5

:
OF THE DRUIDS. 127
Thm seelug Equaaus, near Soracte born,
In person, as ia arms, the comelyest youth
Whose country manner 'tis, when th' archer keen
Divine Apollo joys in burning Heaps,
The sacred entrals thro' the fire unhurt
To carry thrice : so may you always tread,
With unscorch'd feet, the consecrated coals ;
And o'er the heat victorious, swiftly bear
The solemn gifts to pleas'd Apollo's altar.
Now let all the commentators on this writer be
consulted, and then it will appear what sad guesswork
they have made about this passage; which
is no less true of an infinite number of passages
in other authors relating to such customs : for a
very considerable part of Italy foUow'd most of
the Druidical rites, as the inhabitants of such
places happen'd to be of Gallic extraction, which
was the case of many Cantons in that delicious
country. But this is particularly true of the Umbrians
and Sabins, who are by all authors made
the antientest* people of Italy, before the coming
thither of any Greec colonies. But they are by
Splinus| from the historian Bocchus,by Servius^,
Sic in Apollinea semper vestigia pruna
Inviolata teras :
victorque vaporis, ad aras
Dona serenato referas Solennia Phoebo.
Lib. 5. ver. 17S.
* Dionys. Halicarnass. Aotiq. Rom. lib. 1. Plin. Hist. Nat.
lib. 3. cap. 14. Flor. lib. 1. cap. 17, &c.
t Bocchus absolvit Gallorum veterum propaginem Umbros
esse, PoiyhiH. cap. 8.
% San^ Umbros Gallorum Vfiteram propaginem esse, Marcut
Antonius refert. /«/}*, li,MneU. unlefn.