Note 1 — HENRY S. SIMMONDS.
Reading edition
The inhabitants of ancient Britain derived their origin partly from an original colony of Celtæ, partly from a mixed body of Gauls and Germans. None of them cultivated the ground; they all lived by raising cattle and hunting. Their dress consisted of skins, their habitations were huts of wicker-work covered with rushes. Their Priests the Druids together with the sacred women, exercised a kind of authority over them.
Britain according to Aristotle, was the name which the Romans gave to Modern England and Scotland. This appellation is, perhaps derived from the old word brit, partly coloured, it having been customary with the inhabitants to paint their bodies.
According to the testimony of Pliny and Aristotle, the Island in remotest times bore the name of Albion.
The Sea by which Britain is surrounded, was generally called, the Western, the Atlantic, or Hesperian Ocean. Herodotus informs us that the Phœnicians, Greeks, and Carthaginians, especially the first were acquainted with it from the earliest period and obtained tin there and designated it Tin Island. The name Great Britain was applied to England and Scotland after James I. ascended the English throne in 1603. England and Scotland however had separate Parliaments till 1st of May 1707, when during the reign of Queen Anne the Island was designated by the name of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. The terms at first excited the utmost dissatisfaction; but the progress of time has shown it to be the greatest blessing that either nation could have experienced.