The Roman blood, then, in Britain seems to have been inconsiderable, even when we class as Roman everything which was other than British. That the language, however, was chiefly Latin--more or less modified--is what we infer from the analogies of Gaul and Spain. The history, too, of four centuries of civilization and corruption is Roman also. That there was a bodily evacuation of Britain by the Romans, a concealment of treasures, and a migration to Gaul, rests upon no authority earlier than that of the Anglo-Saxon writers, some five centuries later. The country was rather a theatre for usurpers and rebels; none of whom can be shewed to have either left the island, or to have been exterminated by the Anglo-Saxon invasion--an invasion to which, in a future chapter, an earlier date, and a more gradual operation than is usually assigned will be attributed. FOOTNOTES: [10] Niebuhr's Lectures, p. iii, 312. [11] Referred to some time between the reigns of Valens and Honorius. CHAPTER VII. VALUE OF THE EARLY BRITISH RECORDS.--TRUE AND GENUINE TRADITIONS RARE.--GILDAS.--BEDA.--NENNIUS.--ANNALES CAMBRENSES.--DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CHRONICLES AND REGISTERS.--ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE.--IRISH ANNALS.--VALUE OF THE ACCOUNTS OF THE FIFTH AND SIXTH CENTURIES.--QUESTIONS TO WHICH THEY APPLY. Not one word has hitherto been said about the early traditions of either Briton or Gael. No word, either, about their early records. Nothing about the Triads, Aneurin, Taliessin, Llywarch Hen, and Merlin on the side of the Welsh; nothing about the Milesian and other legends of the Irish. Why this silence? Have the preceding investigations been so superabundantly clear as to lead us to dispense with all rays of light except those of the most unexceptionable kind? It is an unusual piece of good fortune when this happens anywhere; and assuredly it has not happened on British or Irish ground as yet. Or has the evidence of such early records and traditions been incompatible with the doctrines of the previous chapters, and, on the strength of its inconvenience, been kept back? If so, there has been a foul piece of disingenuousness on the part of the writer. But he does not plead guilty to this. He attaches but little weight to the evidence of the early British records; and the contents of the present chapter are intended to justify his depreciation of them.