The Phœnician origin of Britons, Scots & Anglo-Saxons : discovered by Phœnician & Sumerian inscriptions in Britain, by preroman Briton coins & a mass of new history : with over one hundred illustrations and maps

130 PHGNICIAN ORIGIN OF BRITONS & SCOTS

And neither Ceesar, nor Tacitus, nor any other of the Greek or Roman historians or writers ever refer to the Celts or Kelts as inhabitants of Britain or of Hibernia.

In British history and literature the first mention of Celts appears to be in 1607 in an incidental reference to the Celts not in Britain but in France ;* and again, in 1656, in Blount’s Glossography which defines ‘‘ Celt, one born in Gaul,’? and again, in 1782, contrasting the British with the Celts in Gaul in the sentence: “ the obstinate war between the insular Britons and the continental Celts.’"* But all of these references are unequivocally to the Celts in France, and not in Britain.

The manner in which the notion of a “ Celtic ’’ ancestry for the British, Scots and Irish was insidiously introduced into British literature now becomes evident, and affords a striking example of the inception and growth of a false theory. The credit for the first introduction of this notion into Britain—a notion which by frequent repetitions and accretions grew to be “ the greatest stumbling-block to clear thinking ’’ on the Celtic Question—now appears to be due toa Mr. Jones. In 1706 he published an English translation of Abbé Pezron’s book issued in 1703 on “‘ Antiquité de la Nation et de la Langue des Celtes,” under the title of “ Antiquities of Nations, more particularly of the Celtz or Gauls, taken to be originally the same people as our Ancient Britains,’* in which he gave currency to that theory of M. Pezron. The seed thus thrown into receptive British soil seems to have taken root and grown into a sturdy tree, which now is popularly believed to be indigenous. Thus, in 1757, Tindal, in translating Rapin’s History of England, says in his introduction (p. 7) ‘‘ Great Britain was peopled by the Celte or Gauls.’ And, in 1773, the theory that the Celts were ancestors of the Gaels had become current in Skye, for Mr. McQueen, in a discussion there with Samuel Johnson, says: “As they [the Scythians| were the ancestors of the

'Topsell, Fourfold Beast, 251.

* For these and subsequent references to early English occurrence of the name * Celt,’’ see Dr. Murray’s Oxford English Dictionary, “ Celt.”

* Warton, Hist. Kiddington, 67. *Murray, English Dict., re “ Celt.”