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312 NOTES.diately surrounded the mount of the femple, and in no matertarcircumstance differedcircle enclosing the tetnples of the Druids.from the Gaelic Cil, which denoted theTHE DRUIDICAL CIRCLES CONSIDERED AS COURTS OP JUSTICE.As the Druids were the ministers of religion, and at the sametime the supreme judges in civil causes, it is extremely probablethat they had their judicial, as well as their religious circles.On any other hypothesis it would be difficult to account for twoDruidical circles generally being found near each other. Forthe purpose of religion one was sufficient. Nor is it once to beimagined that men of such pretended sanctity should throw opentheir temples to be profaned by the admission of all ranks forthe administration of justice.Independent of these considerations, "wefind a characteristicdifference in the Druidical circles. Many of them are still traditionallyreported to have been, and still bear the name of temples.These are still regarded by the vulgar with a degree ofsuperstitious veneration. Ask the meanest day-labourer whatthe large circle of stones at Bowertree Bush, near Aberdeen,had been—he will immediately answer, that it was a place of•worship. Mr. Robertson, of Struan, last year wished to demolisha Druidical circle on his estate, named Cluan Beg (the littleenclosure or temple), but his seryants, rather than commit whatthey deemed sacrilege, chose to be dismissed his service.Theseare the circles of religion, and contain the large centre stone,the altar, the purifying trough, &c.But the other description of circles are regarded with little orno veneration. Concerning the smaller circle at Bowertree Bush,tradition does not even hazard a conjecture. The same remarkwill apply to the judicial circles in general. They have no centrestone, no altar, no purifying trough, &:c. and are never de.nominated temples. They generally have no name at all, andare frequently divided into two or three different septs or euciosures,to accommodate the different ranks of the Celts, Theseare the judicial circles of the Druids, and are inmany instancesfound intire^ whilst the temples are almost, without a single ex.