upon British Ethnology.
199
This explanation, I may here remark, gives a significance
to a statement of Sir Walter Scott's, in 'Waverley,' which it
would not otherwise possess. In describing the march of the
Highland army from Edinburgh to the fight at Prestonpans,
he notes, after describing the fine, well-equipped men in front,
that among the ill-armed and wretchedly accoutred peasants
in the rear were many who claimed to be of more ancient
descent than the masters they served. Every important clan,
he remarks, had some of these Helots attached to it;—'' thus
the MacCouls, though tracing their descent from Comhal,
the father of Finn or Fingal, were a sort of Gibeonites or
hereditary servants of the Stewarts of Appin ; the Macbeths,
descended from the unhappy monarch of that name, were
subject to the Morays, and clan Donnochy or Robertsons of
Athole."
One of the Welsh Triads, according to Dr. Guest,17 describes
the people whom we have hitherto called Britons or Brythons,
the predominant race of Roman Britain, as themselves com-
posed of three closely allied tribes, the Cymry, Lloegrians
and Brythons. Dr. Guest remarks that the name Cymry is
unknown to the Breton language, and is known in Cornish
only as indicating the race of our modern Welshmen. It
must, however, have also been borne by the people of Cum-
berland, the district from the Lake Country to Clydesdale.
The second tribe, the Lloegrian, is said to have come from
Gascony, and Dr. Guest inclined to think them identical
with the Ligurians. Dr. Beddoe 18 also thinks it probable that
the Lloegrians partook somewhat of the blood of the Ligurian,
or Celtic, or Arvernian stock prevailing in the centre and
south of France, and which is there thick-set, dark, and
broad-headed. I have already mentioned that Dr. Guest, on
philological grounds, is inclined to think the Brigantes,
Coritani, and Iceni belonged to this Ligurian division. The
Brythons, the latest of the three tribes, according to the
Triad, to land in Britain, appear to have come from Northern
Gaul, and naturally settled chiefly in the south and south-
east. And as all direct intercourse with the continent was
17 'Origines Celtica;,' vol. ii. pp. 7-9. 18 'Races of Britain.'