most probable is that advanced by Whitaker, in his history of Manchester, and afterwards more fully developed in his Genuine Origin of the Britains Asserted, in answer to Macpherson. It would seem that Britin, the barbaric term from which the Greeks and Romans formed their smoother Britannia, was really not the name of the island but of its inhabitants. The termination in, in fact, which has so much perplexed Camden and other able antiquaries, is nothing more than the sign of the plural according to the usual mode of declension in the Gaelic tongue. And brit, Mr. Whitaker maintains, signifies the divided' or 'separated.' It is in fact the same word with brik or brechan,-a garment distinguished by divided or variegated colours, and still the common appellation of the Highland plaid The Britin, therefore, were the separated people-or the emigrants, as we should say,-those who had removed from the rest of their countrymen in Gaul, and settled in Albinn. Scots, Caledonians, and Picts.] It seems to have been to one of the bands of foreign invaders, who thus overrun Ireland, that the epithet Scots was first applied. The word-of which, however, different interpretations have been given-is most probably the same with the modern Gaelic term scuit or scaoit, signifying a wandering horde,'-the origin, also, in all likelihood, of the name Scythians, so famous in all the records of these remote ages. From Ireland a branch of the Scots, several years afterwards, passed over into Scotland, and eventually gave their name to the country. Scotland, however, had long before this been peopled both along its coasts, and in part, at least, of the interior, by the gradual movement northwards of the tide of population from South Britain. The general name given to the inhabitants of the northern part of the island before, and for some centuries after the era of Christianity, was not Scots, but Caledonians or Caoildaoin, that is, men of the woods.' They are spoken of by the Roman writers as divided into the Deucaledones and the Vecturiones. The former of these designations is the Gaelic Duchaoilldaoin, literally the true' or 'real inhabitants of the woods:' and it was applied to the mountaineers in the north-western part of the country, or what we now call the Highlands, as distinguished from the inhabitants of the plains. These latter were denominated Vecturiones-a word smoothed down from the Gaelic Uachtarich, that is, the people of the part of the country called Uachtar, the name given to the Lowlands, and still preserved in the appellation of the mountainous ridge Drumuachtar, from which the descent of the country towards the east commences. Roman Geography.] We may here notice the Roman division of Britain while the island remained in their hands. At first its general and obvious divisions were Britannia Romana, comprising all that had been subjugated by their arms; and Britannia Barbara, including those districts which still maintained their independence. As the former division increased, a new and more specific division became necessary, and the six following provinces were adopted: 1st. Britannia Prima, including the southern part of the island, to the mouth of the Thames on the one side, and that of the Severn on the other. 2d. Britannia Secunda, comprising modern Wales. 3d. Flavia Cæsariensis, comprehending the midland districts of England, from the Thames to the Humber on the cast, and between the Severn and the Mersey on the west. 4th. Marima Casariensis, extending from the Humber to the Tyne, and from the Mersey to the Solway firth. Its northern boundary was at one period formed by the wall of Severus, and at another by that of Adrian. 5th. Valentia, comprising that part of Scotland south of the Clyde and the Forth. 6th. Vespasiana, a name applied to the region between the Forth and Loch Ness, where a few remains of Roman roads, &c., have been discovered. To those regions beyond the reach of the Roman arms, the erizinal appellation of Britannia Barbara would continue to be applied Arrival of the Saxons.] Disappointed of assistance from the Romans in resisting their northern invaders, the Britons applied for assistance to the Saxons-a people inhabiting the Chersonesus Cimbrica, or the peninsula bounded by the Baltic sea on the N and E, the Elbe on the S, and the German ocean on the W. The Saxons, inured to warlike expeditions, willingly accepted the invitation; and they seem, notwithstanding the terror which had been impressed on the Britons by the Scots and Picts, to have reckoned these tribes by no means formidable, for their expedition consisted of only three ships, containing 1,600 men, under the command of Hengist and Horsa, two brothers. Vortigern, king of the Britons, received them with joy, and assigned them the isle of Thanet for a habitation; but the Saxons, glad to exchange the bleak shores of the Baltic, for the fertile fields of England, invited over fresh reinforcements of their countrymen, and from the auxiliaries soon became the masters of the natives. The Britons saw their error when it was too late to correct it; and a long and fierce but fruitless contest ensued betwixt them and their new invaders. After a struggle, protracted throughout 150 years, the Saxons remained masters of the country; and in 585, the southern part of Britain, with the exception of Wales, was divided into seven kingdoms, well-known by the name of the Heptarchy, and governed only by Saxon princes. The Heptarchy.] As this division forms a principal era in the ancient geography of the country, it may be proper to note the manner in which England and the southern part of Scotland were politically subdivided under the Heptarchy. 1st. KINGDOM OF KENT, founded by Hengist, in 457, contained Kent. This kingdom was annexed to Wessex in 823. 2d. KINGDOM OF SUSSEX, or South Saxons, founded by Ella, in 491, contained Sussex and Surrey. It was conquered by the king of Wessex in 686; and from about 828 formed an integral portion of Wessex. 3d. KINGDOM OF EAST ANGLIA, founded by Uffa, in 575, contained Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge, and Isle of Ely; and ended in 823. 4th, KINGDOM OF WESSEX, or West Saxons, founded by Cordic, in 512, contained part of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wilts, Hants, and Berks; and swallowed up the rest between 800 and 836. 5th. KINGDOM OF NORTHUMBERLAND, founded by Ida, in 547, contained York, Lancaster, Durham, Cumberland, Westmoreland, Northumberland, and Scotland to the Firth of Forth; and ended in 829. 6th. KINGDOM OF ESSEX, or East Saxons, founded by Erkenwin, in 527, contained Essex, Middlesex, and part of Hertford; and ended in 746. 7th. KINGDOM OF MERCIA, founded by Crida, in 585, contained Gloucester, Hereford, Worcester, Warwick, Leicester, Rutland, Northampton, Lincoln, Huntingdon, Bedford, Buckingham, Oxford, Stafford, Derby, Salop, Nottingham, Chester, and part of Hertford; and ended in 827. The history of the Anglo-Saxons, while the country continued to be divided into so many small and independent kingdoms, is not less confused than that of the period which immediately preceded it. We know little more of it than that each state was, in its turn, annexed to some of its more powerful rivals; until at length Egbert, king of the West Saxons, by dint of valour and superior capacity, united in his own person the sovereignty of what had formerly composed seven independent kingdoms, and gave to the whole the name of England,-a name which it has ever since retained. The following is a chronological list of the sovereigns of England and of Great Britain, commencing with Egbert of Wessex, who assumed the title of Bretwalda, that is, Wielder or Ruler of Britain,' in 827. From the rapid sketch we have above given it appears that the founders of the British empire originally migrated from the country between Germany and the peninsula of Jutland, and settled in England and in the South of Scotland, where they afterwards mingled with Danish and Norman-Danish colonists, while the original Celtic population gradually retired before the races of Gothic blood to the fastnesses of Wales, the Highlands of Scotland, and the SW extremity of England. In the beginning of the 17th cent., the whole of the English islands were united under this race of mixed descent, who then began to colonize North America, although their number at this period did not probably exceed 7,000,000. "All nations have more or less of colonizing tenden cies; the spreading of man over the earth being almost a paramount necessity of his nature; but in the people of Britain those tendencies have a peculiar and lasting strength. With some exceptions, as those of the Mahommedans, the Russians, and the Anglo-Americans, who, as colonists and conquerors, have overrun half Africa, half Asia, and half America, nothing since Roman colonization prevailed, and since Rome fell under the more wonderful colonizations of the northern barbarians,-nothing in the history of the world approaches to even a remote resemblance to British colonization, comprehending, as it always and everywhere has done, at once honest and peaceful settlements, unscrupulous territorial acquisitions, and vulgar exterminating conquests. The spirit that produced such mixed results has from time to time broken out in England with ungovernable force. Throughout the first half of the 16th cent. Sebastian Cabot, of Bristol, by his science and hardy adventure, laid the foundation for all the British American settlements. Our sovereigns neglected him, but, after letting him spend twenty years in the Spanish maritime service, they recalled him to our own. If Edward VI. had lived longer, that promising king would unquestionably have done in North America what was completely effected by his successors an hundred years later: enough remains of his deliberate acts to settle this point to his honour, in his letter missive, sent to the princes in the East by the hands of Sir Richard Chancellor, and earnestly asking that this expedition of discovery might be received in peace. At this period popular sympathy was fairly roused in the cause; and the nobility, the judges of the land, the 'apprentices of the Inns of Court, and others of all ranks and professions, influenced by the spirit of the Cabots and the Edwards, prepared the way for Sir Walter Raleigh and his Guiana and Virginia adventurers. Afterwards, with another pause of half-a-century arising probably from the distracted state of England in Elizabeth's reign, and much more, perhaps, from Raleigh's and Sir Humphrey Gilbert's misfortunes-these great men's objects in America were carried out by the founders of New England in the reign of James I. At that time a Fairfax, whose de The decennial increase of the pop. in 1841, as scendents long flourished in Virginia, successfully urged upon the compared with the returns of 1831, is at the rate of king, that 'spirits as brave as those of times past' could be found 14.5 per cent. for England; 13 per cent. for Wales; for the islands in the British seas, 19.6. In 1831 the increase was for England, 16 per cent.; for Wales, 12 per cent.; and for the islands in the British seas, 15.8 per cent. The greater ratio of increase in the pop. of England, as compared with that of Scotland and Ireland, must be attributed in considerable part to the immigration of Scottish and Irish labourers into England. In Cumberland, in 1841, for every 10,000 inhabitants there were 356 persons born in Scotland, and 274 born in Ireland. În Lancashire there were 130 Scotch, and 635 Irish, for the same number of inhabitants. It thus appears that one-thirteenth part of the actual pop. of Lancashire is made up of Irish and Scotch; and nearly one-sixteenth of that of Cumberland. Other counties exhibit large proportions of immigrants from the sister-kingdoms, though none so large as these: Suffolk and Norfolk, which have fewest, show 33 for every 10,000 inhabitants. Throughout England and Wales the average is 248 for every 10,000, or 31 for every 1,250; that is, something more than one-fortieth part of the whole pop. is composed of strangers. In fact, there seems good ground for thinking that the amount of this immi Charles had not stopped them. The civil wars, although an extensive irregular emigration, prevailed pending them, occasioned another pause in our national settlements beyond sea, notably broken, however, by such events as the conquest of Jamaica by the Protector Cromwell, preceded by a manifesto of war from Milton's pen, which contain hints for a splendid colonial theory. At the Restoration, Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, became the chief supporter at home of a new movement which consolidated our American colonies from the Hudson river to Carolina, and throughout our West India islands. Boyle, Penn, and Locke, among others, took part earnestly in the colonization of this period, and they were most worthily succeeded by Lord Chancellor Somers. In the last cent., along with the peaceful settlement of such colonies as Georgia by Oglethorpe, aided by John Wesley, we also acquired the Canadas by conquest, ending ingloriously with the loss of the United States, through a combination of gross administrative errors in principle, with extraordinary official ignorance of facts, and the most widely-spread corruptions in practice. The last seventy years have given us new colonial worlds, even surpassing the old one in North America in wealth, and in means of honourable renown-India, Ceylon, the Australias, New Zealand, and South Africa. In this last period also British Western Africa, after more than two hundred years' abused possession, has acquired a new character, full of interest and hope British Southgration into England considerably exceeds the amount America, too, would, if it stood alone, reward all our attention; and the Hudson Bay company's boundless wastes are of great colonial value; whilst even our Mediterranean military dependencies are not without an important bearing of the like kind." Excluding the territories governed by the East India company, the colonial empire of Great Britain, according to Sir W. Molesworth's recent resume of our colonial statistics, contains between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 sq. m.,-an area equal to the whole of Europe and British India added together. Of this last space, about 1,000,000 sq. m. have been divided into 40 different colonies, each with a separate government; 4 of them in Europe, 5 in North America, 15 in the West Indies, 3 in South America, 5 in Africa and its vicinity, 3 among the Asiatic islands, and 5 in of emigration from England to the colonies. The most marked variation in the rate of increase, in the two last decennial periods, is in Ireland. In the ten years ending 1831 it was 14 per cent.; in the last ten years only 5·64 per cent. The mean annual addition made to the pop. of B. in the ten years from 1831 to 1841, has been about one 75th part; in other words, for every 75 persons that are in Britain this year there will be 76 next year, and so on from year to But the annual increase of the pop. of Ireland year. Australia and New Zealand. The pop. of these colonies approaches has been only one 177th part; in other words, for 5,000,000. Of this number about 2,500,000 are of European race, of whom 500,000 are French, about 350,000 are Ionians and Maltese, a few are Dutch or Spaniards, and the remainder, amounting to about 1,600,000. are of English, Irish, or Scotch descent. Of the 2,500,000 inhabitants of the colonies who are not of European race, about 1,400,000 are Cingalese and other inhabitants of Ceylon, and 1,100,000 are of African origin. Statistics of Population.] The first regular census of Britain was taken in 1801; but there was no complete census of Ireland till 1821. The progress of pop. in the three kingdoms appears to have been as follows: every 177 persons that are in Ireland this year, there will be 178 the next, and so on. If we divide the contemporaneous pop. by these fractions, we find the annual addition to be The estimated pop. of the United Kingdom in the middle of the year 1846, was 28,487,000; and, if the present rate of increase be maintained, the pop. will be 30,000,000 in Jan. 1852. The increase in the ten years June 1831-41, was, on an average, 263,932 annually. The statement, so often repeated, that the pop. of the United Kingdom increases at the rate of 1,000 a-day, is an error, which arises from confounding the annual rate of increase in England (1 1.3 per cent.) with the lower rate of increase (1 per cent.) for the United Kingdom. Occupations of the People.] The following is a summary of the official returns in 1841 of the "Occupations of persons in Great Britain (including its islands, but exclusive of Ireland); including the army, navy, merchant-seamen, &c.": Total number of persons whose occupations are re- Navy and merchant-seamen afloat, Total occupations, Number of persons returned as of independent means, . 96,799 7,094,186 511.440 76,057 Government civil service, Alms-people, pensioners, paupers, lunatics, and Residue of population, Afloat, Total of population, in cluding ariny and navy 15,911,757 2,620,184 124,040 18,844,434 In considering the number of persons supported by any particular manufacture, it is to be remembered that the numbers given are of actual workers, and not of those who, as wives, children, &c., are supported by the labour of others. The total number of persons whose occupations were ascertained in Great Britain, in 1841, was 7,846,569, out of 183 millions, or nearly 37.7 per cent. The residue of the pop., including all children of tender years and unemployed, all unemployed females of all classes, &c., forms 58.76 per cent. of the entire pop., leaving only 3:54 per cent. for the persons of independent means, the paupers, beggars, &c., and the other persons whose occupations are not accounted for in the census. It appears that the persons of independent means in Great Britain form 2.71 per cent. of the entire pop. ; and that the alms-people, paupers, pensioners, and Total number of persons returned as above, 7,846,569 beggars, form only 0.87, or considerably short of In 1831, the number of occupiers of land and labourers above twenty years of age in Great Britain, was 1,251,751; and in 1841 the number was 1,215,264; showing a diminution of about 40,000. In 1831, the number of persons engaged in commerce, trade, and manufactures, 20 years of age and upwards, was 1,572,292; and in 1841 the number was 2,039,409; showing an increase of more than 400,000. Compared with the whole pop., we find that the agricultural class forms not quite 8 per cent. of the whole, while trade and manufacture employ 16 per cent. The general results of the inquiry, as far as the island of Great Britain is concerned, are presented to us in the following table: Employments. Navy, merchant service, men afloat, Army, half-pay, and East India company's service, 9-10ths per cent. of the whole. Somewhat more than 1 per cent. is the proportion of the class "alms-people, pensioners, paupers, lunatics, and prisoners;" about the same is the proportion of those returned The increase in the number of capitalists, bankers, prounder the heads of "army and navy" taken together. fessional and other educated men, 20 years of age and upwards, during the ten years ending in 1841, was 69,012. "It may be interesting to contrast Scotland with England in some of these proportions. These are the only two portions of the United Kingdom which can be fairly compared. The returns of the occupations of the people of Ireland are in so different a shape, that it is impossible to ascertain from them, for instance, the number of persons of independent means in the country. Again, no one would think of comparing Scotland and Wales. The following, then, are the centesimal proportions of the people in the various classes of occupations specified in England and Scotland: Scotland. per cent. 8.16 29.56 30:46 2.81 2.21 Alms-people, 0.90 0:67 The differences in the occupations may be thus denoted. The proportion of the people of Scotland engaged in agriculture exceeds that of England by 0.76; and that in trade and manufactures, &c., by 0.90 per cent.; in other words, Scotland has 1.66 more per cent. of her pop. engaged in various occu673,922 84,573 3,373 761,868 pations than England. This industrial surplus is 95,193 24,359 2,279 121,821 caused by the excess of England over Scotland in the following divisions:-England has more persons of 96,799 independent means by 0-60 per cent.; more paupers, &c., by 0.23 per cent.; more whose occupations are un42,234 described in the census by 0.16 per cent.; and more England by 0·67 per cent., that part of the difference is due to this source, and part (0.16 per cent.) to the less careful returns of occupations in taking the census. On the whole, however, it is remarkable how nearly the same proportion of the whole pop. of each country is maintained in one great class or branch of occupation. This general coincidence, with the slight variations noticed, is a strong presumption in favour of the accuracy of the returns on the whole." [Manchester Guardian.] unemployed residue of the pop. (women and children) | by 0-67 per cent. These several items just make up the 1.66 per cent. of the excess of Scotland over England in the items above specified. We think this state of facts is calculated to surprise many persons, especially those who regard Scotland as so poor a country, and who will now see that in England there is not 1 per cent. more of persons of independent means than in Scotland (while there are 0-23 per cent. more alms-people and paupers in England); and those who imagine the industrial classes to be The following table of “occupations," prepared by more numerous in England than in any other coun- the Irish census commissioners of 1841, and constituitry in the world; for we find that in this respect Scot- ing a digest of the whole of the personal statistics of land exceeds England by 1.66 per cent., or nearly 13 productive industry throughout Ireland, throws so out of every 100 individuals! It is possible, how-much light, by all its parts, on either their absolute ever, as the residue of the pop. in Scotland (after all or their relative amount, that it may well be exhithe previous classification) is smaller than that of bited here entire: From this statement, the mortality of England appears to be the lowest; but, to render the comparison accurate, it is necessary that Scotland, Ireland, and the Channel islands, should be entered in the general return with England. Periodical returns of births, marriages, and deaths are, it is stated, published by nearly all the states of Europe: Ireland and Scotland are the only civilized parts of Europe where no official registers are kept. Leinster, Proportion of males to 100 females, 104.3. The number of deaths, ascertained from a return of all the deaths within the 10 years from 1830 to The want of registries of births, marriages, and 1840, and from returns sent in by every Sanatory deaths, in Ireland, has to a certain extent been sup-institution, gives the mortality of Ireland, in the plied by other means. The number of births for the years specified, as follows: Year. 1838, Population. Deaths. 8,052,170 Average mortality. 135,359 1 to 59.5, or 1.68 per cent. Pauperism.]-The pop. of England, according to the census of 1841, was 15,906,741. The expenditure for the relief of the poor in England and Wales, for the year ending Lady-day 1847, was £5,298,785; in 1848 it was £6,180,765. The total number of paupers relieved in 1847 was 1,721,350, and the average relief afforded to each, £3 1s. 63d. The proportion per cent. of the number of the paupers relieved to the pop. was 10-8 per cent.; in 1844-5 it was 9-2 per cent.; in 1848 it amounted to 11.8 per cent.-In Ireland the pop. in 1841 was 8,175,124. The annual value of the property rated to the poor-rate in 1847, and likewise in 1848, was £13,187,421. The rate in the pound was, on an average, in 1847, 104d.; and the expenditure for the relief of the poor, £567,897. The total number of paupers relieved, including casual poor, was 333,019; and the per centage of paupers relieved out of the entire population was 4 per cent. The rate per head expended on each pauper, on an average, was £1 14s. 14d. In 1848 the expenditure was £1,216,679, while the rate per head of expenditure was reduced to 16s. 84d.-In Scotland the population was 2,620,216, and the property rated to the poor-rate, £9,320,784, at a rate of 11d. in the pound, producing in the year ending 25th of May, 1847, £146,370. In 1848, the expenditure had risen to £544,334. The proportion of the population relieved in 1847 was 5.5 per cent.; and the relief afforded on an average to each individual was £2 19s. 34d. In 1848 the proportion relieved was 8.6 per cent., and the rate per head of expenditure £2 7s. 94d. Religious denominations.]—It is to be regretted that no official census has yet been taken of the comparative numbers of the different religious denominations in Great Britain. Doubtless considerable difficulty will attend every attempt to classify the population in respect of religious persuasion; but even an approximation towards the truth on this point seems highly desirable, in connexion with some of the most pressing questions of the day. The following data for the ecclesiastical statistics of the kingdom we know to have been carefully collected; and we give them insertion here as the best substitute we yet possess for an actual enumeration of the different adherents to the various religious denominations throughout the kingdom. From the Clergy list of 1845, we find that the number of churches and chapels of the establishment in England and Wales, in 1844, was about 12,100. Allowing for subsequent increase, we may suppose them now to be about 12,500. From the authorized publications of the Wesleyans, Independents, Baptists, Roman Catholics, Unitarians, Wesleyan association, and other bodies, as well as from other sources, we draw the following results as to the number of their places of worship: The following, then, is the summary of the places of worship belonging to the establishment and the dissenting bodies respectively: SUMMARY OF ENGLAND AND WALES. 12,500 10,394 2,340 12,734 nonconformists than of churchmen. It does not, of course, follow that there is a greater number of There are many places where the great bulk of the population attend the church, and where the dissenting chapels are small and scantily attended. The churches, moreover, would in general accommodate much larger numbers than the chapels. But, on the other hand, many of the churches are in parishes of very small population. Of 14,453 parishes and townships in England, no fewer than 9,181 have a population below 400 persons each; while the dissenting chapels exist in the greatest number where the pop. is the most dense. On the whole, however, we do not doubt that the number of churchmen exceeds that of dissenters in England and Wales. In Scotland, the following numbers of churches and chapels approach to correctness: CHURCHES AND CHAPELS IN SCOTLAND. 1,160 Free church, 840 In England and Wales, In Scotland, Wesleyan Methodist association, 316 In Ireland (supposed), Methodist New connexion, 277 Of course the proportions of the pop. attached to the respective religious communities must be different; but we have not sufficient data to determine these proportions.-The educational statistics of the United Kingdom are treated of in the present work under the general articles ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, and IRELAND; and, in numerous instances, under local heads. |