notice of ensuing sickness or health from the various figures
pourtrayed upon the surface. The people of Laconia cast into a pool,
sacred to Juno, cakes of bread corn: if the cakes sunk, good was
portended; if they swam, something dreadful was to ensue. Sometimes the
superstitious threw three stones into the water, and formed their
conclusions from the several turns they made in sinking." The Druids
were likewise able to communicate, by consecration, the most portentous
virtues to rocks and stones, which could determine the succession of
princes or the fate of empires. To the Rocking or Logan stone, several
of which remain still in Devonshire and Cornwall, in particular, they
had recourse to confirm their authority, either as prophets or judges,
pretending that its motion was miraculous. These religious rites were
celebrated in consecrated places and temples, in the midst of groves.
The mysterious silence of an ancient wood diffuses even a shade of
horror over minds that are yet superior to superstitious credulity.
Their temple was seldom any other than a wide circle of rocks
perpendicularly raised. An artificial pile of large flat stone usually
composed the altar; and the whole religious mountain was usually
enclosed by a low mound, to prevent the intrusion of the profane. "There
was something in the Druidical species of heathenism," exclaims Mr.
Whitaker, in a style truly oriental, "that was well calculated to arrest
the attention and impress the mind. The rudely majestic circle of stones
in their temples, the enormous Cromlech, the massy Logan, the huge
Carnedde, and the magnificent amphitheatre of woods, would all very
strongly lay hold upon that religious thoughtfulness of soul, which has
ever been so natural to man, amid all the wrecks of humanity--the
monument of his former perfection!" That Druidism, as existing
originally in Devonshire and Cornwall, was immediately transported, in
all its purity and perfection, from the East, seems extremely probable.

Among the sacred rites of the Druids there were none more celebrated
than that they used of the misletoe of the oak. They believed this tree
was chosen by God himself. The misletoe was what they found but seldom:
whenever, therefore, they met with it, they fetched it with great
ceremony, and did it on the sixth day of the moon, with which day they
began both their months and their years. They gave a name to this shrub,
denoting that it had the virtue of curing all