That the testimony of authors tells neither way.
That the presumptions in favour of the Latin which are raised by the
cases of Gaul, Spain, Rhætia, and Dacia, are anything but conclusive.
That the inferences from the earliest as well as the latest data as
to the condition of _English_ Britain, the inferences from the Angle
conquest, and the inferences from the present language of Wales, are
decidedly against the Latin.
I may, perhaps, be allowed to conclude by a reference to a paper
already alluded to, as having been laid before the present Society, by
Mr. Wright. This is to the effect, that the Latin reigned paramount
not only in England, but in Wales also, under the Roman dominion; the
present Welsh being of recent introduction from Armorica.
That the population was heterogeneous is certain, the Roman Legionaries
being, to a great extent, other than Roman. It is also certain that
there was, within the island, at an early period, no inconsiderable
amount of Teutonic blood. It is certain, too, that the name _Briton_
had different applications at different times.
If so, the difference between Mr. Wright and myself, in respect to the
homogeneousness or heterogeneousness of the Britannic population, is
only a matter of degree.
In respect to the particular fact, as to whether the British or Latin
language was the vernacular form of speech, we differ more decidedly.
That the British was unwritten and uncultivated is true; so that the
exclusive use of the Latin for inscriptions is only what we expect. The
negative fact that no British name has been found inscribed, I by no
means undervalue.
The _preponderance_, however, of a Non-British population, and the use
of the Latin as the _vernacular_ language, are doctrines, which the few
undoubted facts of our early history impugn rather than verify.
The main difficulty which Mr. Wright's hypothesis meets--and it _does_
meet it--lies in the fact of the similarity between the Welsh and
Armorican being too great for anything but a comparatively recent
separation to account for. Nevertheless, even this portion of what
may be called the Armorican hypothesis, is by no means incompatible
with the doctrine of the present paper. The Celtic of Armorica may as
easily have displaced the _older_ Celtic of Britain (from which, by
hypothesis, it notably differed) as it is supposed to have displaced
the Latin.
I do not imagine this to have been the case; indeed I can see reasons
against it, arising out of the application of Mr. Wright's own line of
criticism.
I think it by no means unlikely that the argument which gives us the
annihilation of the British of the British Isles, may also give us that
of the Gallic of Gaul. Why should Armorica have been more Celtic than
Wales? Yet, if it were not so, whence came the Armorican of Wales?
I throw out these objections for the sake of stimulating criticism,
rather than with the view of settling a by no means easy question.