Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

2G0 DRUIDS.
inteiceptins: f>nd reading- tbein, it is a further proof that
they knew some letters. The precaution would else have
been superfluous, in every sense. Nor does this prevent
their alphabet from having been the Greek one, as has
been argued against the very passage above quoted ;
be-
cause the Greek language and the Greek alphabet are
different things, and, on the same principle, an Englishman
might now write a German letter. But this ques-
tion has filled volumes; and as I may possibly have oc-
casion to examine it again, I need say no more about it
at present.
Such is the amount of our real knowledge respecting
the Druids. We cannot infer much more, without falling
into the dreams of our predecessors; and on that part of
the subject, on all the possible relations and concate-
nations of Druidism, it is not my design to enter. It is
easy enough to be satisfied respecting* the connexion of
their doctrines with those of the other nations of the an-
cient world, without the necessity of wandering through
the regions of the Magi and the Cabiri. Enough, and
more than enough of this, has been done already. That
they were a political priesthood, and formed an artful
and powerful priestocracy, is evident. Yet it does not
follow that this government was so complete as it has
been elsewhere found in an analogous form, or as it now
is in Tartary. If the Druids did not themselves fight,
they appear also to have left the military government to
the Kings, Chiefs, or Nobles. Yet that these, and the
people, were, to use a vulgar phrase, priestridden, is
very probable ; and hence also, as we may conjecture,
arose, in some measure, the base and spiritless character
of the western Celtic tribes. The fault was in the go-
vernment; for it is certain that their brethren of the same
remote nation and lineage, in Italy, Greece, Syria, and
Africa, were a warlike, as they were an enlightened,