia Minor, he
found the people there speaking practically the same language as the Gauls
about Treves. Thus we are entitled to claim the Galatians as of kin to the
Belgic division of the Gauls, and therefore as the same people with those
who from before Caesar's time flowed steadily over from Belgic Gaul to
Britain. That the Galatians were Gauls is of course a well-known fact in
history; the point I wish to note is that they were Belgic Gauls. We may
therefore see in St. Paul's epistle to the Galatian churches a description
of the national character of the Britons of these parts of the island.
Fickleness, superstition, and quarrelsomeness, are the characteristics on
which he remarks. The very first words of the Epistle, after the preface,
strike a clear and forcible note:--"I marvel that ye are so quickly moved
to abandon the gospel of him that called you, for another gospel." Again,
"O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you!" "Ye were in bondage to them
which are by nature no gods;... how turn ye back again to the weak and
beggarly rudiments, whereunto ye desire to be in bondage over again!" "If
ye bite and devour one another." Without at all saying that these national
characteristics are traceable in any parts of our islands now, it is
evident that they are in close accord with what we hear of the early
inhabitants. As also is another remark made in early times, "the Gauls
begin their fights with more than the strength of men