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72 THE HISTORYherbs: as also about their favourite all-heal orMisselto*, gather'd with so much ceremony by apriest in his white surplice, as Phny ftells us, andwith a gold pruning-knile ; as well as about theabstrusest parts of their philosophy and religion,that the like has not yet appear'd inany author,who has treated of them. The books of suchare either bare collections of fragments, or a heapof precarious fables; I mean especially someFrench writers on this subject, as Picard, Forcatulus,Guenebaut, with others of no better allayin Britain and Germany; for as I admit notliingw ithout good authority, so I justly expect, that,without as good, nothing will be admitted from me.IX. But, my lord, besides tliese Druids, theantient Gauls, Britons, and Irish, had anotherorder of learned men, callYl Bards, whereof weshall sufficiently discourse in our proposed Avork.J^ardi^ still the Irish and Scottish word, as Bardhthe Armoric and British. There s no differenceinthe p>ronunciation, tho', according to their differentmanner of writing in expressing the pow erof the letters, they vary a little in the orthography:!;."^^^^ Bards were divided into three* All these heads will be so many intire chapters.T Sacerdos, Candida veste cullus^ arhorcm scandit: fake aureademeliL Hist. Nat. Lib. 16. Cap. 44.X Let it be noted once for all, that, as in other tongues, so inIrish and Welsh particularly, t and d are commonly put for eachother, by reason of their afiinity ;and that dk anfl gh being pro.Hounc'd alike in Irish, and therefore often confounded, yet an