CELTIC MSS.
IN RELATION TO
THE MACPHERSON FRAUD;
WITH A REVIEW OF
PROFESSOR FREEMAN’S CRITICISM
OF
“The Viking Age,”
BY
THE AUTHOR OF
“CELTICISM A MYTH.”
“I thought your book an imposture. I think it an imposture
still.”--_Dr. Johnson._
“The purposeless tortuosities of Celtic falsehood, and its most subtile
manifestations.”--_Weekly Scotsman._
“The received accounts of the Saxon immigration, and subsequent
fortunes, and ultimate settlement, are devoid of historical truth in
every detail.”--_J. M. Kemble._
“And, armed in proof, the gauntlet cast at once
To Scotch marauder, and to Southern dunce.”--_Byron._
LONDON:
E. W. ALLEN, 4, AVE MARIA LANE.
MDCCCXC.
LONDON
PRINTED AT THE COURTS OF JUSTICE PRINTING WORKS
BY DIPROSE, BATEMAN AND CO.
PREFACE.
That portion of this tractate which relates to Celtic manuscripts and
the doings of Macpherson, was transmitted to the _Scotsman_ newspaper,
in reply to an article by Professor Mackinnon which appeared in that
journal. My communication was however returned by the editor on the
plea that he could not find room for its insertion. It was perhaps
too much to expect that a journal owned by one of the secretaries of
a Society, which had engaged the services of the Celtic Professor at
Oxford, to uphold what I call the Celtic myth, should open its columns
to one inimical to Macpherson, and utterly sceptical in regard to his
pretended translation. Mr. Mackinnon’s enumeration seems a vindication
of the antiquity of Celtic MSS. in general, and was no doubt also
projected “as a basis for more extended collaboration.”
It occurred to me that my remarks on the Ossian MSS. might with
advantage be incorporated with some notice of Professor Freeman’s
criticism of “The Viking Age,” both tending in the same direction. One
wipes out the Celts as the pioneers of civilization, the other explodes
the Saxons as a race distinct from the Scandinavians. With this in view
I have been aiming for some time past, to put my thoughts in train for
publication, but want of time has always stood in the way.
J. C. ROGER.
FRIARS WATCH,
WALTHAMSTOW.
_October, 1890._
CELTIC MSS.
IN RELATION TO
THE MACPHERSON FRAUD, &c.
My attention was lately directed to a lengthy article that appeared in
_The Scotsman_ of the 12th of last November, bearing the initials of
Mr. Mackinnon, Professor of Celtic at the University of Edinburgh, to
whom I sent a copy of my book, _Celticism a Myth_, then just issued
from the press. The article begins with a tribute to the assiduity of
the Historiographer Royal in the cause of Celtic literature; but is
plainly intended as a refutation of my statement to the effect that
“It is no longer pretended that any Gaelic poetry has been preserved
in early manuscripts,” &c. In citing the remark of Dr. Irving it was
certainly not my intention to call down an exhibition of Professor
Mackinnon’s Celtic wares--of the authenticity and character of which I
am profoundly ignorant--but simply to express my conviction that the
alleged manuscript documents of which Macpherson professed to give a
translation did not exist. _De non existentibus et non apparentibus_
Dr. Johnson says, _eadem est ratio_. There are unfortunately now no
Doctor Johnsons, or Pinkertons or John Hill Burtons to deal with these
possible inventions or forgeries of a later age, the perhaps “other
evidences” of what the great lexicographer characterised as “Scotch
conspiracy in national falsehood.” Ample time and opportunity has been
afforded since 1762--the date when Macpherson first gave to the world
his _Ossian the Son of Fingal_--to fabricate missing documents or
supply others of more startling character. A pungent criticism from the
pen of Mr. Hill Burton, or a crushing commentary by either of the other
named critics, would probably have relegated these so-called Celtic
MSS.--some of them at least--to the nothingness whence they came. It is
clear that what Professor Mackinnon brings forward is not _evidence_,
certainly not such as would be accepted in a Court of Law. There is
no substantiation of the Macpherson manuscripts save the statements,
and what I fear must be regarded as the fabrications, of a number of
interested individuals retailed at second-hand, none of all whom can
be accepted as unprejudiced witnesses. After the strictest search
for the originals of Ossian, Dr. Johnson came to the conclusion that
as regards Scotland and the pretensions of James Macpherson, there
was not in existence “an Erse manuscript a hundred years old.” Any
attempt therefore, in our day to bring into agreement this literary
imposture with the difficulties which stultify all conception of its
genuineness is foredoomed to failure. If, as Mr. Mackinnon alleges,
it be “perfectly established” that Macpherson carried away from the
North-West Highlands several Gaelic manuscripts it is equally certain
he never exhibited them to anyone capable of forming a judgment as to
their authenticity. “The collection proper,” it would appear, “consists
of sixty-three separate parcels.” How many of these are genuine we
shall probably never know. These are “Transcripts of several MSS. or
portions of MSS. by Mr. McLachlan, and the Rev. Donald Mackintosh,” and
collections of “Ossianic poetry made by a schoolmaster at Kilmelford,”
volumes of tales which belonged to Mr. Campbell of Islay, a collection
of Gaelic poetry made by a schoolmaster at Dunkeld, the MSS. whatever
these may be, written in “The old Gaelic hand!” the use of which, we
are told, was discontinued about the middle of the last century.
“Regarding the history of the great majority of these documents,” it
is said “we are ignorant”--certainly at least, I am, most profoundly.
It appears however, that “The Rev. Mr. Gallie saw in Macpherson’s
possession” ‘several volumes, small octavos, or rather large duodecimo
in the Gaelic language and characters’! Scarcely less authentic is the
fact that Lachlan Macviurich “remembers well that Clanranald made his
father give up the _Red book_ to James Macpherson,” and that Macpherson
himself deposited certain MSS. with his publishers Messrs. Beckett and
Dehondt which for a whole year remained in the custody of that firm.
These manuscripts mentioned by Mr. Mackinnon were probably the Gaelic
leases of Macleod of Rasay referred to by me in _Celticism a Myth_.
The fact that Macpherson so prostituted his talents, and character
for integrity was stated to me many years ago by an aged clergyman of
the Church of Scotland, who vouched for his statement on the faith
of his friend George Dempster of Dunichen, who was cognizant of the
circumstance. Father Farquharson, it is alleged, made a collection of
Gaelic MSS. before 1745, the last leaves of which were used to kindle a
stove fire in the Roman Catholic College at Douay, a circumstance, as
I think, not greatly to be deplored, while the “illiterate descendant”
of the _Seanachies_ attached to the family of Clanranald describes the
dispersion of the manuscript library accumulated by his ancestors,
and the fate of certain parchments [? old leases] which were cut down
for tailors’ measuring tapes. “He himself” (the descendant of the
_Seanachies_) “had possession of some parchments after his father’s
death,” but not being able to read, these disappeared from view. A
valuable witness truly in the identification of doubtful MSS. “Such
acts of vandalism,” we are told, “are not likely to occur again.”
Probably not. Like Joshua arresting the Sun and the Moon, they are
“things that have once been done but can be done no more.” The fact of
the dispersion, however, and the fate of the parchments, leases, title
deeds, literary treasures or by whatever name they may be called, rests
on the testimony of this Celtic ignoramus who, it is to be feared,
would not be too particular in any relation concerning the “glories and
greatness” of his country, his personal consequence, or the departed
grandeur of his clan. I well remember, many years ago, meeting with
an ignorant Highlander of some property, who offered to sell for ten
pounds an ancient claymore, with a pretentious, but unauthenticated
pedigree, for which he declared, with the voluntary accompaniment of
an oath, he had previously declined “_A Sousand pounds_.” It is my
experience that to persons of this class it comes more natural to state
a falsehood than to speak the truth. We all remember Charles Surface’s
exculpatory witness in _The School for Scandal_, “Oh yes, I swear.” Mr.
Mackinnon states that “The Gaelic text of Ossian which James Macpherson
handed over to Mr. Mackenzie, and which was given to the editor of the
edition of 1807, has disappeared.” How very odd that manuscripts on
which the human eye never rested should thus so strangely disappear!
Can that be said to disappear which was never visible? Of the poems of
Ossian, Dr. Irving says, “We are required to believe that these were
composed in the third century; and that by means of oral tradition,
they were delivered by one generation to another for the space of
nearly fifteen hundred years. If this account could be received as
authentic, if these poems could be regarded as genuine, they must be
classed among the most extraordinary effort of human genius. That a
nation so rude in other arts, and even unacquainted with the use of
letters, should yet have carried the most elegant of all arts to so
high a degree of perfection, would not only be sufficient to overturn
every established theory, but would exceed all the possibilities of
rational assent. But if we could suppose an untaught barbarian capable
of combining the rules of ancient poetry with the refinements of modern
sentiment one difficulty is indeed removed; but another difficulty
scarcely less formidable still remains--By what rare felicity were
many thousand verses, only written on the frail tablet of memory,
to be safely transmitted through fifty generations of mankind? If
Ossian could compose epic poems on the same model as Homer, how was
it possible for them to preserve their original texture through the
fearful vicissitudes of nearly fifteen centuries? * * * * It is utterly
incredible that such poems as Fingal and Temora, consisting each of
several thousand lines were thus transmitted from the supposed age
of Ossian to the age of Macpherson.” “It is” Dr. Irving continues
“no longer pretended that any Gaelic poetry has been preserved in
early manuscripts; and indeed the period when Gaelic can be traced
as a written language is comparatively modern.” “That many poems
and fragments of poems,” he goes on to say, “were preserved in the
Highlands of Scotland cannot however be doubted; and it is sufficiently
ascertained that Macpherson was assiduously employed in collecting such
popular reliques, some of which had perhaps existed for many ages.
_From the materials which he had thus procured he appears to have
fabricated the various works which he delivered to the public under
the name of Ossian, and afterwards to have adjusted the Gaelic by the
English text._” “The ground upon which Hume finally decided against the
authenticity of the _Poems of Ossian_, was the impossibility of any man
of sense imagining that they should have been orally preserved ‘during
fifty generations, by _the rudest, perhaps of all European nations;
the most necessitous_, the most turbulent, and the most unsettled.’”
Such is the historian Hume’s estimate of the Macpherson fraud as stated
by the _Edinburgh Review_, and such the beggarly array of evidence on
which, according to the abettors of Macpherson, the honour and glory
of Scotland, must rest in all time to come. The Scotch are a stubborn
race on which to operate, especially in matters that concern their
nationality. They have conceived the idea that in the dark ages--dark
to all but them--their countrymen, a Celtic race, were skilled in the
sciences and acquainted with art. This as an article of faith has
hardened into a conviction not to be shaken, and is that which, in
their view, distinguishes Scotland above all competitors. In it, in the
remote ages of the past, there existed culture and refinement rivalling
that of the most literary nations of antiquity whether Egyptian,
Etruscan, Greek or Roman. The roving Northmen, according to their
account, were but plundering pirates, and other nations barbarians.
No evidence, however overwhelming, will alter or modify this opinion.
Not on any terms will they be induced to give up their preconceptions.
Philologers and Ethnologists, Professors, and specialists, _et hoc
genus omne_, are called to the rescue, while they refuse to look at the
clearest facts. When their favourite idol begins to shake they rush
into the market-place crying “Great is Diana of the Ephesians.” It is
impossible to doubt that Macpherson was an impudent impostor. When his
veracity was impugned no simpler method of clearing his reputation
from the aspersions cast upon it could have been devised than the very
reasonable plan suggested by Dr. Johnson, that he should place the
manuscripts in the hands of the professors at Aberdeen where there were
persons capable of judging of their authenticity. The manuscripts were
never produced, and in admitting this fact the defenders of Macpherson
resign the whole question. “To refuse,” Dr. Johnson says, “to gratify
a reasonable curiosity is the last refuge of impudent mendacity.” Dr.
Johnson’s letter to this vain-glorious boaster repelling a threat of
personal violence is a master-piece of contemptuous scorn and defiance.
“Mr. James Macpherson, I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any
violence offered me I shall do my best to repel, and what I cannot do
myself the law will do for me. I hope I shall never be deterred from
detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian. What would
you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture. I think it an
imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the public
which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities since
your _Homer_ are not so formidable, and what I hear of your morals
inclines me to pay regard, not to what you shall say, but to what you
shall prove. You may print this if you will.”
We are told that the subject of the Pictish language has been
thoroughly discussed by Dr. W. F. Skene in his _Four Ancient Books
of Wales_, that, in addition to _Pean Fahel_, the sole Pictish word
formerly known he has discovered four other distinct words, besides a
number of syllables entering into proper names; and from all these he
deduces the opinion that Pictish “Is not Welsh, neither is it Gaelic;
but it is a Gaelic dialect partaking largely of Welsh forms” whatever
that may mean. “More especially,” we are told, “he holds that Pictish
as compared with Gaelic, was a _Low_ dialect, that it differed from
the Gaelic in much the same way that Low German differs from High.” It
is perhaps unnecessary to add that I regard this supposed solution of
the Pictish difficulty as so much figment. It is simply the arbitrary
conclusion of a man looking into a mill stone, and giving a deliverance
in regard to which he is in no more commanding position than the
most illiterate specimen of humanity to be found in the slums of the
Northern Metropolis. On the other side of the question it is open to
me to state that the Pictish words which Mr. Skene persuades himself
he has discovered, and which on his own shewing are neither Welsh nor
Gaelic but, belonging to a Low dialect of the latter may after all
be only the obsolete remains of an early Gothic speech. The ruler of
the Picts about the end of the sixth century, it is said, was _Brude_,
the son of _Mailcon_, who died in 586. The most active of all the
Pictish sovereigns, according to the received accounts, was _Hungus_ or
_Ængus_ who began to reign in 730. In so far then as these names may
not be absolute myth, they may be claimed as Scandinavian. With _Brude_
compare the Norse personal names _Brodi_, _Breid-r_, and _Brodd-r_ (the
_r_ final separated by a hyphen being merely the sign of the nominative
case). _Mailcon_ is the united Scandinavian personal names of _Miöl_
and _Kon-r_. With _Hungus_ or _Ængus_ compare the Scoto-Norwegian names
_Magnus Anguson_, and _Angus Magnuson_.
The Norwegians in Man, in the Hebrides, and in the North, and
North-Western Highlands were confessedly the dominant and more numerous
race, and there for upwards of four centuries held uninterrupted sway.
Did the Norwegian colonists eventually go off in vapour, leaving behind
them only a native residuum speaking a purely Celtic dialect freed
from all taint of the Northman’s language after the close contact of
so many centuries? If the Norwegian element was not so sublimated, but
as Pinkerton affirms, and which I believe, continues in the modern
population of those portions of the United Kingdom, what becomes of
the purity of the so-called “Primitive Celtic tongue”? Assuming that
it was Celts among whom the Norwegians settled, is it possible to
conceive that men of such force of character as the Northmen made no
lasting impression on the speech of the wretched Celtic inhabitants
whom they trampled under foot? Despite the researches of philologers
is it rational to conclude that what is now called Celtic can on any
intelligible hypothesis be the primeval speech of the unlettered
savages who before the advent of the Romans had been driven into the
western portion of the Island by the Belgae? “It is not in nature,”
the _Saturday Reviewer_ says, “that people should accept Mr. Roger’s
or Pinkerton’s opinion in preference to the universally held belief
that the Celtic speech is a language of the Indo-European family of
speech,” &c. But it is not alone Mr. Roger and Pinkerton with whom the
_Reviewer_ has to deal. The late Lord Neaves, an eminent Scotch judge
and antiquary, held an opinion very much akin to that of Pinkerton,
that the Erse, and Gaelic, and Manx dialects, if not entirely a form
of obsolete Gothic speech, contain at least a very large admixture of
the northern tongue. The editor of the _Athenæum_ too, in reviewing
Skene’s _Highlanders of Scotland_, draws attention to the fact of
the striking resemblance between the oldest Erse monuments and those
dialects confessedly Teutonic, holding this decisive of the question
that the _Scots_ were Germans. On the same side of the question is the
strongly expressed opinion of the late Dr. R. Angus Smith, F.R.S. “I
consider,” he says, “those who hold the nations called Celtic and those
called Teutonic, as one race, to be simply abolishing the knowledge we
get from history, and refusing to look at very clear facts.” I am not
however going to quarrel with the _Saturday Reviewer_, who virtually
concedes all for which I contend, that the Celts were entirely without
art or culture, of which more hereafter. On the question of civilizing
influences we have the testimony of Professor Kirkpatrick, of the
Scotch Bar, a gentleman of well-known scholarly accomplishments, who
occupies the Chair of Constitutional Law and History in the University
of Edinburgh. “I have long been of opinion,” he writes, “that we
owe the _whole_ of our civilization to Scandinavian and Teutonic
ancestors, and partly to Roman influence, and your very interesting
volume confirms that opinion.” There is still another phase of the
question with which the philological critic has to deal, and this is,
that only where the Northmen settled are found those remains of what
is called Celtic speech. “The Northmen formed colonies in Wales, in
Cornwall, in Brittany, in Ireland, in the Highlands and islands of
Scotland, and in the Isle of Man, and there only do we find those
dialects usually known as Celtic.” I do not pretend to explain this,
but I state it as an outside fact, which, in my view, it is incumbent
on the Celtic philologer to explain. It is, of course, impossible to
reach any confident conclusion as to what may have been the language
on which the Northman grafted his Teutonic speech, though it must be
obvious to every unprejudiced enquirer, that those dialects must now
be very much mixed and altered and corrupted from close contact for
many centuries with the language of a dominant race. Having regard to
this fact, the question arises whether “the universally held belief”
referred to by the _Saturday Review_, be not founded on the Gothic
accretions derived from the Northmen, rather than on the structural
peculiarities of the original language of the people among whom the
Northmen settled. It is evident from the remarks of Professor Max
Muller that too much importance is not to be attached to what is told
us by the Celtic philologer. “Celtic words,” he says, “may be found in
German, Slavonic, and even Latin, but only as foreign terms, and their
number is much smaller than commonly supposed. A far larger number
of Latin and German words have since found their way into the modern
Celtic dialects, and these have frequently been mistaken by Celtic
enthusiasts for original words from which German and Latin might in
their turn be derived.”
Professor Kirkpatrick’s opinion suggests a natural connection between
the Celtic myth, and M. du Chaillu’s account of _The Viking Age_. The
_Scotsman_, in its review of this book, wonders what Professor Freeman
will say, and we are not long left in doubt. He looks down upon M. du
Chaillu from a lofty eminence, evidently regarding him with something
like pitying contempt. He is not sure he should have thought the
doctrine set forth by M. du Chaillu worthy of serious examination,
but for the singular relation in which it stands to Mr. Seebohm’s
“slightly older teaching,” in his book called _The English Village
Community_. Mr. Seebohm’s views, he says, are the evident result
of honest work at original materials, and eminently entitled to be
considered, and if need be, answered. But obviously both are eminently
objectionable. Though differing in method, they rival each other in
daring and absurdity. The only question is whether M. du Chaillu’s
theory need be discussed at all. Professor Freeman has decreed this,
and after so supreme a master in the art of criticism it is vain to
question it.
It will thus be seen he lauds the one in order to disparage the other.
He compliments Mr. Seebohm and spits contemptuously in M. du Chaillu’s
face. I am Jupiter, and by contrast in the scale of intelligence,
you, M. du Chaillu, are only a black beetle. “The strife in its new
form,” he tells us, “has become more deadly.” M. du Chaillu threatens
to wipe out entirely Professor Freeman’s antiquated conception of a
Saxon invasion, and the latter is constrained to worship in secret the
divinity he pretends to despise. Professor Freeman’s views will be
found in _The Teutonic Conquest in Gaul and Britain_. He has had his
say, and “if anybody cares to know what that say is, he may read it
for himself.” Professor Freeman has written what he has written, and
woe to him who reads to controvert. It does not, however, follow that
what Professor Freeman has written is necessarily the gospel of English
history. Both theories alike, it would appear--Mr. Seebohm’s and M.
du Chaillu’s--throw aside the recorded facts of history! What are the
recorded facts of history in relation to the so-called Saxon invasion?
The Saxon invasion was doubted in the days of Bishop Nicolson, who
refers to the short and pithy despatch Sir William Temple makes of the
Saxon times, and the contempt with which he speaks of its historians.
The good Bishop himself is constrained to admit he does not know what
has become of the book written by King Alfred against corrupt judges,
nor of that gifted King’s collection of old Saxon sonnets.[1] The late
J. M. Kemble taught the learned world to believe that, “the received
accounts of the Saxon immigration, and subsequent fortunes, and
ultimate settlement are devoid of historical truth in every detail.”
Here is an eminent scholar who, having examined the subject with
perfect historical candour, regarded the Saxon invasion as fiction and
fabrication from beginning to end, and who surely may be accepted as
a valuable witness. To the same purpose we have the statement of Mr.
James Rankin, F.R.A.S., “Who the Saxons were, or when they arrived, or
where they settled, is a subject on which tradition is entirely silent,
for of written history there is none.” Professor Freeman says that M.
du Chaillu has put forth two very pretty volumes with abundance of
illustrations of Scandinavian objects. He contemns the pictures but
admires the frames. Most of them, however, he adds, will be found in
“various Scandinavian books,” but he does not suggest that the “various
Scandinavian books” are not readily accessible to the English reader.
Professor Freeman indulges in that species of raillery to which men
usually resort when they are driven into a corner. “We are really not
ourselves,” he says, “but somebody else.” “The belief as to their own
origin which the English of Britain have held ever since there have
been Englishmen,” and such incoherent trifling. The ordinary average
Englishman has no independent belief on the subject. He is told in
his youth the story about Hengist and Horsa, and if he remembers it
at all it gives him no particular concern. The bulk of Englishmen and
Scotchmen too, are profoundly ignorant as to their history and origin.
The Englishman has some vague conception that he is an “Anglo-Saxon,”
while the Scot takes it for granted that all Scotchmen are Celts, and
that all art found in Scotland is Celtic. Sir Daniel Wilson could
discern in the rude rock scroll the “stately Cathedral.” There are
others “who can see a coffin in a flake of soot.” It is hardly by
such an adversary as M. du Chaillu, Professor Freeman says: “that
we shall be beaten out of the belief that there is such a thing as
English people in Britain. Perhaps too we shall not be more inclined
to give up our national being, when we see its earliest records tossed
aside with all the ignorant scorn of the eighteenth century.” This
is absolutely childish. It reads more like mental imbecility than
intellectual acumen. M. du Chaillu does not deny that there is an
English people in Britain. He only doubts that the English people are
Saxon, and affirms that they are Scandinavian, and in this view of the
matter he is sustained by many and strong presumptions. Neither does
he ask us “to give up our national being,” which he does not assail.
Macaulay says: “it is only in Britain that an age of fable separates
two ages of truth,” and the void, it would appear, is to be filled up
with “some hints” by Professor Freeman, who, to his own satisfaction,
at least, has bridged over the dreary gulf. Professor Freeman thinks it
odd that the so-called Saxons were led into such strange mistakes as
to their own name and origin. Is it an exceptional thing for a nation
to be mistaken as to its remote history? Can Professor Freeman tell us
who were the aborigines of Ancient Greece? Professor Freeman declines
to be brought from the North by M. du Chaillu even more strongly than
he declines to be brought from the South by Mr. Seebohm. Mr. Seebohm,
according to Professor Freeman, “does leave some scrap of separate
national being to the ‘Anglo-Saxon invaders’ * * * * M. du Chaillu
takes away our last shreds; we are mere impostors,” &c. Must a nation
be accounted impostor because it does not possess an accurate knowledge
of its remote history? We might, indeed, be justly termed impostors if
in the face of overwhelming evidence we should continue to adhere to
the foregone conclusions of dogmatic historians built on the fictions
and figment of monkish tradition. “As far as M. du Chaillu’s theory
can be made out,” Professor Freeman holds it to be this, “The Suiones
of Tacitus are the Swedes, and the Suiones had ships; so far no one
need cavil. But we do not hear of the Suiones or any other Scandinavian
people doing anything by sea for several centuries. But though we
do not hear of it they must have been doing something. What was it
they did? Now in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries we hear of the
Saxons doing a good deal by sea; therefore the name _Saxones_ must be a
mistake of the Latin writer’s for _Suiones_.” The assumption that goes
through all this, Professor Freeman continues, is that “because the
Suiones had ships in the days of Tacitus, as they could not have left
off using ships it must have been they who did the acts attributed to
the Saxons.” He condescends to admit that “a good deal is involved in
this last assumption; it is at least conceivable,” he says, “and not
at all unlike the later history of Sweden, that the Suiones went on
using their ships, but used them somewhere else, and not on the coasts
of Gaul and Britain.” But this begs the question in dispute. Setting
aside M. du Chaillu’s conjecture as to the possible confounding of
names,[2] the question still remains who were the Saxons? Whether is it
more reasonable to believe that the Suiones or Swedes referred to by
Tacitus, not to mention the Danes and Norwegians, did not continue to
make their descent on the shores of Britain so readily accessible to
their fleets, or that the so-named Saxon invader was one and the same
with the Scandinavian? “There is nothing very strange,” the _Quarterly_
thinks, “in supposing that some of the ‘Angles’ or ‘Saxons’ may have
descended from the Suiones of Tacitus.” M. du Chaillu, it says, “rests
his case mainly on the fact that, while the so-called Anglo-Saxon
remains found in England correspond minutely with those discovered
in enormous quantities in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, there are no
traces of such objects in the basins of the Elbe, the Weser, and the
Rhine, nor anywhere else, save in places which Scandinavians are known
to have visited.” “Every tumulus,” M. du Chaillu says, “described
by antiquaries as a Saxon or Frankish grave, is the counterpart of a
northern grave, thus showing conclusively the common origin of the
people.” Professor Freeman considers M. du Chaillu’s theory “several
degrees more amazing than that of Mr. Seebohm,” though why the two
should be connected I hardly know. “No one denies,” Mr. Freeman
says, that the Scandinavian infusion in England is “real, great, and
valuable,” only the date of the Scandinavian descent on the shores of
Britain, and the degree and manner of the northern immigration must
be taken on the faith of Professor Freeman. According to his account
the Scandinavian invasion was an _infusion_ that dates from the ninth
century. This is exactly the pivot on which the whole question turns.
There are strong grounds for believing that the Northman incursions and
settlements in Britain were not limited to the Danish invasions of the
ninth century. Did the fleets of the Northmen fully equipped start into
existence in the middle or end of the ninth century? If not, how were
they engaged during the centuries that immediately preceded? Professor
Freeman affirms that they were employed “somewhere else.” If they were
not used in the subjugation of Britain, perhaps Professor Freeman
will state circumstantially what portions of Europe are comprehended
under the vague generality of “Somewhere else.” We want something more
convincing than his _ipse dixit_. Danish writers, we are told, have
often greatly exaggerated the amount of Scandinavian influence in
England, a remark that applies with equal force to the advocates of the
Saxon and Celtic theories. Things, it is said, have been set down as
signs of direct Scandinavian influence, which “are part of the common
heritage of the Teutonic race.” Admitting this “common heritage,” and
having regard to the fact, that the language of the Scandinavian, and
that of the so-called Anglo-Saxon are almost identical, who shall
decide between their conflicting claims? The _Quarterly_, citing from
the _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_ of Vigfússon and Powell in reference
to the poetry of the Norsemen, says, “The men from whom these poems
sprung took no small share in the making of England; their blood is
in our veins, and their speech in our mouths.”[3] The preponderance
of the direct Scandinavian element in the English language has been
shown by Archbishop Trench, who states “That of a hundred English
words, sixty come from the Scandinavian, thirty from the Latin, five
from the Greek, and five from other sources.” “Dane and Angle, Dane
and Saxon,” according to Professor Freeman’s own shewing “were near
enough each other to learn from one another, and to profit by one
another.” Their dialectic difference was never such as to prevent them
from understanding each other. “There is,” the _Quarterly_ affirms,
“very high authority for saying that there was as little difference
in those early times between a Dane and an Englishman, as there was
between two Englishmen in different parts of the country.” The Saxons
were in fact only an earlier swarm of northern adventurers of the same
race who were afterwards known in history as Danes and Northmen. Still
Professor Freeman thinks the Scandinavian element was but an _infusion_
into the already existing English mass. Hardly I should think if the
existing English mass, and the invading Northmen had a common origin!
The name of England’s principal city, it may be remarked, the great
metropolis of the Empire is Scandinavian. Neither are there wanting
persons who believe that such also is the name England itself. In
a communication to _Notes and Queries_ by Mr. Henry Rowan in 1868,
he suggests a derivation of this name from the Danish _Eng_. “While
travelling in Denmark,” he says, “I met with a word which seems to me
to afford a derivation of our name of England, as probable, at least
as the ordinary one of _Angle land_. The word I mean is _Eng_, an
old Danish name applied even yet to the level marshy pasture lands
adjoining rivers. I believe the Saxons and Angles, from the time of
whose invasion the name is supposed to date, first landed and possessed
the Isle of Thanet, which in parts, especially those about Minster, and
the river _Stour_, would answer very well to the description of Danish
_Eng lands_. It is from this word I think the name may have sprung,
instead of from the Angles, whom we have no reason for supposing to
have been so superior to the Saxons as to leave the remembrance of
their name to the entire exclusion of the latter.” M. Worsaae, in
the first words of his history unwittingly confirms what Mr. Rowan
here points out. “The greater part of England,” he says, “consists
of flat and fertile lowland, particularly towards the southern and
eastern coasts, where large open plains extend themselves.” There is a
low-lying district of Aberdeenshire called the _Enzie_, a name of the
same character, evidently imposed by the Northmen. This is pronounced
by the natives _aingie_, the sound of the first portion of the name
being as the _aing_ in the Scotch surname of _Laing_. The derivation
just cited, coupled with my conjecture that the name Scotland is the
ancient gothic _Skot-land_, land laid under tribute, Icelandic _Skat_,
a tax (Skat-land) goes to confirm M. du Chaillu’s contention that the
British people, and tongue (by tongue, I mean the present speech of the
British nation) are of northern origin.
The contention that the Danish influx into England was in any sense a
mere infusion must in the nature of things be pure fiction. It was a
full rolling tide of conquest and colonization swelling a population
already essentially Scandinavian.
The first authentic particulars relating to the ancient Britons are
derived from Cæsar who made his descent in the year 55 before Christ.
The original inhabitants appear to have been Celts from France and
Spain. We learn from the Roman historian that they had been driven
into the interior and western portion of the island by the Belgae who
settled on the east and south-eastern shores of England, and were now
known as Britons. He tells us in language, about which there can be no
misconception, that the Belgae were descended from the Germans. These
were the Britons with whom Cæsar had to do, and these the Romanized
Britons who, in their dire extremity, sent forth their despairing cry
to the gates of Imperial Rome, “The barbarians drive us to the sea,
and the sea to the barbarians.” Prichard demonstrated, at least to his
own satisfaction, that “the ancient Belgae were of Celtic, and not
of Teutonic race, as had previously been supposed,” and ethnologists
are agreed in setting aside the testimony of Cæsar! What amount of
hypothetical evidence is sufficient to overturn an historic fact? It
might be difficult to say who is an authority on language, but anyone
reasonably endowed with judgment may be an authority on matters of
fact and practical sense. The science of language is not an exact
science, and leaves a good deal of room for the imagination to play.
I would rather doubt the conclusions of philologers than believe
that the Roman historian wrote without knowledge of his subject, or
deliberately stated what he had no means of knowing to be true. The
weight of evidence is certainly on the side of Cæsar. Not all the
ingenuity of all the Bopps and Grimms and Potts and Zeusses who ever
applied themselves to the elucidation of this most obscure of all
unintelligible subjects can ever be sufficient to overturn an outside
historical fact. “In the history of all nations,” Pinkerton says,
“it is indispensable to admit the most ancient authorities as the
sole foundation of any knowledge we can acquire. If we reject them
or pretend to refute them no science can remain, and any dreamer may
build up an infinite series of romances from his own imagination. When,
therefore, a modern pretends to refute Cæsar and Tacitus in their
accounts of the inhabitants of ancient Britain, any man of science
would disdain to enter the field.” It does not by any means follow
that every scholar who is familiar with the structural peculiarities
of language has necessarily any aptitude for perceiving the exact
relations of things. Many distinguished men eminent in literature have
been singularly deficient in ordinary reasoning power. The late Charles
Kingsley, it is well known, “could not discern truth from falsehood.”
Though occupying “an historical chair, he lacked every qualification of
an historian.”
M. Worsaae, the Danish antiquary, after a good deal of hesitation
and circumlocution in regard to several matters of disputed origin,
in particular the Ruthwell cross which he casts out of the category
of Scandinavian remains, and contradicts himself in the following
sentences: “Ornaments with similar so-called Anglo-Saxon runic
inscriptions are not altogether uncommon in England, particularly
in the North. But as not a few ornaments, as well as runic stones
with inscriptions in the self-same character, are also found in the
countries of Scandinavia both in Denmark and Norway, and particularly
the latter, and the west and south-west of Sweden (and there mostly
in Bleking), it may be a question whether this runic writing was not
originally brought over to England by Scandinavian emigrants. It
would otherwise be inexplicable that they should have used entirely
foreign runic characters in Scandinavia, whilst they possessed a
peculiar runic writing of their own.” I do not think there can be
any question in the matter. No stronger evidence could be given in
proof of the fact that the so-called Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians
were radically one and the same people. M. Worsaae has done much to
illustrate the Scandinavian antiquities of the British islands, and I
am unwilling to cast reflection on the memory of one so eminent and so
well-intentioned, but it is evident throughout his book, that he has
accepted at second-hand, on a variety of subjects, the conclusions of
English and Scotch antiquaries, which as a foreigner he was incapable
of dealing with by independent investigation. The Hunterston brooch,
which in every lineament is distinctively Scandinavian, he has been
told to call _Celtic_. He deals with this most interesting monument
of art in the ambiguous manner for which he is always remarkable
where his judgment seems to contradict his conclusion. “An excellent
silver gilt brooch,” he says, “found near Hunterston, about three
miles from Largs, was once said to have been lost by some Norwegian
who fled from the field of battle [nothing more probable]. There is
a short Scandinavian runic inscription scratched on the back of it,
but from what has hitherto been deciphered, it would rather seem to
denote the name of a Scotchman than of a Norwegian. Professor Munch
reads ‘Malbritha a dalk thana--Melbridg owns this brooch.’” M. Worsaae
here obviously means _Celt_, as opposed to Scandinavian, but uses
the term Scotchman to allow himself, if need be, a door of escape.
“Scotchman” would apply equally to anyone born in Scotland, whether
Celt by extraction, Scandinavian, Fleming or Norman. This seems to me
an undignified way of getting out of a difficult position. The runic
writing of the Hunterston brooch, which is in the Norse tongue, has
been accurately explained by Professor George Stephens, of Copenhagen.
M. Worsaae, we know, accepted the attentions of eminent British
antiquaries, and could not gracefully seem to doubt their conclusions
on special subjects submitted to his decision. He is first told what to
say, and then cited by his instructors, as an authority for statements
which they themselves have put into his mouth. Perhaps, under the
circumstances, this may not be an exceptional manner of dealing with
matters of disputed history, but it is certainly not the way to reach
the truth that reveals itself to intelligence. “In workmanship,” M.
Worsaae says, “the Hunterston brooch resembles the contemporary Irish
and Scotch more than Scandinavian ornaments.” Now, it certainly does no
such thing. It does not appear to me that as regards the Scandinavian
remains of Great Britain, one like M. Worsaae groping his way darkly
with the help of such lights as he can find is at all competent to
pronounce dogmatic judgments. Ireland and Scotland were invaded, and
subdued, and peopled by the Northmen, and brooches of the self-same
character are found in the Viking interments of Scandinavia. The
contemporary Irish and Scotch brooches may reasonably be presumed to
be Scandinavian. The resemblance of the Hunterston brooch to that
found at Tara, and to others of like character found in Scotland is
certainly not greater than to the brooch in the Bergen Museum exhumed
from a Viking mound at Vambheim, or to that dug up at North Trondheim
in another grave of the Viking period. The inscription contained on the
Hunterston brooch proves to demonstration, not only that its art, and
that of all others of kindred type is Scandinavian, but that the name
“Melbridg” is Norwegian. Whatever be the _origin_ of the art exhibited
on the brooches, it is plain that this cannot be Celtic, inasmuch as
that no one has ever shewn that the Celts possessed any knowledge of
art. It is all very well to talk in an off-handed way about Celtic
art, but something more than this is necessary to carry conviction.
To my perceptions a Celtic statement is much improved by some form of
_evidence_. Dr. Soderberg of Lund doubts if I will find many adherents
among Scandinavian scholars. “We are all of us,” he says, “more or
less imbued with Celticism.” So much the worse for Scandinavia,
that her sons deny her legitimate claims to her own historic and
archaic remains. It is not however, as I think, so much a question of
scholarship as of practical sense, the capacity to deal with facts
which may be weighed by anyone possessed of ordinary reasoning power
or capable of speech and thought in their simplest forms. One can
understand a Scotch antiquary of the Celtic type placing himself in
an attitude of antagonism, just as we might imagine Professor Freeman
gliding like a shark along the Saxon line ready to do battle on behalf
of his cherished delusion, because that to both of these the Northman
theory is total extinction. But that the Scandinavian antiquary, who
as regards his national remains has no reason to falsify the facts of
history, should in the interest of an exotic fable, waste his ingenuity
in disclaiming the art that especially belongs to his country surpasses
my comprehension. Let us hear what the _Saturday Review_ has to say on
the subject of Celtic art. Taking exception to many of my positions,
it says: “He [Mr. Roger] is on much firmer ground when he declines
to believe in any art or culture that can fairly be called Celtic.
The very patterns which are usually spoken of as Celtic are common to
all the gold work of the Mycenæan graves, which few people, we think,
will now place much later than 1500 B.C.” “Dr. Schliemann’s Mycenæan
discoveries deprive the Celts of any credit for originality in their
system of spiral ornament.” Again “‘_Celtic_’ patterns certainly
existed on the shores of the Ægean fifteen hundred years before our
era.” “Mr. Roger is probably right when he claims a Scandinavian
origin for the ancient claymores (two handed), for the Tara brooch and
other brooches, for stone crosses, dirk handles, and what so else is
too commonly attributed to Celtic art.” “‘What is Celtic art?’ cries
Mr. Roger, triumphantly. What, indeed? ‘The Celts, Pinkerton tells
us, had no monuments, any more than the Finns or savage Africans, or
Americans.’ As to Americans, Mr. Roger can see their bas-reliefs at
the South Kensington Museum;[4] _but for Celtic art not derived from
the Scandinavians or Romans, we know not where to bid him look_.”
I am content to rest the matter here. There is no art known as
distinctively Celtic, and in this aspect of the question I am confirmed
by the _Saturday Review_. But to return to Professor Freeman. In a
number of the publication called _The Antiquary_, issued on November
16th, 1872, the writer of a paper on _The Landing of the Saxons in
Kent_, tells us that “after pillaging for ‘a hundred and fifty years’
the British shores,” the Jutes, or Saxons, landed under Hengist and
Horsa, “and here,” the writer says, “we must halt for a few moments
till we have disposed of Mr. E. A. Freeman’s astounding statement that
Horsa meant _mare_. Hors, our misspelt _horse_,” the writer says, “is
like its German equivalent Ross, a neuter word. The Saxon hero is
sometimes called simply Hors, but more frequently by the addition of a
masculine termination--a, as in ‘Ida Ælla,’ and some thousands more,
he becomes Horsa, masculine and male. _Mare_ is Myre, feminine.
* * * * If Mr. Freeman will be good enough to tell us how he came to
fall into this preposterous error, we may possibly clear up the cause of
his mistake; for the most part, when he makes a bad blunder, we can
form a notion what better authority has misled him; but in this case
no English dictionary, grammar, or history can have been consulted
by him. Can it have been a Latin grammar? Mr. Freeman is extensively
known as blowing weekly a shrill trumpet, ‘_asper, acerba, sonans_,’
in reviews of literary and illiterate performances, but then he is
in hiding; we hear the obstreperous whirr, but the midge is behind
the screen; when he appears in human body, he makes lapses, trips and
stumbles, and lays himself bare to stings,” &c. This is in Professor
Freeman’s early days, but men carry their idiosyncrasies into their
riper years. It gives us an insight into this critic’s mind according
to the estimation in which he was then held by his fellow-scribblers.
To the article in question, which occupies nearly two columns of
_The Antiquary_, the editor appends the following note:--“The story
of Hengist and Horsa (including the so-called Anglo-Saxon invasion)
is an exploded fable. The Anglo-Saxons of England, like the Picts
or Caledonians of Scotland, were only the earlier Northmen or
Scandinavians.”