title applicable to a vast but ill-explored territory, rather than a real
historical name of race or nation. And so, in the earliest times, Gauls,
Germans, Bretons, and even Iberians, appear frequently confounded under
the name of Celts, peoples of Celtica.

Little by little this name is observed to become more restricted and more
precise. The Iberians of Spain are the first to be detached; then the
Germans. In the century preceding the Christian era, the Gauls, that is,
the peoples inhabiting Gaul, are alone called Celts. We begin even to
recognize amongst them diversities of race, and to distinguish the
Iberians of Gaul, alias Aquitanians, and the Kymrians or Belgians from
the Gauls, to whom the name of Celts is confined. Sometimes even it is
to a confederation of certain Gallic tribes that the name Specially
applies. However it be, the Gauls appear to have been the first
inhabitants of western Europe. In the most ancient historical memorials
they are found there, and not only in Gaul, but in Great Britain, in
Ireland, and in the neighboring islets. In Gaul, after a long
predominance, they commingled with other races to form the French nation.
But, in this commingling numerous traces of their language, monuments,
manners, and names of persons and places, survived and still exist,
especially to the east and south--cast, in local customs and vernacular
dialects. In Ireland, in the highlands of Scotland, in the Hebrides and
the Isle of Man, Gauls (Gaels) still live under their primitive name.
There we still have the Gaelic race and tongue, free, if not from any
change, at least from absorbent fusion.

From the seventh to the fourth century B.C., a new population spread over
Gaul, not at once, but by a series of invasions, of which the two
principal took place at the two extremes of that epoch. They called
themselves Kymrians or Kimrians, whence the Romans made Cimbrians, which