Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke [193]
Celtae in the middle countries; and the Aquitani to the south. Britain appears to have received its people only from the two former. From the Celtae were derived the most ancient tribes of the Britons, of which the most considerable were called Brigantes. The Belgae, who did not even settle in Gaul until after Britain had been peopled by colonies from the former, forcibly drove the Brigantes into the inland countries, and possessed the greatest part of the coast, especially to the south and west. These latter, as they entered the island in a more improved age, brought with them the knowledge and practice of agriculture, which however only prevailed in their own countries; the Brigantes still continued their ancient way of life by pasturage and hunting. In this respect alone they differed; so that what we shall say in treating of their manners is equally applicable to both. And though the Britons were further divided into an innumerable multitude of lesser tribes and nations, yet all being the branches of these two stocks, it is not to our purpose to consider them more minutely.
Britain was in the time of Julius Caesar, what it is at this day in climate and natural advantages, temperate, and reasonably fertile. But destitute of all those improvements, which in a succession of ages it has received from ingenuity, from commerce, from riches and luxury, it then wore a very rough and savage appearance. The country, forest or marsh; the habitations, cottages; the cities, hiding-places in woods; the people, naked, or only covered with skins; their sole employment, pasturage and hunting. They painted their bodies for ornament or terror, by a custom general among all savage nations; who being passionately fond of show and finery, and having no object but their naked bodies on which to exercise this disposition, have in all times painted or cut their skins, according to their ideas of ornament. They shaved the beard on the chin; that on the upper lip was suffered to remain, and grow to an extraordinary length, to favour the martial appearance, in which they placed their glory. They were in their natural temper not unlike the Gauls; impatient, fiery, inconstant, ostentatious, boastful, fond of novelty; and like all barbarians, fierce, treacherous, and cruel. Their arms were short javelins, small shields of a slight texture, and great cutting swords with a blunt point, after the Gaulish fashion.
Their chiefs went to battle in chariots, not unartfully contrived, nor unskilfully managed. I cannot help thinking it something extraordinary, and not easily to be accounted for, that the Britons should have been so expert in the fabric of those chariots, when they seem utterly ignorant in all other mechanic arts: but thus it is delivered to us. They had also horse, though of no great reputation in their armies. Their foot was without heavy armour; it was no firm body; nor instructed to preserve their ranks, to make their evolutions, or to obey their commanders; but in tolerating hardships, in dexterity of forming ambuscades (the art military of savages), they are said to have excelled. A natural ferocity, and an impetuous onset, stood them in the place of discipline.
PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS.
Public prosecutions are become little better than schools for treason; of no use but to improve the dexterity of criminals in the mystery of evasion; or to show with what complete impunity men may conspire against the commonwealth; with what safety assassins may attempt its awful head. Everything is secure, except what the laws have made sacred; everything is tameness and languor that is not fury and faction. Whilst the distempers of a relaxed fibre prognosticate and prepare all the morbid force of convulsion in the body of the state, the steadiness of the physician is overpowered by the very aspect of the disease. The doctor of the constitution, pretending to underrate what he is not able to contend with, shrinks from his own operation. He doubts and questions the salutary but critical terrors of the cautery and the knife. He takes a poor credit
Britain was in the time of Julius Caesar, what it is at this day in climate and natural advantages, temperate, and reasonably fertile. But destitute of all those improvements, which in a succession of ages it has received from ingenuity, from commerce, from riches and luxury, it then wore a very rough and savage appearance. The country, forest or marsh; the habitations, cottages; the cities, hiding-places in woods; the people, naked, or only covered with skins; their sole employment, pasturage and hunting. They painted their bodies for ornament or terror, by a custom general among all savage nations; who being passionately fond of show and finery, and having no object but their naked bodies on which to exercise this disposition, have in all times painted or cut their skins, according to their ideas of ornament. They shaved the beard on the chin; that on the upper lip was suffered to remain, and grow to an extraordinary length, to favour the martial appearance, in which they placed their glory. They were in their natural temper not unlike the Gauls; impatient, fiery, inconstant, ostentatious, boastful, fond of novelty; and like all barbarians, fierce, treacherous, and cruel. Their arms were short javelins, small shields of a slight texture, and great cutting swords with a blunt point, after the Gaulish fashion.
Their chiefs went to battle in chariots, not unartfully contrived, nor unskilfully managed. I cannot help thinking it something extraordinary, and not easily to be accounted for, that the Britons should have been so expert in the fabric of those chariots, when they seem utterly ignorant in all other mechanic arts: but thus it is delivered to us. They had also horse, though of no great reputation in their armies. Their foot was without heavy armour; it was no firm body; nor instructed to preserve their ranks, to make their evolutions, or to obey their commanders; but in tolerating hardships, in dexterity of forming ambuscades (the art military of savages), they are said to have excelled. A natural ferocity, and an impetuous onset, stood them in the place of discipline.
PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS.
Public prosecutions are become little better than schools for treason; of no use but to improve the dexterity of criminals in the mystery of evasion; or to show with what complete impunity men may conspire against the commonwealth; with what safety assassins may attempt its awful head. Everything is secure, except what the laws have made sacred; everything is tameness and languor that is not fury and faction. Whilst the distempers of a relaxed fibre prognosticate and prepare all the morbid force of convulsion in the body of the state, the steadiness of the physician is overpowered by the very aspect of the disease. The doctor of the constitution, pretending to underrate what he is not able to contend with, shrinks from his own operation. He doubts and questions the salutary but critical terrors of the cautery and the knife. He takes a poor credit