The first intruders upon the Iberians were the Celts, who, according to Doctor Percy’s theory, constituted the foremost wave of the successive emigrations that broke upon Europe from the overflowing multitudes of Asia. At what precise period the Celts reached Spain, or any other of the Western countries they overran, can no longer be determined. But the contest between the invaders of the soil and its possessors was, from the few intimations of it that have come down to us, long and bloody; and, as was generally the case in the early successful invasions of countries by wandering masses of the human race, portions of the ancient inhabitants were driven to the fastnesses of their mountains, and the remainder became gradually incorporated with the conquerors. The new people, thus formed of two races that, in antiquity, had the reputation of being warlike and powerful, was appropriately called the Celtiberian,[396] and constituted the body of the population which, broken into various tribes, but with similar manners and institutions, occupied the Peninsula when it first became known to the civilized nations of Europe. The language of the Celts, as might be expected, is represented in the present Spanish, as it is in the French and even in the Italian, though but slightly, of course, in any of them.[397] [396] The remarkable passage in Diodorus Siculus, Bib. Hist., Lib. V. c. 33, is well known; but the _phraseology_ should be noted for our purpose when he speaks of the union of the people as δυοῖν ἐθνῶν ἀλκίμων μιχθέντων. The fortieth section of Humboldt’s “Prüfung” should also be read; and the beginning of the Third Book of Strabo, in which he gives, as usual, a good deal that is curious about history and manners, as well as geography, and a good deal that is incredible, such as that the Turdetani had poetry and poetical laws six thousand years old. Ed. Casaub., 1720, p. 139. C. [397] In speaking of the two earliest languages of the Spanish Peninsula, I have confined myself to the known facts of the case, without entering into the curious speculations to which these facts have led inquisitive and philosophical minds. But those who are interested in such inquiries will find abundant materials for their study in the remarkable “Researches into the Physical History of Mankind, by Dr. J. C. Prichard,” 5 vols. 8vo, London, 1836-47; and in the acute “Report” of the Chevalier Bunsen to the Seventeenth Meeting of the British Association, London, 1848, pp. 254-299. If we follow their theories, the Basque may be regarded as the language of a race that came originally from the northern parts of Asia and Europe, and to which Prichard gives the name of Ugro-Tartarian, while the Celtic language is that of the oldest of the great emigrations from the more southern portions of Asia, which Bunsen calls the Japhetic.