Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

250 DRUIDS.
creative magic that engenders a volume out of nothing;
as the grey vapour which steams from the copper chest,
dilatesand solidifies itself into a huge giant. Little did they
think, good easy men, into what monsters their eggs
were to be hatched after their death ; what Frickiuses,
and Keyslers, and Tolands, and Borlases, and Vallanceys,
and Smiths, and Ushers, and Campbells, and Huddle-
stones, and Stukelys, were to be spawned in future times,
themselves destined to vivify the casual hints of anti-
quity into an universal system, unknown probably to the
Arch Druid Chyndonax, or to Attius Patera Pater,
himself.
Wherever Druidism originated, whether before the
Deluge, as some of the learned think, or in the plain of
Shinar, after it, as others equally learned suppose, the
fundamental principle has undergone considerable revo-
lutions since first it was introduced into Britain by Samo-
thes the son of Japhet. The astrology of Magus and his
followers is no more. Their magic, like Mesmerism, is
dead, forgotten. The schools of the Saronides are
extinct. The theology, the philosophy, and the astronomy
of Druiyus are vanished into thin air. The oak has
ceased to grow, the misletoe has fled with it, and the
sacred breed of thrushes which the Druids cultivated for
its propagation, has been roasted or made into puddings.
Bardns and his followers have forgotten their songs,
" Cold is Cadwallo's tongue," and so is " proud Llew-
ellyn's lay ;" the harp is unstrung, and the sacred groves
and rocky steeps mourn their absent echoes. And as
Druidism yielded to Osiris, and as the idolatries of
Albin and Brute were succeeded by the preaching of St.
Paul and Joseph of Arimathea and the exertions of
Claudia Rufina, so the pious labours of Pudentiana,
Praxides, and Novatus,gave way to the edict of Antoninus,
the baptism of Lucius, and the holy toils of Eleutherus.
Augustina, Palladius, Fastidius, and their followers, were