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JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
THE DEUIDICAL MYTH. 
ABSTRACT OF LECTURE BY MR. R. N. WORTH, F.G.S. 
(Read November 13th, 1879.) 
The lecturer's conclusions were : " That the popular idea of the 
Druids is wholly founded in error ; that neither Caesar nor Pliny 
wrote from personal knowledge concerning them ; that the pro- 
fessedly historical accounts arc contradictory ; that the mental and 
social condition of the races among whom the Druids are said to 
have lived renders it impossible that the high intellectual status 
assigned to the Druids could be true ; that we have only the most 
incidental reference to their existence in this country, and abso- 
lutely none as to their connection with this locality ; that neither 
survival of superstitions and customs nor archaeology afford the 
smallest evidence concerning them ; that, in short, the popular 
Druid is merely a myth, created for the most part by the baseless 
fancies of modern writers, having no higher foundation in reality 
than the medicine-man of America, or the sorcerer of the African 
continent, and named not from the oak or any association there- 
with, but from presumed magical powers." 
THE " CEDIPUS COLONEUS" OF SOPHOCLES. 
ABSTRACT OF PAPER BY SIR GEORGE YOUNG, BART. 
(Read November 20th, 1879.) 
The great literature of ancient Greece had two distinct births or 
outbursts — the Ionian and the Athenian. Of the second, or Attic 
literature, the drama is the earliest development ; and the glory of 
