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570 NOTES.But, in another point of view, this passage i« direct to our purpose,Tacitus was Procurator of Gaul, and resided there; noris there the slightest vestige of evidence of his having visitedGermany at all. He must therefore have derived this informationfrom some quarter or other. The Germans, (on his ownevidence then totally illiterate, and on the evidence of their strenousadvocate Pinkarton, equally so till the 9th century,) couldnot have read the Odyssey, were incapable of distinguishing(jreek characters from those of any other nation, and certainlystill more incapable to trace the affinity of the German Ascihurmgium to the Greek Askipyrgion, This is the only etymologyivhich Tacitus has hazarded in his whole treatise on Germany,and is so forced that it could never have occurred to him withoutbeing pointed out. Here, therefore, as in the case of Abaris,we have no alternative, but must ascribe the account given toTacitus of Ulysses, and of these antient monuments, and Greekinscriptions, to the Gauls, who, on the clearest evidence, werewell acquainted with the Greek alphabet, language, history, andmythology.I am well aware, that there are many who are willing to grantthat the Druids were early acquainted with the use of letters,but then they contend that this noble art was exclusively confinedto themselves. Even this compromise cannot be acceded to,Cajsar's words to the contrary are clear and decisive. The reasonshe assigns, (lib. 6. cap. 14.) for the Druids not committingtheir tenets to writing, are these. Id mlhi duabas de causis insti'tuisse videntur, quod neque in vulgum disciplinam efferri velintfieque eos, qui discant^ Uteris conjisos, minus memoricE studere^i. e. " They (the Druids) appear to me to have enacted this lawfor two reasons, because they neither wished their doctrines to bemade known to the vulgar, nor theirpupils trusting to the aidof letters, to pay less attention to the cultivation of their memory."Had Caesar, (and where is the man who had equalnccess to know?) considered the lower ranks in Gaul as unacquaintedwith letters, would he have acted so inconsistently asto tells us, that the Druids did not cd;nmit their doctrines to wri*