:

"The Israelites looked for a Redeemer, who should come in future times they typified his advent by the scape goat and a variety of emblems. The Druids did the same, they looked for some one who was typified under the emblem of the mistletoe. 'The Druids hold nothing more sacred than the mistletoe, and the tree on which it is produced provided it be the oak. They make choice of groves of oak on this account; nor do they perform any of their sacred rites without the leaves of those trees. And whatever mistletoe grows on the oak they think is sent from heaven. They call it by a name which means the curer of all ills.'—(Pliny.)

"Virgil, speaking of the mistletoe, calls it the golden branch, and says, by its efficacious powers alone, man could return from the realms beneath. The Druids represented the Almighty by the oak, supposing that that tree exhibited in the liveliest manner the God of vegetative nature, eternal, omnipotent, and self existing, defying the assaults of a past eternity, and looking on the future as only equal to himself in duration. From him came the branch so much poken of by ancient prophets, the Curer of all our ills, who is indeed the resurrection and the life, without whose kind assistance we cannot return from the gloomy territories of the grave."

Without pledging ourselves to the belief of every sentiment contained in this passage, we beg to make one remark, that as it was a very general practice of the ancients to represent and convey their ideas by means of symbols taken from nature, especially by trees and plants, and their various parts;-that as trees in the garden of Eden were divinely pointed out, as emblematical of the most awful ideas-life and happiness, death and misery;-and that as the promised Saviour is repeatedly characterized in the sacred writings by the symbolical appellations of " Branch, Rod, Root of David, Tree of life, Plant of renown," we see no reason whatsoever for denying to the British Druids the right and propriety of making the mistletoe of the oak a symbol of the promised Saviour, and calling it the curer of all ills, to remind themselves and the people of the benefits which that Saviour would confer on them. And it is not a little singular, that among the several names by which the mistletoe is known in the Principality at the present day, one is, Oll-iach, All-heal. And no use seems to be made of it medicinally, though other Druidical herbs such as the vervain and cowslip are still in high repute.

Every part of the Mosaic dispensation was symbolical, and that not only with the consent, but by the appointment of God. And the Christian dispensation is not without its symbols, both in baptism and in the supper of the Lord. The Druids were consequently right in making use of symbols. And far be it from us to suppose that a custom of symbolizing did not originally prevail in the antediluvian world.

DRUIDICAL USE OF LETTERS.

It has often been a subject of controversy whether the ancient inhabitants of this island were acquainted with letters before their intercourse with the Romans. If the question be asked in reference to all classes generally, it can hardly be met by an affirmative. But if it be intended to apply only or principally to the higher classes of society, and to the several Orders of the Bardo-Druidic Institution, then an affirmative is the only reply. Julius Cæsar adverts to the subject in the following passages.

"Nor do they (the Druids) deem it lawful to commit those things which pertain to their discipline to writing; though generally in other cases, and in their private and public accounts, they use Greek letters.

They appear to me to have established this custom for two reasons; because they would not have their secrets divulged, and because they would not have their disciples to depend upon written documents, and neglect the exercise of memory."

From these passages it is evident that a knowledge of letters was common to the members of the Bardic Institution, and even to the pupils of it. And the restraint imposed upon the pupils, not to commit the institutes to writing, Cæsar ascribes to a desire in the first place, to prevent the regulations of the Order from being divulged; and in the next, to promote that exercise of the memory which was inseparable from the principles and practice of the Druidical system.

Cæsar's testimony then is decisive as to the use of letters among the Druids, even before his acquaintance with them. And when he called those letters Greek, it was from having observed a certain resemblance between the two alphabets. The researches of some Welsh Antiquarians of the present day have succeeded in restoring

to light the characters originally used by the Bards. And it is singular that they comprise with four or five exceptions all the old Etruscan or Pelasgic letters, which were probably but little different from the Greek characters used in the time of Cæsar- -a fact which serves at once to confirm his account and vindicate the genuineness of these Druidical remains.

This curious alphabet is called in the language of the Ancient Britons, Coelbren y Beirdd, the Token-stick of the Bards ;—a term derived from the ancient practice of cutting these letters across the surface of small pieces of wood, prepared for that purpose. A similar custom was in early ages common to other countries; and an allusion seems to be made to it on one occasion by the prophet Ezekiel. 66 Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it-For Judah and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick and write upon it-For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and all the house of Israel his companions: and join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one stick." (Chap. xxxvii.)

The sticks used for such purposes by the British Druids, were either square or trilateral: the square form was adapted to general subjects and poetical stanzas of four lines; and the trilateral to the inscription of triads and triplets. These sticks were afterwards joined in a frame, called the Peithynin or Elucidator, (previously explained in this Treatise,) an engraved specimen of which may be seen in Fry's Pantographia. A copy of the alphabet is also given in the same work, and in the Celtic Researches. We are prevented from furnishing a copy here for want of type.

As the British Druids made use of the traditionary art or memory for all the purposes of religious instruction, the question naturally What particular use did they make of letters ? The answer is supplied by those Law-Triads which describe the several duties of the Bards and Druids.

occurs,

"There are three duties incumbent upon the teachers of the country and the tribe, being learned men : 1. "To impart instruction, &c.

2. "To keep an authentic record, respecting privileges, customs, families, pedigrees of nobility by honourable marriages, heroic actions, and every thing of superior excellence of country and clan, that is performed in the court and in the sacred place, in peace and in war.

3. "They are to be ready at every appointed time and place to give instruction, advice, and information on sacred subjects, by reciting the authentic records, and by writing down what is given by judgment and custom in a proper book of records. More than this is not to be required of the instructers of the country, who are men of reading and writing, and of scientific reflection and wisdom, lest it should render them unable to perform their duty as regularly inducted teachers.-Triad 195.

"There are three distinguished literary characters:

1. He that has an acquaintance with literature, and can write and read the Kimbric language correctly, impart instruction respecting them, and keep a written record of the three subjects of record of the Bards of the Isle of Britain; and these are pedigrees of nobility by marriages, inheritances, and heroic actions. . . . . . -Triad 72.

66

There are three defects in the law: an uncertain claim, an imperfect defence, and unattested records.-Triad 96.

"There are three ways of guarding against the three preceding defects: 1. Keeping and maintaining judicious records respecting pedigrees and nobility by honourable marriages; and also respecting inheritances and the things connected with them. 2. Perfect evidence by correct witnesses and by authentic records, whether the recorder be living or dead. For the purpose of preventing the uncertainty of a claim, it is ordered and enjoined upon the Bards who are inducted by convention, that they shall keep record of descent and rank, and of partition of land”. . . . -Triad 97.

Considering the antiquity of these Triads, being of anterior date to Christianity, they satisfactorily decide the question as to the Druids' use and knowledge of letters in the affirmative. And as no allusion is made to the origin of letters it is more than probable that the art of writing in its rude state accompanied them from the seat of dispersion. Such is the deliberate opinion of the writer.

DRUIDICAL ALTARS AND TEMPLES.

All we intend to do under this head is simply to give a description of some of those Druidical remains which are called altars and temples, without attempting to assign reasons for the variation in their structural form. The date of these erections being so remote

that their use is entirely forgotten, it is more than probable that Antiquarians, misled by certain resemblances, have confounded two or three kinds of these monuments, which are really distinct, and which were erected for different purposes; calling that a bloody altar which was only a sepulchral monument, and that an observatory which was really a temple.

An incumbent stone, supported by two or more pillars has generally had the name of an altar; but the Author of the Celtic Researches is of opinion that such rude and massy structures were erected in memory of the Ark from an allusion made to them in one of the Triads under the name of Maen-arch, the Stone-ark, and Kist-vaen, Stonechest or ark. To this opinion the writer of this Treatise subscribes from conviction of its truth. But let the reader be aware that such structures were employed for Druidical purposes at the quarterly and annual conventions, not so much as altars as speaking stones. The space underneath the enormous covering stone, representing the interior of the ark, was occupied by the Bardic disciples or Druidical pupils; from which they came forth fully instructed in the mysteries and doctrines of that religion which Noah had preserved in the ark and his descendants conveyed into Britain, and were publicly admitted in the presence of the assembled tribes as authorized teachers.

A Druidical monument of this description in Gower, Glamorganshire, is thus described in Camden's Britannia.

They (the stones) are to be seen upon a jutting at the Northwest of Kevn Bryn, the most noted hill in Gower. Their fashion and posture is this: There is a vast unwrought stone, probably about twenty tons weight, supported by six or seven others that are not above four feet high, and these are set in a circle, some on end and some edgewise or sidelong, to bear the great one up. The great one is much diminished of what it has been in bulk, as having five tons or more, by report, broken off it to make mill stones : So that I guess the stone originally to have been between twenty-five and thirty tons in weight. The common people call it Arthur's Stone. Under it is a well, which as the neighbours tell me, has a flux and reflux with the sea."-(Gibson's Camden.)

Let us hear from the same pen the description of another, but similar monument, which appears as an appendage to an ancient temple.