the
East were probably Druids--Island of Iona--Druidical
Cairns--Stones of Judgment--Mr. Rust's
Opinion--Misletoe regarded as a Charm--Rings worn as
Preventatives against Witchcraft--Legend concerning
Stonehenge--A Famous General--Merlin the
Magician--Stones brought from Africa by Giants--Graves
of British Lords.

Dr. Stuart, writing of the Druids, says their chief deity was Mercury,
of whom they have many images. They also worship Apollo and Mars, and
Jupiter and Minerva. They held a meeting at a certain time of the year
in a consecrated spot. They used rites of augury from the slaughter of
human victims. According to Strabo, three classes of persons were much
venerated among the Gauls--the Bards, Druids, and Soothsayers.

Caesar, from whom Dr. Stuart largely borrows, tells us that the whole
of the Gallic nation was exceedingly superstitious. People of
distinction who laboured under the more fatal diseases, and those who
engaged in battles and other dangerous undertakings, either immolated
human beings, or vowed that they would immolate themselves. They
employed the Druids as their ministers at those sacrifices. It was
thought the divine nature of the immortal gods could not be
propitiated but by human life being substituted for human life. There
were, Caesar continues, effigies of immense magnitude, interwoven with
osiers, filled with living men. Then these former being ignited, the
latter perished in the flames. The people thought that the sacrifices
of guilty human victims, apprehended in the act of theft, robbery, or
any other crime, were more agreeable to the immortal gods than those
of innocent persons; but when the supply of culprits failed,
non-guilty victims were sacrificed. All the Gauls boasted that they
were descended from Dis as their father--a tradition communicated to
them by the Druids. Funeral rites, considering the culture of the
Gauls, were magnificent and sumptuous. Everything dear to the
deceased, when alive, was carried into the fire. Even the animals did
not escape; and, to manifest high esteem for a person of note, his
slaves and clients who were beloved by him, were cremated together
after the obsequies demanded by justice had been performed.

Pliny writes that the Druids exhibited the herb vervain in the
exercise of their rites. They had tallies, consisting of sprigs lopped
from a fruit-bearing tree, marked in a particular manner, thrown into
a