thus too have been frequently employed such terms as electric currents and magnetic influences.

It is appropriate to all these solvents of difficulties, which have passed current from time immemorial, and are accepted without examination, that there are no strict boundaries to their sphere of application. Whenever the difficulty arises, the solvent is at hand without a question whether its application has limits which have been passed. What is said of old about the Druids is applicable to the Celts, as distinguished from the Germans. Those who have gone into the causes of Druidism attribute its vast power and mysterious influence to the special proneness of the Celtic tribes to subject themselves to the influence of some priesthood, while the Gothic people were shy of any intervention by human beings between themselves and the mighty deities they idolised. Yet in modern literature we find Druidism applied to the Gothic as readily as to the Celtic nations, and that although there are full means of being acquainted with the religion of those nations, and of knowing that it was something entirely different from the system brought into shape under the name of Druidism.

Modern authors, succeeding each other, have filled up the details of that system, and made it almost as complete as the Romish hierarchy. We have Archdruids and simple Druids; some set to this kind of work, some to that. We are told of the doctrines that they taught, and especially what they thought of the immortality of the soul. We are told of their various arrangements for exercising the influence of mystery on their deluded followers, and for preserving in profound secrecy the traditions of their order and the

sources of their influence. Their costume, their pomp and ceremonies, are accurately described. They were long-bearded men clothed in white, and went forth with golden sickles to cut the mistletoe at the appointed hour of doom. We have their temples among us in a very distinct condition, with the altars on which they offered up human sacrifices, and the mystic signs which they left on the rock pillars which of old stood in the centres of their sacred groves.

After reading all that is thus piled up with the solemn gravity of well-founded knowledge, it is positively astounding to look back and see on how small and futile a foundation it all rests. When we are told of the interesting mysteries that surround the functions of this potent priesthood, we are led to a real source of mystery-how to account for the perverse ingenuity which framed such a baseless system, and for the marvellous credulity that accepted it as solid truth. The foundation of the whole is that short passage by Cæsar so well known. He unbends himself from the solemn narrative of the aggrandisement of Rome under his guidance, and speaks of one or two of the curious matters that came under his notice in the country of the barbarians. First we have these Druids, who direct religious ceremonies, decide controversies, teach youth, hold annual assemblies, and make mighty osier cages. like gigantic images, in which they burn human beings, —who were acquainted with the Greek character, and committed some of their secrets to writing. Next among curiosities is the unicorn that roams in the Hyrcinian forest, and another animal, frequenting the same district, which has no knee-joints, cannot consequently rise when it is once down, and, owing to this

weakness, is caught by cutting through the tree against which it leans at night. The scornful carelessness with which he spoke of such matters becomes at once apparent when, after having spoken of the priesthood, he speaks of their deities. The chief object of their devotion is Mercury, and next in order come Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva, so that these Druids were either humble imitators of the Roman form of polytheism, or Cæsar spoke without knowing or caring what he said. The credulous mind of the elder Pliny seems to have found an interest in a people so peculiar, and he adds to what Cæsar says a little information after his own fashion. Among his supernatural wonders, one is the anguineum or serpents' egg, which the Druids used as a universal medicine or medical amulet. He had seen one; it was about the size of an apple. It was not laid by one animal, but collectively by a group of serpents, and he who secured it had to take flight on a fleet horse to escape the pursuit and vengeance of the plundered serpents.

When there are strong controlling influences at work over large bodies of mankind, whether in a political or ecclesiastical shape, we expect to encounter them and their practices in the history of the times. We are to suppose that throughout all the great Gaulish tribes there was, as our modern historians tell us that there was, a potent hierarchy holding supreme spiritual authority over the people and their secular rulers. They had the entire control over the education of the people, being alike the repositories of the venerable traditions of the past, and the recipients of all recent knowledge. They were the supreme judges in all disputes, and ratified their decisions by excommunication. rank and influence were made manifest to the of

Their eyes

the people by imposing ceremonies and awful sacrifices, of which human lives were an element. They were still further strengthened by their annual assemblies in the heart of Europe, whence each carried to his district a delegation from the central power of the vast corporation. We are told that all this was venerable in Cæsar's time, and that it lasted throughout the Gaulish nations, until one by one they were received into the bosom of the Christian Church.

What we naturally expect is to meet with the influence of this power, and with the doings of the persons who wielded it, in history. The history of Europe from Cæsar's time to the reign of Constantine is sufficiently full of events, but we find no Druids concerned in them. Occasionally in rhetoric prose, or in poetry, they are brought up to give picturesqueness to the scene; as where Tacitus, in his narrative of the capture of Mona, describes the shrieking women and the band of Druids invoking the gods; and Lucan, when enumerating the evils that befall unhappy Gaul when Cæsar crosses the Rubicon on his way back, makes the Druids resume their mysterious orgies. But we never meet with any distinct political result of their collective influence, nor are we ever brought in contact with an individual Druid as a historical personage. No doubt, in modern books, persons of celebrity in the ancient world are said to have been Druids, but this is because their authors have concluded that they must have belonged to that order, not because they are so called by any contemporary writer.' A Druid is indeed a being rarely individual

1 So Mr Godfrey Higgins, in a very learned quarto volume on the Celtic Druids, startles his reader by the announcement that Virgil was a Druid. Of Abaris, who, according to Herodotus, came from the Hyperboreans,