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5^THE HISTORYthem seducing their followers, and as on the otherhand we learn not to be so deceivVl. They dextrouslyled the people blindfold, by committing nopart of their theology or philosophy to writing,tho' great writers in other respects ; but their dictateswere only hereditarily convey'd from mastersto disciples by traditionary poems, intei'pretable(consequently) and alterable as they shou'd seeconvenient: which is a much more effectual way,than locking up a book from the laity,way or other, is sure to come first or last to theirthat, oneknowledge, and easy perhaps to be tunvd againstthe priests. The Druids, as may be seen in the6th book of Ccrscir^ Commentaries, drew the decisionof all controversies of law and equity tothemselves, the distribution of all punishments andrewards; from the power that was first given, orafterwards assumed by them, of determining matterjr;of ceremony and religion. Most terriblewere the effects of the Druidical* excommunica-^ If the learned reader, vyho knows any of the passages, or theunlearned reader wiio wants authorities for proving the followingassertions, should wonder I do not always cite them, let it beknown to both, that as in this specimen I commonly touch butthe heads of things, (and not of all tilings neither) so I would notcrowd the margin with long passages, nor yet curtail what in myHistory ^\\B.\\ be produced at large: and, thereforp, all the followingcitations (the original manner of writing Celtic words excepted)are either samples of the quotations I shall give, or proofs ofwhat I would not for a moment have suspected to he precariouitlyadvanced, or, finally, for the better understanding of certain mat-