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'OF THE DRUIDS. 105the poetry and prose of their country. And soin fact they are, notwithstanding what DudleyForbes, before mention'd, did, in a letter to auIrish writer*, in the year 1683, affirm: namely,that, in Patric's time no fewer than 180 volumes,relating- to the aftairs of the Drnids, were burntin Ireland. Dr. Kennedy saysf, that Patricburnt 300 volumns, stuft with the fables and superstitionsof heathen idolatry; unfits adds he, to hetransmitted to posterity , But, pray, how so: whyare Gallic or Irish superstitions more unfit to betransmitted to posterity, than those of the Greecsand Romans ? Why shou'd Patric be more squeamishin this respect than Moses or the succeedingJewish prophets, who have transmitted to all agesthe idolatries of the Egyptians,Phenicians, Caldeans,and other eastern nations?What an irre-^parable destruction of history, what a deplorableextinction of arts and inventions, what an unspeakabledetriment to learning, what a dishonor uponhuman understanding, has the cowardly proceedingof the ignorant, or rather of the interested,against unarm'd monuments at all times occasion'd!And yet this book-burning and letter-murdringhumor, tho' far from being commanded byChrist, has prevailed in Christianity from the beginning:as in the Acts of the Apostles we read,* O Flaherty.t Vhsertatlon about th?family of the Stuarts, pref. page 29.