temperance, with a proneness to dissension, are mentioned as the leading characteristics of the nation. The reputation of bravery was more especially ascribed to the Norman races."

The only persons in Britain who possessed any knowledge before the Roman invasion, and even for some considerable time after it, were the Druids: the real extent of their attainments is, however, doubtful and superficial, from the fact that, though they were acquainted with the Greek letters, they taught almost entirely by memory, and committed little or nothing to writing. A summary of what is known concerning Druidical knowledge is contained in the following particulars:—Concerning the universe, they believed that it should never be entirely destroyed or annihilated, though it was expected to suffer a succession of violent changes and revolutions, by the predominating powers of fire and water. They professed to have great knowledge of the movements of the heavens and stars; indeed, their religion required some attention to astronomy, since they paid considerable regard to the changes of the moon. Their time was computed by nights, according to very ancient practice, by moons or months; and by years, when the planet had gone the revolutions of the seasons. That at least they knew the reversion of the seasons, as adapted to agricultural purposes, is evident from the fact, that Cæsar landed in Britain on the 26th day of August, when he states that the harvest was all completed, excepting one field, which was more backward than the rest of the country.

The sacred animal of the Druids' religion was the milk-white bull; the sacred bird, the wren; the sacred tree, the oak; the sacred plant, the mistletoe; the sacred herbs, the trefoil and the vervain; the sacred form, that of three divine letters or rays, in the shape of a cross, symbolizing the triple aspect of God. The sacred herbs and plant, with another plant, hyssop, the emblem of fortitude in adversity, were gathered on the sixth day of the moon. The great festivals of Druidism were three: the solstitial festivals of the rise and fall of the year, and the winter festival. At the spring festival, the bâltân, or sacred fire, was brought down by means of a burning-glass from the sun. No hearth in the island was held sacred till the fire on it had been relit from the bâltân. The bâltân became the Easter festival of Christianity, as the mid-winter festival, in which the mistletoe was cut with the golden sickle from the sacred oak, became Christmas. The mistletoe, with its three berries, was the symbol of the Deity in his triple aspect—its growth on the oak, of the incarnation of the Deity in man.

The canonicals of the Arch-Druid were extremely gorgeous. On his head he wore a tiara of gold, in his girdle the gem of augury, on his breast the ior morain, or breast-plate of judgment; below it, the glan neidr, or draconic egg: on the forefinger of the right hand, the signet ring of the order; on the forefinger of the left, the gem of inspiration. Before him were borne the volume of esoteric mysteries, and the golden implement with which the mistletoe was gathered. His robe was of a white linen, with a broad purple border.

The sickle with which the mistletoe was cut could not have been of gold, though so described. Stukeley maintains that the Druids cut the mistletoe with their upright hatchets of brass, called celts, put at the end of their staffs. The kind of mistletoe found to this day in Greece is the same with that found in England; and Sir James Smith, the distinguished botanist, contends that when the superstitions of the East travelled westward, our Druids adopted the Greek mistletoe as being more holy or efficacious than any other. The Druids, doubtless, dispensed the plant at a high price: "as late as the seventeenth century peculiar efficacy was attached to it, and a piece hung round the neck was considered a safeguard against witches." (W. Sandys, F.S.A.)

It is concluded that the Druids possessed some knowledge of arithmetic, using the Greek characters as figures, in the public and private computations mentioned by Cæsar; they were not unacquainted with mensuration, geometry, and geography, because, as judges, they decided disputes about the limits of fields, and are even said to have been engaged in determining the measure of the world. Their mechanical skill, and particularly their acquaintance with the lever, is generally argued from the enormous blocks of Stonehenge, and the numerous other massive erections of rude stone which are yet remaining in many parts of the kingdom, and which are commonly attributed to these times.

The remains of the mystic monument of Stonehenge, which stands in the midst of Salisbury Plain, have been variously explained, as to the purpose for which Stonehenge was reared. When perfect, it consisted of two circles and two ellipses of upright stones, concentric, and environed by a bank and ditch; and outside this boundary, of a single upright stone, and a sacred way, via sacra, or cursus. One writer has beheld in Stonehenge a work of antediluvians, and another, a sanctuary of the Danes; and Inigo Jones, a temple of the Romans. By the Saxons it was termed Stonhengist, the hanging stones; and thence came Stonehenge, of which we have this terrible historic legend:—

Ebusa, brother of Hengist, with his brother Octa, landed on the Frith of Forth with an armament of five hundred vessels. The Britons flew to arms. A conference was proposed by Hengist, and accepted by Vortigern. It was held at Stonehenge (Hengist's Stones), and attended by most of the nobility of Britain. On the sixth day, at the high feast, when the sun was declining, was perpetrated the "Massacre of the Long Knives," the blackest crime, with the exception of that of St. Bartholomew, in the annals of any nation. The signal for the Saxons to prepare to plunge their knives, concealed in their boots and under their military cloaks, into the breasts of their gallant, unsuspicious conquerors was, "Let us now speak of friendship and love." The signal for action were the words, "Nemet your Saxas," ("Out with your knives,") and the raising of the banner of Hengist—a white horse on a red field—over the head of Vortigern. Four hundred and eighty of the Christian chivalry of Britain fell before sunset by the hand of the pagan assassins; three only of name—Eidol Count of Gloucester, and the Princes of Vendotia and Cambria—escaping, the first by almost superhuman courage and presence of mind. Priests, ambassadors, bards, and the boyish scions of many noble families, were piled together in one appalling spectacle on the site of the banquet, "Moel Œore"—the Mound of Carnage, about three hundred yards north of the great Temple.

A learned band of inquirers are induced to consider Stonehenge as a Druidic temple, reared on the solitary plain long before Roman, Dane, or Saxon had set foot within the country. Still, Stonehenge was the work of two distinct eras: the smaller circles are attributed to the Celtic Britons, and the other to the Belgæ. There is a common notion that the stones cannot be counted twice alike; but when Charles II. visited Stonehenge in 1651, he counted and re-counted the stones, and proved to his satisfaction the fallacy of this notion.[4]

A few months since, Professor Nielson, in a paper read to the Ethnological Society, considered that Stonehenge was a temple of early fire-worshippers, and of pre-Druidical origin, and belonging to the "Bronze Period" of the northern archæologists. The remains of Stonehenge, he