VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 293 



many old monuments out of approved Greek and Latin authors; delivering also 

 a chronological history of this kingdom, from the first traditional beginning 

 until the year of our Lord 800, when the name of Britain was changed for that 

 of England; together with the antiquities of the Saxons as well as the Phoeni- 

 cians, Greeks, and Romans, having prefixed a curious map of the ancient 

 world, representing the progress of the Phoenicians in their remote voyages, 

 and the countries which they discovered, with the names they imposed on 

 them. 



To observe some of the things that are most suitable to the nature of these 

 tracts ; I shall first take notice of that inquiry, whether Britain was ever part of 

 the continent? which he answers in the negative by various arguments, parti- 

 cularly that which, from the likeness of the soil, concludes a conjunction of 

 earth: and shows that it was nothing more than the same vein of ground which 

 ran under water from one country to another, which he illustrates from philo- 

 sophical considerations. 



Secondly, I shall take notice of the most ancient philosophical order of peo- 

 ple in Britain, the bards, a Phoenician appellation of men, who in poetical 

 strains were wont to sing, not only of the praises of the Gods, the essence and 

 immortality of the soul, the virtues of great men, but also of the works of na- 

 ture, the course of celestial bodies, and the order and harmony of the spheres; 

 though afterwards by their degeneracy they gave an opportunity to the druids to 

 get the upper hand of them; who yet notwithstanding did not abolish all the 

 customs and doctrines of the bards, but retained the most useful parts of them, 

 of which that of the immortality of the soul was one, to which they added the 

 soul's transmigration, according to the opinion of Pythagoras; about whose 

 time, or a little after. It Is believed that the Greeks entered this island. These 

 druids had, after the bards, a government that was universal over the whole 

 country, both in civil and religious affairs ; and they were exempt both from the 

 services of war, and from paying any taxes; by which immunities many were 

 invited to enter themselves Into that order and discipline. It seems this order 

 of men was In so great reputation, that the Gauls, though they had themselves 

 druids in their country, yet sent their children into Britain, to be instructed in 

 the mysteries of the druids here. 



Thirdly, that as the Britons were originally a branch of the Cimbri, a peo- 

 ple of Germany, who anciently came and seated themselves in Britain ; so the 

 Saxons that were invited hither after a revolution of so many ages from that 

 time, were a true branch of those very CImbrI that had seated themselves so 

 long ago before them in this Island. Nor need It to be wondered that if the 

 ancient Britons and the later Saxons be derived from the same stock, (the Cim- 



