THE ANCIENT DRUIDS.

AVE you become acquainted with the history of the Druids, reader? If not, it will abundantly repay your attention, I am sure. I have taken a good deal of pains to inform myself in relation to these people, and have become a good deal interested in them.

When Julius Cæsar conquered Britain, the Druids had great power and influence on the island. He gives a very particular account of them; and it is to this account, more perhaps than any other authority, that we are indebted for what we know of this singular sect. We do not know at what period they originated in Britain; but we have reason to believe that the date of their origin is very remote. Very likely they existed centuries before the inva

sion of Cæsar.

The objects of their worship were very numerous. Some think they had almost as many deities as the ancient Egyptians. Among the things they held sacred was the oak; and it is from their veneration for the oak (called deru in the old British or Celtic language) that the name of the sect is derived. Under this tree the Druids were accustomed to meet, and go through with the formalities of their strange and mysterious worship. It appears that the mistletoe, too, which, to this day, has a strong partiality for the oak, and which one may frequently see there, climbing up that majestic tree, shared largely in the idolatrous regard of the Druids. On the sixth day of the moon, they came in solemn procession to the tree on which it grew, and offered up sacrifice there. They prepared a feast beneath its hallowed branches, adorning themselves with its leaves. White bulls were dragged into the ceremony. Their necks were bowed, and their foreheads bound to a bough of the tree on which the mistletoe grew. Their loud bellowings mingled with the music

of the anthem which was chanted by the worshipers. These bulls being sacrificed, the chief Druid ascended the oak, treading haughtily upon the backs and shoulders of the slaves, who struggled to afford him, in their own persons, a series of steps for the ascent. They eagerly bowed their necks, that the sacred priest might trample upon them; he, in the meantime, gathering his white garment in his hand and drawing it aside, lest it should become sullied by contact with their mean apparel. Below him stood other priests of the sect, their spotless robes outspread, ready to catch the sprigs of the sacred mistletoe as they fell from the tree. The multitudes assembled carried home with them each one of the sprigs, or, at least, a leaf or berry of the supposed precious and all-healing plant.

The Druids wore their hair short, but their beards long. The priests, or higher orders, carried a wand in their hand, which the superstitious people regarded with awe, supposing that miracles could be wrought by means of it. Around their neck they wore

an ornament called the Druid's egg.

The island of Anglesey was their chief seat of residence. There they had their principal seminary, and held an annual meeting of the whole order. Such was the reputation of this seat of learning, as we learn from the history of that age, that the Gauls, on the other side of the channel, sent their children there to be educated.

Historians have distinguished the Druids into three classes, or grades the Druids, more properly so called; the Bards; and the Vates.

Those which ranked under the first class united a secular with a priestly authority. They regulated all public affairs; presided over the mysteries of religion; offered all great sacrifices; and adjusted most religious ceremonies. Their power even extended to the life of the laity, or common people. Their decisions were final-from them there was no appeal. They were all, however, obliged to obey the arch Druid, who was elected from their body for life, as the pope is now elected by the cardinals. The person of this primate was held sacred, and the power of deposing kings rested. with him. His will must have been perfectly absolute, I should suppose.

The Bards were not only priests, but national teachers, heralds, poets, and musicians. To them was committed the trust of educating children of all ranks. In their memories were stored the exploits of their heroes for centuries. They composed verses in honor of these heroes, which they sang, accompanied by the lyre or harp of the ancient Celts. I shall be told, I suppose, that the harp

had an Eastern origin, and that the ancient Britons knew nothing of it. But it has been proved conclusively to my mind, that the Celts were acquainted with the harp, and that this was the instrument which Julius Cæsar represents the Bards among the Druids as having used in his day. The harp was known, too, at a very early period in Ireland. Hence the so frequent use of this symbol by the Irish people. After what I have said about this second class among the Druids, it is quite unnecessary, I suppose, to tell you how, in a later age, the term bard came to be applied to poets universally.

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