Ossian Collection > Galic antiquities

34 AHISTORYO.F Chap. II.
fome of thefe, which was the sera of every corruption in their re-
ligion, that they practifed this horrid rite, if ever they did fo at all.
Some authors have taken great pains to exculpate them from this
charge, even from the teflimony of ancient writers *. As the ho-
nour of human nature and of our country may difpofe us to wifh,
fo many prefumptions may lead us to believe, this opinion to be
well founded. Thofe who have charged the Druids with the fact,
were greatly prejudiced againft them, as they were the perfons
who, from their love of liberty and vaft influence over the people,
made the mod ftrenuous oppofition to the encroachments of every
foreign power. They often flirred up the people to revolt, and
fhake off the yoke of the ufurpers. This was enough to render
them obnoxious to thofe who eftimated the barbarity of any people,
from the degree of bravery with which they oppofed their natural
enemies "j". It was enough to make them throw every poffible flur
upon their character, in order to raife againft them a general de-
teftation. That pride, likewife, which led the Greeks and Romans
to give all nations but their own the appellation of Barbarians,
would make them treat with indignation and contempt, the beft
inflitutions of the Druids. And the ignorance of thefe writers,,
whenever they treated of the religion of this order, muft have been
equal to either their pride or their prejudice. It muft have been
fo in this inftance more efpecially ; for a people who made it a fun-
damental maxim in their religion to conceal every part of it from
ftrangers, whom they in their turn defpifed, would moft of all
draw a clofe curtain over this rite if they had practifed it. But
left
* Vid. Lewis Hifl. Brit. c. 2. et au&. ab eo citat. f Vid- Tac. in
Vit. Agriu c. u. ad firu