"If this be all that we can now recover of events, a great number of which must have fallen within the lives of those to whom Augustine preached, what credit shall we give to the inconsistent accounts of earlier actions? How shall we supply the almost total want of information respecting the first settlements? What explanation have we to give of the alliance between Jutes, Angles, and Saxon, which preceded the invasions of England? What knowledge will these records {9} supply of the real number and quality of the chieftains, the language and blood of the populations who gradually spread themselves from the Atlantic to the Frith of Forth; of the remains of Roman cultivation, or the amount of British power with which they had to contend? of the vicissitudes of good and evil fortune which visited the independent principalities before they were swallowed up in the kingdoms of the heptarchy, or the extent of the influence which they retained after the event! On all these several points we are left entirely in the dark; and yet these are facts which it most imports us to know, if we would comprehend the growth of a society which endured for at least 700 years in England, and formed the foundation of that in which we live."--_The Saxons in England._ Vol. I, pp. 28-32. s. 14. _Inference._--As it is nearly certain, that the year 449 is _not_ the date of the first introduction of German tribes into Britain, we must consider that the displacement of the original British began at an earlier period than the one usually admitted, and, consequently, that it was more gradual than is usually supposed. Perhaps, if we substitute the middle of the fourth, instead of the middle of the fifth century, as the epoch of the Germanic immigrations into Britain, we shall not be far from the truth. * * * * * {10} CHAPTER II. GERMANIC ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.--THE IMMIGRANT TRIBES, AND THEIR RELATIONS TO EACH OTHER. s. 15. By referring to ss. 3-12, it may be seen that out of the numerous tribes and nations of Germany, _three_ in particular have been considered as the chief, if not the exclusive, sources of the present English, viz.: the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes. To criticise the evidence which derives the _English_ in general from the _Angles_, the particular inhabitants of _Sussex_, _Essex_, _Middlesex_ and _Wessex_, from the _Saxons_, and the _Anglo-Saxon_ language from the _Angle_ and _Saxon_ would be superfluous; whilst to doubt the truth of the main facts which it attests would exhibit an unnecessary and unhealthy scepticism. That the Angles and Saxons formed at least seven-tenths of the Germanic invaders may be safely admitted. The _Jute_ element, however, requires further notice. s. 16. The _Jutes_.--Were any of the German immigrants _Jutes_? If so, what were their relations to the other German tribes?