121 
Chartres, that being the centre of the kingdom. Besides their 
sacred and perpetual fires and minarets, they had also their sacred 
gems, herbs, eggs, stones, and their venerated All-heal, or mis+ 
selto, “ gathered,” says Pliny, “ by a priest robed in white, and in 
his hand a gold pruning knife.”* Czsar+ gives a frightful account 
of their human sacrifices, and so have others; but, these abomina- 
tions, augury, and various superstitions, mark only the latter part of 
the Druidic history. It was pure in its origin, and so continued for 
many ages. 
The last quoted writer had been informed, that the Gauls resorted 
to the Britons, as their teachers in the doctrine of Druidism. That 
might have been so, in Casar’s time; but none will deny that the 
Gomerian tribes, in their early emigrations to the European conti- 
nent, had brought with them their language, religion, and laws. 
When Cesar wrote, that is, about a half-century before Christi- 
anity, Britain, or rather Mona, might have been a great mart of 
Druidic learning ; in that respect, however, it has not been so ce- 
lebrated as Ireland, the Terne of Aristotle, the Sacra Insula of 
Avienus. So distinguished had the latter country been immemori- 
ally for its mithratic worship, its holy fires and altars, that it had 
been considered a consecrated island many centuries before Chris- 
tianity. It was the country of the celebrated Abaris, the Druid, the 
priest of Apollo,t and the associate of Pythagoras ;§ and there is 
no reason whatever to doubt, that it is the Hyperborean island of 
Hecateus and Diodorus, || ‘ situated opposite the Celt, fruitful, 
pleasant, and dedicated to Apollo.” Our pagan annals, the sacred 
characters and Druidic fragments they contain, the numerous mo- 
s2 
* Hist. Nat. 1. 16, C. 44. + Comment. 1. 6. 
t Porphyrius in Vita Pythag. Jamblichus, I. 1, c. 28. 
§ Ibid, | L. 2. p. 130. 
