The history and antiquities of Boston, and the villages of Skirbeck, Fishtoft, Freiston, Butterwick, Benington, Leverton, Leake, and Wrangle; comprising the hundred of Skirbeck, in the county of Lincoln. Including also a history of the East, West, and Wildmore fens, and copious notices of the Holland or Haut-Huntre fen ... sketches of the geology, natural history, botany, and agriculture of the district; a very extensive collection of archaisms and provincial words, local dialect, phrases, proverbs, omens, superstitions, etc. By Pishey Thompson. Illustrated with one hundred engravings.

2 PREVIOUS TO THE ROMAN INVASION.
science furnish a much safer guide than the teachings of tradition-the inference is inevitable, that the original inhabitants of England came from France
by the easy mode of transit which then existed, and that the stream of population in its western course reached our now "sea-bound Isle," in the same way
as it had traversed the continent from its eastern to its western shore. We are,
however, only removing the difficulty one stage further back, for we know not
who were the original settlers of the opposite continent of Europe; and the
question from what stock did the aborigines of England descend, still remains
unsettled.
The inhabitants of Cornwall, and those of some portions of Wales, have
supposed that the aboriginal occupiers of their respective countries had a
Phoenician origin. This idea has been based upon the known trading propensities
of that once powerful people, and from the mineral riches of Cornwall and
Wales, which might, after the Phoenicians had discovered those countries,
tempt them to plant colonies therein. There is nothing but a bare possibility,
and a very small probability, to support this idea. Again, the ancient language
of Cornwall and that of Wales are totally distinct from those of any other part
of Great Britain, and affinities have been traced between them and the languages of Western Asia, so far as any remains of the latter have come down to
our aera. We believe that few, if any, specimens of the language of ancient
Phoenicia are now extant, excepting a passage or two in one of the comedies of
PLAUTUS,' who flourished about 200 B. C.; these specimens, however, of the Punic
or Phoenician language are not sufficient to allow of any satisfactory comparison
being made between the language of Phoenicia and those of ancient Cornwall
and Wales. It is not improbable that the Phcenicians did plant Colonies in Cornwall-for there is historical testimony that they traded with the CASSITERIDES
or Tin Islands,2 as the Scilly Islands and the southern parts of Cornwall were
anciently called-but there is nothing against the supposition that Britain
was inhabited long previously to its being visited by the Phoenicians.
Notwithstanding the circumstantiality with which GODFREY3 of Monmouth,
NENNIUS,4 and other ancient British writers narrate the conquest of Britain by
Brutus, the descendant of ZEneas and Lavinia, and say that the Britons owe
their origin to him,-thus deriving their descent from Greece and Rome,-but
little notice is to be taken of the legend, more particularly as the historians of
Greece and Rome make no mention of Brutus and his adventures. The minuteness of detail, so remarkable in the whole story, as related by the old chroniclers,
is an obvious objection to its authenticity. But, whilst we do not deny the
possibility of the history of BRUTUS and his settlement of Britain, its truth
or its falsehood has not any bearing upon the question respecting the first inhabitants of this Island; for if Brutus subdued the country, it is clear that he
found it inhabited, otherwise there was nobody to subdue.
Besides, if Britain owed any portion of its earliest population to ancient
Greece and Rome, it is almost impossible that some traces or evidences of such
a circumstance should not have existed at the time of the Roman invasion under
JULIUS CAESAR, or that the investigations of later days should not have brought
1 " Pcenulus; the Young Carthaginian." We are the bells contain one part of tin to ten parts of copaware of the hypothesis of General VALLANCEY, per, the exact proportions of modern bell-metal.
who has endeavoured to prove that these passages are "The tin," adds Dr. Layard, "was, probably, obIrish. Competent judges admit that there are some tained from Phcenicia, and consequently that used in
strong verbal resemblances, but, it is generally allowed, the bronzes of the British Museum may actually
that this theory is not tenable. have been exported nearly three thousand years ago
2 Some of the vessels and bells lately found in the firom the British Isles!"
ruins of Ancient Nineveh by Dr. LAYARD, have been 3 He flourished circa 1140.
carefully analysed at the Museum of Practical Ge- 4 The time when NEwNNIUS lived is uncertain, and
ology, and the curious fact has been discovered, that variously stated from 796 to 994.