31 8 SKETCH OP rm history op the 



Liberty I feek and have. 



Where the green birchen branches wave. — 



Keep afecretfrom a ittave. 



Snow a robe o'er hamlets flings ; 

 In the wood the raven fings.— 

 foo mud /lap no profit brings. 



When the moutttain fnow is fpread. 

 Stags love funny vaies to tread. — 

 Vain it forrow for the dead. 



Fair the moon's refplendent bo#| 

 Shining on the mountain fnow. — 

 Pedct the tvicked never know. 



The Immenfe power that the druids had acquired, 

 drew on their heads the vengeance of the Romans, 

 who in other inftances were not often intolerant. 

 The pretext for firft attacking them was the cruel- 

 ties committed in confequence of the horrid rites of 

 their religion : the true reafon appears, however, to 

 have been the great influence that they had obtained 

 over the minds of the people. In Gaul they are faid 

 to have been entirely deftroyed under the reign of 

 the emperor Claudius, before the year 45 ; and, in 

 Britain, Suetonius Paullnus, the governor of the 

 country under Nero, having taken the ifland of 

 Anglefea, not only cut down the facred groves of 

 the druids, and overturned their altars, but alfo 

 confumed many of the druids in their own fires *. 

 All who efcaped this maffacre fled immediately from 

 the country, and fought for refuge in Ireland, the 

 iflands of Man and Bardfey, where the Roman 

 fword had not then reached. 



* Tacit. Anij, xiv. 30. 



l^QVEL 



