00 HISTORY OF THE DRUIDS. 



ces, boundaries, &c. ; they inflicted punishments 

 and death as they pleased. 



They could interdict whole tribes who refused 

 to submit to their decrees. This sentence was so 

 awful, that the persons against whom it was ful- 

 minated, were not only excluded from all saciifices 

 and religious rites, but they were held in universal 

 detestation as impious and abominable. Their 

 company was avoided as dangerous and contamina- 

 ting : they >t ere declared incapable of any trust or 

 honour, put out of the protection of the laws, and 

 exposed to every species of insult. They attended 

 armies and punished soldiers : the princes their 

 could not give battle till the pi iest had performed 

 auguries and declared they were favourable. 



Kespecting their subsistence, the druids had an 

 ample provision. Annual dues were exacted from 

 every family by the priest of that temple, within 

 whose district that family dwelt ; they were obliged 

 under the penalty of excommunication to extinguish 

 their fires on the last evening of October, and to at- 

 tend at the temple with their annual payment ; and 

 on the first day of November to receive some of the 

 sacred fire from the altar to rekindle those in their 

 houses. By this device they were obliged to pay, 

 or be deprived of the use of fire at the approach of 

 winter, when the want of it would be more felt. If 

 any neighbour out of compassion supplied them with 

 fire, or even conversed with them in their state of 

 delinquency, they were laid underthe same terrible 

 sentence of excommunication. See Toland's Hist, 

 of the Druids, page 71. They were the most opu- 



