I must here interrupt the thread of this narration by observing, that
the only way to account for the present use of a different language in
the centre and most craggy parts of the Grey League, is by allowing that
the Tuscans, who, from the delicacy of their constitutions and habits,
were little able, and less inclined, to encounter the hardships of so
severe a climate and so barren a soil, never attempted to mix with the
original and more sturdy inhabitants of that unfavoured spot; but left
them and their language, which could only be a Celtic idiom, in the
primitive state in which they found them.[N]
But to proceed;--several Roman families, dreading the fury of the
Carthaginians under Hannibal, and perhaps, since during the rage of the
civil wars, and the subsequent oppressive reigns, interior commotions
and foreign invasions, forsook the Latium and Campania, and resorted for
a peaceful enjoyment of their liberty, some into the islands where
Venice now stands, and many into the mountains of the Grisons, where
they chiefly fixed their residence in the Engadine,[O] as appears not
only from the testimonies of authors,[P] but also from the names of
several places and families which are evidently of Roman derivation.
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