One of the most forcible examples of the susceptibility to civilization(19) of nations once very barbarous may be found in a comparison of the character of the ancient Gauls and modern French. When Hannibal invaded Italy he confined his ravages to the possessions of the Romans and spared those of the Gauls; a partial distinction which won the favour of this simple people, who flocked in great numbers to his standard. The Gauls who were in his army at the battle of Cannæ are described as a fierce people, naked from the waist, carrying large round shields, with swords of an enormous size blunted at the point. Yet there cannot be a doubt that the French, one of the most refined and distinguished of modern nations, are lineally descended from this primitive race! (See p. 64.) The true answer to the reveries of Pinkerton, with respect to the imputed incapacity of the Celts, is to be found in the literature and science of the French, in whom, owing to the great extent of their country, the original Celtic blood is most probably less unmingled than it is in the Irish, the Welsh, or the Highland Scotch! A comparison of the character of the ancient Gauls and modern French involves also an instructive example of the mode in which the tendency to progression in the Human species is often united with a stability of national character in some features that forms a singular contrast to that tendency. In comparing Cæsar’s Commentaries on his Wars in Gaul with the volumes of General Napier, we are struck, in almost every page, with proofs of a coincidence of mental features so minute, that but for the opposite accompaniments on the one hand, of a primitive, and on the other of a modern age, we might imagine we had before us, in these relations, two narratives referring to the same wars, the same sieges, and the same men! The mind is perplexed to conceive how a nation that has existed in conditions so contrasted, as regards Civilization, could have continued thus uniform in its social and moral features! Striking as these and other proofs which may be adduced of the uniformity of character which has often been maintained by the same nation in different stages of society undoubtedly are, they must cease to excite surprise—though they may be said to acquire even a higher interest—when viewed through the medium of the closely analogous results which will be found to flow from a comparison with the civilized nations of Europe of contemporaneous Tribes still existing in the “Hunter State.”