no STATE OF BRITAIN 



many states, and inferior to their conquerors 

 in the art of war. They had a digested system 

 of morals, and a firmly established religion, 

 which was common to their country and to 

 Gaul. Their priests spent a considerable part 

 of their lives in study. Into the mazes of 

 metaphysics, they seem to have penetrated 

 deeply ; and they acquired a degree of command 

 over their followers, not surpassed by any of 

 those who have succeeded them. To the present 

 day our manners are tinged with their routine 

 of observances, more particularly in rural su- 

 perstitions and festivities. The Druids sunk long 

 since, and their system is now seen only through 

 the mist of obscurity, as we recede from them 

 floating down the stream of time. But so have 

 the systems which formerly prevailed on the 

 banks of the Tiber, of the Nile, and of the 

 Euphrates ; and Druidism would probably ap- 

 pear as venerable as any of those other systems 

 which flourished in ancient days, but are now 

 no more, if we had had their doctrines handed 

 down to us in writings. The Gauls, we are told, 

 looked up to Britain as more enhghtened in their 

 common religion ! Is it not a fair inference 

 from this, that the Britons were considered a 

 more enlightened people than the Gauls ? 



Until lately it was a generally received opinion, 



