of doubt. And nothing could prove it more
clearly, than that the Welsh and Cornish, whose
language was another dialect of the ancient Bri-
tish, should, from the fourth and fifth centuries,
have maintained an intimate correspondence
with the nations of Armorica: intermarrying
with them, and perpetually resorting to them for
troops against the Saxons, for the purposes of
traffic, and on every other important occasion.
And this intercourse will appear still more
natural, if we consider that Armorica was never
much frequented by the Romans, and that the
inhabitants of Cornwall and Wales, intermixing
in a very slight degree with the Romans, and
having suffered fewer alterations in their original
constitutions and customs, than any others,
long preserved their genuine manners and British
character. Even Cornwall retained its old Cel-
tic dialect till a very late period. *
"In Wales
and in Armorica," says Gibbon, "the Celtic.
tongue, the native idiom of the west, was pre-
served and propagated; and the bards, who had
been the companions of the Druids, were still pro-
tected, in the sixteenth century, by the laws of
Elizabeth.” ተ

Cam, Brit.

+ Decline and Fall Rom. Emp.

LET

LETTER LXXV.

THE periods of the Scythiac and Celtic histories, which ought to have been best illustrated, are unfortunately those which have been most neglected. It is, indeed, a mortifying reflection, that we should think the history of our own ancestors of no moment, in comparison with that of the Romans, who conquered and pillaged the whole world. The materials are certainly not very great. There are, however, some lucid traces. And it is a fact we ought all to feel, that the smallest even of our own kingdoms was superior in size and power to any of the heroic kingdoms of Greece, whose history we read with so much attention; and that the whole Grecian story, till the period of Alexander, was not in itself more important or more interesting than that of the heptarchy of England.

Mankind, when in their rude state, have a great uniformity of manners; but, when civi

lized,

།

lized, they are engaged in a variety of pursuits; they tread on a larger field, and separate to a greater distance. Every nation is a motley assemblage of different characters, and contains, under whatever political form, some examples of that variety, which the humours, tempers, and apprehensions of men, so differently employed, are likely to furnish. Every profession has its point of honour, and its system of manners; the trader his punctuality and fair dealing; the statesman his capacity and address; the man of society his good breeding and wit. Every station has a carriage, a dress, a ceremonial, by which it is distinguished, and by which it suppresses the national character under that of the rank, or the individual: and this description may be applied equally to Athens and to Rome, to London and to Paris, to Bishops and to Druids. *

The performers of all sacrifices; the performers of all religious rites; and the expounders of all sacred and moral laws among theCelts, were the Druids. They also, as I have already said, instructed youth in all sorts of learning, such as philosophy, astronomy, astrology, the immortality and transmigration of the soul. And this their

* Ferguson.

↑ De Bello. Gall.

their philosophy, at least in the opinion of Arístotle, was supposed to have passed from them into Greece, and not from Greece to them. Pythagoras in particular is declared, but I should think erroneously, to have taken his metempsychosis from the Druids. * In their researches on the soul, the Druids departed from the opinion of the ancient Brachmans, who supposed that the soul of man was a portion of the irresistible principle which pervades and moves the immense body of the universe. The ideas of the Druids concerning God, was certainly the same with those of the eastern philosophers. But they placed in the human frame a distinct intelligence, capable of happiness, and subject to misery. The immortality of the soul was the first principle of their faith, and the great hinge upon which the religion of the ancient British, as well as of all other branches of the Celtic stock, originally turned.

With their speculative opinions, the Druids inculcated upon their followers, some general maxims of social conduct. The result of their inquiries in other branches of philosophy, however, their discoveries in the nature and properties of matter, they confined to a few; to astonish

tonish into veneration for their order, a race of men whom they wished to govern through the channel of prejudice and error. Darkness was favourable to the continuance of their power. Hesiod and Homer, with most of the ancient authors, pass the highest eulogiums on the Druidical learning; and even go so far, in consequence, as to call the Britannic isles the Barbarian Paradise. The Celts themselves, according to Plutarch and Procopius, placed their paradise in Britain and the neighbouring islands: and hence we need not be surprised at the extraordinary sanctity and veneration, in which the Druids of these islands were held; neither are we to discredit what Pliny says, that the science of divination, and the philosophy of the Magi, were exercised in Britain with such admiration, and with such unusual ceremonies, that the Persians themselves might have learned instruction from the schools of the Britons.*

Besides the higher studies, the Druids were also fkilful naturalists. They were well acquainted with the use of simples; and almost exclusively exercised the profession of the healing art. They are, indeed, supposed, as I have said, to have taught the transmigration of souls;

VOL. IV.

Gg

Hist. Nat. 30, I.

and