33^ STUDIES OF NATURE. 



they give fuch credit to the dreadful ftories retailed 

 by the Druids, refpedling their Divinities, and fear, 

 as is generally the cafe, aflbciates with thefe tra- 

 ditions circumflances fo terrifying, that the Priefts 

 frequently tremble much more than the people, 

 before the idols which they themfelves had fabri- 

 cated. I am, thence, thoroughly convinced of the 

 truth of the maxim of our facred books, which 

 fays, — Jupiter has ordained, that the evil which 

 a man does to his fellow-creature, fhould recoil, 

 with feven-fold vengeance, upon himfelf, in order 

 that no one may find his own happinefs in the mi- 

 fery of another. 



There are, here and there, among fome of the 

 Gallic Nations, Kings who cftablifh their own au- 

 thority, by undertaking the defence of the weak ; 

 but it is the women who preferve the Nation from 

 ruin. Equally opprefled by the Laws of the 

 Druids, and by the ferocious manners of the 

 larles, they are doomed to the moft painful of- 

 fices, fuch as cultivating the ground, beating about 

 in the woods, to ftart game for their huntfmen, 

 and carrying the baggage of the men on their 

 journies. They are, befides, fubjefted, all their 

 life long, to the imperious governance of their 

 own children. Every hufband has the power of 

 life and death over his wife, and when he dies, if 

 there arifes the llighteft fufpicion that his death 



was 



