"It is universally admitted, that there is a certain national character, of an external kind, which distinguishes one people from another. This is often so strong that those who have travelled through various countries, or have accurately marked the diversities of this character, will scarcely be deceived even as to a straggling individual. Tacitus long ago remarked the striking resemblance between the Germans and Caledonians. Every stranger, at this day, observes the great difference and complexion between the Highlanders and Lowlanders. No intelligent person in England is in danger of confounding the Welsh with the posterity of the Saxons. Now, if the Lowland Scots be not a Gothic race, but in fact the descendants of the ancient British, they must be supposed to retain some national resemblance of the Welsh. But will any impartial observer venture to assert, that in feature, complexion, or form, there is any such similarity as to induce the slightest apprehension that they have been originally the same people?"[31] It is doubtful, however, whether Caesar meant to say more than that over above certain differences which distinguished the Belgae from the other inhabitants of the common country _Gallia_, there was an intermixture of Germans. {135} The import of a possibly Germanic origin for the Belgae gives us the import of a possibly Germanic origin for-- s. 193. _The Caledonians._--A speculative sentence of Tacitus indicates the chance of the Caledonians being Germanic:--"_Britanniam qui mortales initio coluerint, indigenae an advecti, ut inter barbaros, parum compertum. Habitus corporum varii: atque ex eo argumenta: namque rutilae Caledoniam habitantium comae, magni artus, Germanicam originem adseverant._"--Agricola, xi. The continuation of the passage quoted in s. 193 has induced the notion that there have been in Britain Spanish, Iberic, or Basque tribes:--"_Silurum colorati vultus, et torti plerumque crines, et posita contra Hispania, Iberos veteres trajecisse, easque sedes occup[^a]sse fidem faciunt._"--Agricola, xi. As this, although an opinion connected with the history of the languages of Great Britain, is not an opinion connected with the history of the English language, it is a question for the Celtic, rather than the Gothic, philologist. The same applies to the points noticed in ss. 136-138. Nevertheless they are necessary for the purposes of minute philological analysis.