they ceased to be profitable, owing to the greater facilities for smelting afforded by the coal-fields of the midland and northern counties. The tin had long been worked in Cornwall, and exported thence to the Continent. The Cassiterides, or Tin Islands, is probably a name given by people unacquainted with the true geography of Britain to this region. Tin was exported from it as early as the fifth century B.C., for Herodotus (484-407) speaks of the "Cassiterides from which tin comes to us," though he disclaims all knowledge of them. That the Britons were governed by kings, one or other of whom, from time to time, acquired more or less authority over the others, we may learn from Cæsar. The same writer tells that they had a powerful priesthood, which bore the name of the Druids. His account of this class is as follows: "They are concerned with religious matters, per- · form sacrifices offered by the State and by private individuals, and interpret omens. Many of the youth resort to them for education, and they are held in high honour by the Gauls. They have the decision in nearly all the disputes that arise between States and individuals; if any crime has been committed, if any person has been killed, if there is any dispute about an inheritance or a boundary, it is the Druids who give judgment; it is they who settle the rewards and punishments. Any private person or any tribe refusing to abide by their decision is excluded from the sacrifice. This is the heaviest punishment that can be inflicted; for those so excluded are reckoned to belong to the godless and LAWS OF THE DRUIDS. 9 wicked. All persons leave their company, avoid their presence and speech, lest they should be involved in some of the ill-consequences of their situation. They can get no redress for injury, and they are ineligible to any post of honour. The Druids have a president, who exercises supreme authority among them. On his death the next highest to him in rank succeeds. If there are several who are equal, one is chosen by a general vote. Sometimes there is a conflict about the succession. . . . The system of the Druids is supposed to have been invented in Britain, and to have been introduced from that country into Gaul. To this day those who are anxious to make themselves more completely acquainted with it frequently visit the island for the purpose of study. The Druids do not serve in a campaign, and do not pay taxes along with their fellow-countrymen. They are exempted from all civil duties as well as from military service. Privileges so great induce many to submit themselves. voluntarily to this education; many others are sent by their parents and kinsfolk. These pupils are said to learn by heart a vast number of verses. Some, in consequence, remain under teaching for as many as twenty years. The Druids think it unlawful to commit this knowledge of theirs to writing (in secular matters and in public and private business they use Greek characters). This is a practice which they have, I think, adopted for two reasons. They do not wish that their system should become commonly known, or that their pupils, trusting in written documents, should less carefully cultivate their memory; and, indeed, it does generally happen that those who rely on written documents are less industrious in learning by heart, and have a weaker memory. The Druids' chief doctrine is that the soul of man does not perish, but passes after death from one person to another. They hold that this is the best of all incitements to courage as banishing the fear of death. They have much also to say about the stars and their motions, about the magnitude of the heavens and the earth, about the constitution of nature, about the power and authority of the immortal gods. And this they communicate to their pupils." It does not seem likely that the Druidical system really came from Britain into Gaul, if it is the fact that the Celtic inhabitants of the island came from the mainland. It has been suggested that in Cæsar's time the Druid power had become weakened in Gaul, where the system of civil government was superseding that of the priests, but that in Britain, as being a less civilized country, it still retained its old predominance. The stone circles, of which Stonehenge is the most famous and perfect example, but which are found scattered over Great Britain and North-western France, are commonly supposed to have been seats of Druid worship. The word Druid is generally referred to the Greek word for an oak (Spús) 'By Mr. C. Long in his edition of Cæsar, "De Bello Gallico." |