Excerpt from The British Race Know thyself, the famous maxim of the ancients, might be extended from the individual to the family and even to the race of which he is the scion. It is certain that we can recognise traits of ourselves in the different members of our family, and also traits Of our family in the various types of our common race. The story of that race, then, should have a personal and private interest for everyone who belongs to it. Historians tell us that the first inhabitants Of the British Isles were Celts by race, originally from Gaul, and barbarians in culture. At the beginning Of the Christian era, the British Celts, with the exception of the Irish in the west and the Caledonians in the north, were conquered by the Romans who occupied the southern part Of Britain for nearly four hundred years. Their domination was military, like ours in India, and, while it helped to civilise the Ancient Britons, it is not supposed to have altered the character of the race. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.