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OF THE DRUIDS. 191ill any man, as in the most judicious of all geographersand the most instructive, I mean thephilosopher Strabo. These later Greecs wereimplicitly credited and transcrib'd by the Romanwriters, tillBritain came to be fully known, havingrather been show^n than conquer'd by JuliusCesar;and scarce believ'd to be an iland, tho' itwas constantly affirm'd to be so by the most antientdiscoveries, till Vespasian's lieutenant, Agricola,found it beyond all possibility of contradiction tobe an iland*, part of the Roman fleet sailing roundit. But of the remotest ilands there has been noexact account from that time to this. That ofDonald Monro, in James the Fifth of Scotland'stime, is very imperfect: and tho' in our own timeDoctor Martin, who isa native of one of thoseilands, has travelFd over them all to laudable purpose;yet his descriptions are in many instancestoo short, besides that he omits several observations,which his own materials show he ought tohave frequently made. Considering, therefore,the curious things out of him and others, that maybe agreeably read in my too former letters (togetherwith many more accounts of monumentsthere, which Ihave from good hands) I own that1 am passionately desirous to spend one summeriu those ilands, before theHistory of ike Druids* Hanc Oram novlssimi maris tunc primum Romana Classisclrcarayecta, insulam esse Britanniam affirinaYit.Tacit, in Vit(tA^rk. cap, 10.Aa2