The parts between the Seine and Rhine, the valleys of the Marne, the Oise, the Somme, the Sambre, the Meuse, and the Moselle were _Belgic_. Treves was Belgian; Luxembourg, Belgian; the Netherlands, Belgian. Above all, French Flanders, Artois, and Picardy--the parts nearest Britain--the parts within sight of Kent--the parts from whence Britain was most likely to be peopled--were Belgian. Now, as Britain was originally Keltic, unless Belgium be Keltic also, we shall meet with a difficulty. In my own mind Belgium _was_ originally Keltic; and, perhaps, nine ethnologists out of ten hold the same opinion. At the same time, fair reasons can be given for an opposite doctrine, fair reasons for believing the _Belgæ_ to have been German--as German as the Angles of old, as German as the present Germans of Germany, as German as the Dutch of Holland, and, what is more to the purpose, as German as the present Flemings of Flanders, possibly occupants of the ancient, and certainly occupants of the modern, Belgium. Upon the latter fact we must lay considerable weight. Modern Belgium is as truly the country of two languages and of a double population as Wales, Ireland, or Scotland. There is the French, which has extended itself from the south, and the Flemish, which belongs to Holland and the parts northwards; a form of speech which differs from the true Dutch less than the Lowland Scotch does from the English, and far less than the Dutch itself does from the German. More than this. South of the line which separates the French and Flemish, traces of the previous use of the latter language are both definite and numerous, occurring chiefly in the names of places such as _Dunkirk_, _Wissant_, &c. Now, as the French language has encroached upon the Flemish, and the Flemish has receded before the French, nothing is more legitimate than the conclusion than that, at some earlier period, the dialects of the great Germanic stock extended as far south as the Straits of Dover; and, if so, Germans might have found their way into the south-eastern counties of England 2000 years ago, or even sooner. Hence, instead of the Angles and Saxons having been the first conquerors of the Britons, and the earlier introducers of the English tongue, Belgæ of Kent, Belgæ of Surrey, Belgæ of Sussex, and Belgæ of Hampshire, may have played an important, though unrecorded, part in that long and obscure process which converted Keltic Britain into German England, the land of the Welsh and Gaels into the land of the Angles and Danes, the clansmen of Cassibelaunus, Boadicea, Caractacus and Galgacus into the subjects of Egbert, Athelstan, and Alfred.