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.

PREVIOUS TO THE ROMAN INVASION. 3
some such evidences to light. There would also have been some tradition of
such a descent among the people, some traces of a by-gone comparative civilization, some marks of their ancient parentage. Nothing of the kind is, however,
recorded. On the contrary, one of our most investigating and competent
modern historians says, "it is probable that the present state and people of
NEW ZEALAND exhibit more nearly than any other, the condition of Britain
when the Romans entered it."' The same writer (speaking of the landing of
Caesar) says, "Hitherto England had been inhabited by branches of the Kimmerian and Keltic races, apparently visited by the Phcenicians and Carthaginians."2 We fully coincide with this opinion, and believe that the earliest
population of England, whose origin can, with any degree of certainty, be discovered, came from Gaul. The first were, probably, the Southern Celts, who
are said to have reached England about nine hundred years before the Christian
era. Celts of a more northern origin succeeded to the former ones, who retreated to the more northern part of Britain. To them succeeded the Gothic
population originally from the far East, but who had established themselves in
Gaul, and thence into Britain, driving the Cimbri or Northern Celts who had
preceded them, into the interior. These latter settlers obtained the name of
BELGE, or men of war and tumult. With respect to these last colonies, which
inhabited the southern parts of Britain, we have the express testimony of Caesar,
that they came from Gaul. " The sea-coast of Britain is peopled with Belgians,
drawn thither by the love of war and plunder. These last, passing over from
different parts and settling in the country, still retain the names of the several
states from whence they descended."3 The latest of these Belgic colonies came
into Britain only a few years before Caesar's invasion.
The Belgic colonists are described by Caesar, as being more polished in their
manners than the Cimbri or Celts who inhabited the interior and the more
northern portions of the island, and who, in contra-distinction to the Belgae on
the frontier, were termed, by the Roman conqueror, Aborigines. STRABO and
other historians have left us copious descriptions of their primitive and simple,
or rather rude and barbarous mode of living.
The ancient inhabitants of Lincolnshire were the Coritani or Coriceni,4
whose country extended also over the surrounding counties of Northampton,
Leicester, Rutland, Nottingham, and Derby. It has been conjectured by Mr.
Whitaker, in his History of Manchester, that the country of the Coritani was
first inhabited about 300 years before Christ, when a large colony of the Belgwe
emigrated from their ancient seat in Gaul, and possessed themselves of the present counties of Hants, Wilts, and Somerset, driving the natives further to the
northward. Thus, it is probable, Lincolnshire was first peopled.
NENNIUS,-who quotes as his authority, "MARK the Anchorite, a holy Bishop
of the people," —says, that Britain contained at this period thirty-three Cities,
whose names he gives at length. The only ones enumerated as being in the
territory of the Coritani, were, Cair Lerien, (Leicester), and Cair lait colt
(Lincoln).
It does not appear probable that the district of Lincolnshire, now called
Holland, was, at the time of the Roman invasion, thickly populated. For even
admitting DUGDALE'S opinion to be correct, that the whole tract of marsh land,
" though originally low, was not annoyed with the inundation of the ocean, or
any stop of fresh waters, which might by overflowing and drowning make it
1 SHARON TURNER'S History of the Anglo Saxons, 3 CAESAR. Bel. Ga., lib. v., cap. 10.
5th ed., vol. i., p. 69. The passage quoted was writ- 4 From Car, a dwarf and iceni; or from Cor, a
ten between 1790 and 1800. sheep and Yche, oxen.
2 History of Anglo Saxons, vol. i., p. 251.,