greatest privileges; they had the supreme control over all religious ceremonies, and appeal could be made to their tribunal in civil cases; their persons were sacred, and they were exempted from all taxes and military service: in a word, they enjoyed so many immunities and distinctions, that princes were ambitious of being admitted into their societies. 12. They are divided into three classes, the Druids, properly so called, to whom the care of religion was entrusted; the Bards, who were the historical poets of the nation; and the Euvates, who were a kind of religious poets, that pretended to inspiration and delivered oracles. There were also female Druids, who were held in high respect, and frequently called

to assist at the council of the nation. The British Druids were the most celebrated, and the candidates for the priesthood were frequently sent from Gaul into Britain to complete their education. 13. The sun and fire were worshipped as the most forcible emblems of the Supreme Divinity; but they also adored the moon, and a host of inferior deities. The Druids exceeded all other heathens in the extravagant cruelty of their sacrifices; they not only offered up human victims singly, but on some occasions they formed a huge colossal figure of a man, from osier twigs, and having filled it with human beings, surrounded it with hay, and reduced

it, with all the miserable creatures it contained, to ashes. The great object of their reverence was the deru, or oak, from which their name is derived; and the misletoe, a parasitical plant, sometimes found growing on the oak, was especially venerated; it was annually cut with great ceremony, and carefully preserved by the Arch-Druid, or chief of the priests.

14. The learning of the Druids was confined, in a great degree, to a smattering of astronomy and anatomy: the former they cultivated in consequence of their belief in the influence of the stars, the latter they learned from the dissection of their human victims; but they seem never to have derived any practical advantage from either study. Like the priests of Egypt and Persia, they are said to have had two systems of religious belief, one for the vulgar, and one for the initiated; to the latter they taught the unity of the Godhead, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and the worthlessness of many practices required from the vulgar. The doctrine of the Metempsychosis which Pythagoras published to the Greeks appears to have prevailed amongst the Druids from the remotest antiquity.

15. The Druids were detested by the Romans because they stimulated the inhabitants to the most vigorous efforts for their independence; when, therefore, Gaul became a Roman province, the Druids were discouraged and their numbers diminished. Early in the second century, Christianity was introduced into the country, and spread over it with surprising rapidity. Many superstitious observances derived from the Druids prevailed, however, for several centuries afterwards. 16. It is worthy of remark, that the Celts were the most easily converted, and the most devotedly attached to the church of all the nations of antiquity. The Gothic nations, after their conversion, for the most part fell into the Arian heresy, but the Gauls were always zealously attached to the Catholic doctrines.

17. After the subjugation of Gaul by the Romans, the vanquished adopted the language and customs of the conquerors; the ferocity of the Gauls was abated, the arts of civilized life introduced, and the former national character almost effaced. But with their freedom the Gauls lost the military spirit by which their ancestors had been distinguished; luxury destroyed their courage, and they fell an easy prey to the descendants of those barbarians, by whom their ancestors had been expelled from the east of Europe.

2

How easy 'tis when destiny proves kind,
With full-spread sails to run before the wind.

DRIDEN.

1. THE Romans continued undisturbed masters of Gaul during two entire centuries; but about the year 260, various barbarous tribes began to make incursions into it; the emperors, sunk in debauchery, neglected the care of the provinces, and this beautiful country became the prey of its ferocious invaders. In the year 414, the Burgundians and Visigoths, two Germanic tribes, obtained from the emperor Honorius settlements in the southern provinces of Gaul, while the northern parts were seized on by the Franks, a fierce tribe, who had assumed their name from their firm determination to

remain free.

These people invaded Belgic Gaul, and, after a struggle which continued more than a century, succeeded in making themselves masters of a considerable tract, of which they made Treves the capital.

A. D.

486.

2. Before the accession of Clovis, several kings ruled over the Franks, of whom the most celebrated was Pharamond; he, as well as king Arthur, is a favourite hero of romance; his dynasty is usually called the Merovingian, from Mérovéus their supposed ancestor. 3. On the accession of Clovis, who was inaugurated in the usual manner of kings of the Franks by raising him on the shield, Gaul was divided into five states; that of the Burgundians and Visigoths in the south, that of the Franks in the north-east, the independent republic of Armorica, which occupied the place of the present province of Brittany, and a small part of Belgic Gaul, which still remained subject to the Romans. 4. The first enterprise of Clovis was an attack on the Roman province where Syagrius, the provincial governor, was aiming at royal power; Clovis, at the early age of nineteen, completely defeated Syagrius near Soissons, drove out the Romans, and thus laid the foundation of the future greatness of the French monarchy. It was after this battle, and the sacking of the city of the Soissons, that an