The genuine history of the Britons asserted against Mr. Macpherson ...

c,S
THE GENUINE HlSfORY OF
by ihe Romans, and Bryt by the Saxons "-
This then is the original word. And this is the
very word which Mr. Camden has equally fe-
lefted, but interpreted to fignify Painted, and to
allude to the well-known cuftom of the Bri-
tons.—Appellations defcriptive of manners, as
I have previouily obferved, are never the firll
and primary dcfignations of any people. They
are the refult of attention to them, and the
confeqaence of oblervations upon them. And,
long before the unrcfiefting mind could catch
the charafterlftic quality of a people, it muft
of coLirfe have taken up with fome fenfible
and exterior difcrimination of them. And where
one nation migrated immediately from another,
as the Britons from the Gauls, and where
rhe new cclonills could have no communi-
cation for ages with any but their brethren
in Gaul, there no names charafterlftic of man-
ners coiild arife. Having no diffimilarity of
manners, they could not diflinguidi each other
by it. And the Britons mud have brought
the cuflom of painting, as well as all their
other CLilloms, originally with them from Ganl.
—^Nor dojs Brlth properly fignify Painted.
That Is merely the pollerior and derivative
' In Cannigeter de Krittenburgo, Haga2-CojnItum, 1754,
p. 21, we have two Pvoman rnfcriptions, found on ihe Kiuki
.fit die Rhine, and addrefll^d Mutribu.s Biiuis. And ice S.isoi:
Chronicle, p. 15, &c.