If you ask me Tolkien is a grossly sub-par reworking of bits of Norse myth and that's it. Poems in Elvish, give me a break.

The Hobbits are obviously English though. Evidence:

(1) they like beer and specifically pubs (OK, they could be Scottish or Irish as well on that basis. But no one else)

(2) they like books full of things they already know, set out fair and square, with no contradictions. That rules out the Celts who are a notoriously brainy if highly strung bunch, therefore by a process of elimination Hobbits are English.

Quite why Tolkien felt the country needed a mythology in which it was depicted as irritating little midgets I do not know, in the same way I have some difficulty in seeing LOTR as an improvement on Beowulf. Obviously the world of fantasy must remain closed to me...