5

OF THE DRUIDS. 63
spirit and in tnjth, in simplicity and social virtue,
in a filial love and reverence, not in a servile dread
and terror of the divinity. As the fundamental
law of a historian is, daring to say whatever is
true, and not daring to write any falsehood: neither
being swayed by love or hatred, nor gain'd
by favour or interest; so he ought, of course, to
be as a man of no time or country, of no sect or
party, which I hope the several nations concern'd
in this enquiry will find to be particularly true of
me. But if, in clearing up antient rites and customs,
with the origin and institution of certain religious
or civil societies (long since extinct), any
communities or orders ofmen, now in being, should
think themselves touched, ihej ought not to impute
it to design in the author, but to the conformity
of things, if, indeed, there be any real resemblance:
and, in case there be none at all, they
should not make people apt to suspect there is,
by ci-ying out tho' they" are not hm-t.
I remember,
when complaint was made against an honourable
person*, that, in treating of the heathen
' priests, he had whipt some christian priests on
their backs, all the answer he made, was only asking,
W/tat inade t/iemget up there? The benefit of
which ansAVer I claim before-hand to myself without
making or needing any other apology. Yet,
if the correspondence of any priests with heaven
Sir Robert Howard,