Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851

f Espriella (Letter xxiv., p. 274., 3rd edit.), there is a remark, that the dark hair of the English people, as compared with the Northern Germans, seems to indicate a considerable admixture of southern blood. Now, in all modern ethnological works, this fact of present complexion seems to be entirely overlooked. But it is a fact, and deserves attention. Either it is the effect of climate, in which case the moral as well as the physical man must have altered from the original stock, or it arises from there being more "ungerman" blood flowing in English veins than is acknowledged. May I hazard a few conjectures?

1. Are we not apt to underrate the number of Romanised Celts remaining in England after the Saxon Conquest? The victors would surely enslave a vast multitude, and marry many Celtic women; while those who fled at the first danger would gradually return to their old haunts. Under such circumstances, that the language should have been changed is no wonder.

2. Long before the Norman Conqu