Albury. ASPIRE! Let a just Ambition fire GOD and Man to serve; Man, with zeal and honour due, Let not Doubt thine efforts tire, And with these contented well, From the perils deep and dire And, while thus a self-denier, Though alone,-no soul alive Ever stoutly dared to strive, But saw the battle won! Higher then, and always higher,- Whosoe'er he be; Holy liver! happy dier! Earth's poor best, and Heaven's quire, Are reserved for thee! 29 MARTIN F. TUPPER. THE DRUIDS. But THE Egypt, the Assyria, the Italy, and the Mexico of ancient days, are still well known; for their structures were stone, and their own story was engraven on them. ancient Britain has vanished. A fragment of pottery, a hatchet of flint, a funeral urn is occasionally found, which sends us back to days before the Romans; but in neither Irish bogs nor Cornish sands is there much likelihood of discovering a Celtic Nimroud or Pompeii. Nor is our climate a good conservator of such antiquities as wattled huts and wicker coracles. But about sixty years before the Christian era Britain was invaded by Julius Cæsar. Like all great conquerors, he was a master spirit; and like all master spirits, he was a man of clear ideas and correct information; and for our knowledge of our earliest ancestors we are more indebted to the narrative which Cæsar wrote, most probably in the tented field, than to all authorities besides. The religion of ancient Britain was Druidism. Its origin is unknown; but as the transmigration of souls was one of its tenets, it is likely to have come from the East. Its worship was conducted in the recesses of gloomy forests, and human victims were a frequent sacrifice. On the principle of life for life, if a man were in danger of death from disease or in battle, he would vow to the gods that if rescued he would give them another in his stead. Should he survive, he employed the Druids to execute his vow; and if they could find a thief or evil-doer, they immolated him on the altar. But if no criminal could be procured, they did not scruple to take the life of the innocent. Cæsar mentions that they sometimes filled a monstrous image of wickerwork with living men, and then surrounded it with fagots, and consumed it in the flames as a holocaust to their dire divinities. The Druids were the scholars of their day; and, like the clerical lawyers and reverend chancellors of a subsequent period, they had got into their hands the entire administration of justice; and just as in the superstitious middle age, no penalty could be severer than excommunication. Under a priestly "interdict," a man was not only excluded from assemblies for worship, but his neighbours were forbidden to come near him, or to comfort him with food or fire, and he was treated as in all respects a creature accursed. One division of the Druidical order was the bards, and their literature most likely consisted entirely of metre. The cyclopædia included speculations on the nature of the gods, the destiny of the soul, the size of the world, and the motions of the stars. It extended to twenty thousand verses, and it required twenty years' study to complete the entire circle of its sciences. Britain was regarded as the abode of the most learned or orthodox Druids, and young novices from Gaul took pilgrimages, and crossed the Channel, in order to sit at the feet of its grey-bearded professors. The Druidical superstition suffered from the Roman invasion, and in regions where Roman colonies were established it was replaced by the gods and the altars of the conqueror. Its last great fight was in A.D. 61. The governor, Suetonius Paulinus, then attacked and subdued the Isle of Anglesea, after a conflict at the outset of which the legions faltered before the wild fury of the Britons. Great numbers of Druids, who had been exciting the combatants, were captured and consumed in the fires which they had prepared for the Roman soldiers, and their sacred groves were cut down. For many ages stragglers survived in the mountains of Wales, and the Welsh bards still claim a Druidical pedigree. Even after Christianity was established, a strong root of this old paganism still remained in the soil; and it was needful to preach and pass laws against it. Nor are all its traces to the present hour extinct. The mistletoe, which played so signal a part in Druidical incantations, has still its honour and observance; and in some parts of the country it is considered a cure to creep through the tolmans, or perforated rocks, ascribed to the Druids. From their occurring in regions where the Druids once abounded, and from the fact that at periods comparatively recent some of them were still surrounded by oaks or the roots of trees, there is little reason to doubt that most of the stone circles and huge blocks placed on supports or pillars, which are still extant in Anglesea, Cornwall, Wilts, and elsewhere, are Druidical monuments. Of these the most extensive is at Abury, in Wiltshire; but the best preserved and the most striking is Stonehenge. Its pillars are fourteen feet in height above the ground, and so massive as to weigh upwards of thirty tons; giving an impressive idea of the strength and mechanical skill which reared such Cyclopean masonry. |