5

OF THE DRUIDS.
ISl
in any man, as in the most judicious of all geographers
and the most instructive, I mean the
philosopher Strabo. These later Greecs were
implicitly credited and transcrib'd by the Roman
writers, till
Britain came to be fully known, having
rather been shown than conquer'd by Julius
Cesar;
and scarce believ'd to be an iland, tho' it
was constantly affirm'd to be so by the most antient
discoveries,
till Vespasian's lieutenant, Agricola,
found it beyond all possibility of contradiction to
be an iland*, part of the Roman fleet sailing round
it. But of the remotest ilands there has been no
exact account from that time to this. That of
Donald Monro, in James the Fifth of Scotland's
time, is very imperfect:
Doctor Martin, who is
and tho* in our own time
a native of one of those
ilands, has travell'd over them all to laudable purpose;
yet his descriptions are in many instances
too short, besides that he omits several observations,
^^'hich his own materials show he ought to
have frequently made. Considering, therefore,
the curious things out of him and others, that may
be agreeably read in my too former letters (together
with many more accounts of monuments
there, which I have from good hands) I own that
I am passionately desirous to spend one summer
in those ilands, before the History of the Druids
^ Hanc Oram novissimi
mans tunc primuin Romana Classis
circumrecta, insulam esse BrltanDiam affirmaTit.
Jgriccqp, 10.
Aa2
Tacit, in Viia