22 LECTURE I.
although nothing can be more unsatisfactory
than the attempt to account in this way for the
Celtic population of Brittany. Nations do not
emigrate in this mode en masse. But, that the
large body of the original inhabitants in Eng-
land continued still to occupy the land, is consist-
ent with all analogy on the subject, and cannot
be shown to be inconsistent with historical evi-
dence. Hence it may safely be inferred that
the British element so far as blood is concerned,
was at that period a leading element in the
population of England, and that it continues to
be so to the present day.
The last course in our edifice is the Normans.
They seem chiefly to have given a king and a
nobility to the land, and to have affected it
ethnologically only to the extent that such an
immigration could.
We have thus glanced at the different races
which compose the population of Britain. In the
term England we have embraced the Scottish
Lowlands, although, perhaps, the Teutonic po-
pulation here was drawn from a more northern
source. The Lothians and Northumberland, as
well as large sections of the north-east coast of
Scotland, seem to have drawn, to a great extent,
for their population upon Denmark and Norway ;
tliese, however, are equally Teutons with the