Galic Antiquities

Chap. III. T H E D R U I D S. 41
and there lay no appeal from tlieir clecifion. If any perfon whatever
did not acquiefce in it, he drew, by that means, on himfelf
the fentence of excommunication ; which, in the fliape it bore a-
mong them, was juftly held more terrible than any death f.
feldom failed to crufli the wretch on whom it fell.
It
Shut out from
all intercourfe with fociety, denied every office of humanity, and
execrated and iliunned as a contagion or plague, he was glad to
feek that flielter in death, which in life he could nowhere find.
Nay, even in that laft refuge of the miferable, it was firmly believed
fuch perfons could find no fandluary.
The fentence of the
Druids, if not repealed, was fuppofed to purfue them to the other
world, where it was to take place again, with many additional
circumflances of terror.—Such was the anathema of the Druids ;
which, to preferve its awe, we may fuppofe, would be executed but
feldom. Indeed their avithority was fo abfolute, that there wovild be
little occafion for it. Nobody would be fo daring as to conteft
with them, nor fo refradlory as to refufe their diiflates the mofl implicit
obedience.
Of the laws of die Celts
or Druids no very particular account
can be given, for no code of theirs is come down to our times.
Like their religion,
they held them too facred to be committed to
writing; and tradition has not done them thatjuftice, which a
few remains of them fliew they deferved.
Their laws refpeding
ftrangers, and the rules of hofpitality, which difcover a greatnefs
of mind, and a fpirit of humanity, fuperior perhaps to all other nations
of antiquity, may be taken as inflances.—To all llrangers e-
very houfe was to be open, and every table free *. They were
F
further
t Caef. 1. 6. c. 13. * Tac. Germ. c. i. Cxf. 1. 6. &c.