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religion, policy, virtue and decorum? Is this the idea Tacitus gives us of them, who, though born and educated in ancient Rome, professed that in many things ancient Germany was the object of his admiration and envy. I will not deny but that they were very far from possessing that politeness, knowledge and taste which excite us to search with an earnestness almost childish, amid the wrecks, of what by way of excellence, we call Antiquity; but allowing this its full value, must we carry it so high, as to refuse to bestow the least attention on another kind of Antiquities; which may, if you please, be called Barbarous, but to which our manners, laws and governments perpetually refer?
The study of the antient Celtic ‘and Gothic’ Religions hath not only appeared devoid of blossoms and of fruits; it hath been supposed to be replete with difficulties of every kind. The Celtic Religion, it is well known, forbad its followers to divulge its mysteries in writing[1], and this prohibition, dictated either by ignorance or by idleness, has but too well taken effect. The glimmering rays faintly scattered among
- ↑ So Cæsar relates of the British Druids, “Neque fas esse existimant ea (Carmina scil.) Litteris mandare.”——De Bell. Gall. lib. 6. 13.
