1830.] 265 ] 



,. -,, . / ...,' - v ff i*v,#, ?f<ptjM>. tv.v'.' -v "n.jJjT - 



THE ARCH-DRUID I 



A TALE OF THE ANCIENT BRITONS. 



THE Romans, it is well known, though they carried their victorious 

 arms through almost every quarter of England and Scotland, never 

 wholly subjugated Wales. Indeed, they rarely penetrated beyond what 

 were called, in later times, the Marches ; for, towards the south, the 

 mountain-fastnesses, deep woods, and indomitable spirit of the Silures, 

 precluded all chance of a permanent conquest. The Druids, too that 

 extraordinary and influential compound of the priest and warrior who 

 combined the shrewdest sagacity with the wildest superstition ; whose 

 religion was a heterogeneous amalgamation of the systems of Pytha- 

 goras, Zoroaster, and the Indian Bramins helped to keep alive the flame 

 of liberty ; and when once their patriotic appeals were gone forth, woe 

 to those on whose ears they fell unheeded ! Sometimes, however, it 

 happened that these martial hierarchs, usually scattered over the face 

 of the country, would be all assembled in convocation at Mona (Anglesea), 

 in which case such Roman cohorts as chanced to be encamped on the 

 borders, never failed to take advantage of their absence, ravage the 

 adjacent provinces, and occasionally retain possession of them for 

 months. 



It was on one of these occasions, when the whole fraternity of Druids 

 were assembled together in the performance of an annual sacrifice at 

 Mona, that three detachments of the Roman legion, entering South 

 Wales by the Brecon Van, advanced as far as the modern little town of 

 Llangadock. The leader of these troops was Sergius Publicola, a young 

 soldier of fortune, rude and uncultivated in mind, stern and unfor- 

 giving in temper, though not without some redeeming traits of open- 

 ness, simplicity, and good-nature. He was a Dacian, consequently a 

 slave by birth, but by his bravery and strict attention to his military 

 duties, had procured himself to be enrolled among the " cives," or citi- 

 zens, of Rome a privilege which enabled him to serve as a freeman 

 in the imperial armies, and in course of time to obtain the command of 

 part of the army quartered in Britain. Already, in this new capacity, 

 had he over-run a great portion of the western provinces, when the 

 news of the departure of the Druids for the chief seat of their hierarchy, 

 induced him to hasten into Wales. Here he met with but little deci- 

 sive opposition, and was soon enabled to intrench himself in the heart 

 of Carmarthenshire. One chieftain, however, occasioned him no slight 

 annoyance. This youth, by name Caradoc, was, like most of his coun- 

 trymen, a sworn foe to the Romans. He was the prince, or rather 

 king, of the Silures, and had lately strengthened his power by marriage 

 with Cartismandua, daughter to the queen of the Ordovices a proud, 

 sagacious woman, who, to beauty of superior order, added a crafty, vin- 

 dictive, but intrepid and romantic nature. In early life she had been 

 sent no uncommon thing with the patrician Britons, particularly with 

 those of the Ordovices to Rome, where she received a befitting edu- 

 cation, though fortunately unalloyed by the lax effeminacy -of the Ita- 

 lian dames of quality. She it was who, at the period to which this 

 tale refers, infuriated by the barbarities of the invaders, kept alive the 

 enmity of her husband and his tribe. Her domains skirted the Black 



MM. New Series. VOL. X. No. 57. 2 L 



