Writ we are informed, that "Jofhua took a great stone, and fet it up in Shechem, under AN OAK, that was by the fanctuary of the Lord." Joshua, xxiv. 26. In procefs of time, however, the Jewith nation, relapfing into the Pagan fuperftitions, diverted their religious attention from the Deity who covenanted with their father Abraham under the oak, and paid it to the inanimate tree itself. For this conduct they are reproached by the prophet Ifaiah. "They fhall be afhamed of the OAKS which ye have defired, and ye fhall be confounded for the groves which ye have chofen." Ifaiah, i. 29. This ancient Oriental practice, therefore, of worshipping under, and venerating, the oak, forms another decided feature of affinity in the religion of the two nations, and is an additional evidence of their Afiatic defcent.

In respect to that other ancient species of worthip, the adoration of ftones, whether they were fingle ftones, as that which Jacob anointed and fet up for his pillar, calling the place BETH-EL, that is, literally, the house of God; whether two-fold, like thofe which were fo combined as emblematically to represent the active and paffive powers of nature in

the generation of all things; whether ternary, as those which were intended to fhadow out the three-fold power of the Deity, to create, to preferve, and to deftroy; whether obelifcal, as those which fymbolized the folar light; whether pyramidal, as those which expreffively typified the column of afcending flame; or whether, finally, like the CAIRNS of the Druids, arranged in vaft circular heaps, called by the ancients MERCURIAL: on all these various kinds of adoration, paid, by the infatuated fuperftition of past ages, to the unconfcious block of rude granite, M. D'Ancarville has prefented the learned with a moft elaborate differtation, and he exprefsly denominates this fpecies of worship SCYTHI

CISM.

These grotesque and ponderous ftones were placed in the centre of the most hallowed groves of the idolatrous Pagans, and it is moft probable that they in general placed them, as we find them arranged in the Druidtemple of Stonehenge, in a circular manner; the SUN being the general object of ancient adoration, whofe temples were always erected in a circular form. Like thofe of the Perfians

D'Ancarville's Preface to Récherches fur l'Origine des Arts, &c. p. 9 and 10.

at

at Persepolis, they were open at the top; for, like them, the Scythians efteemed it impious to confine the Deity, who pervades all nature, and whose temple is earth and skies, within the narrow limits of a covered fhrine, erected by mortal hands.

That profound veneration for rocks and ftones of a grotefque form and enormous magnitude, which we have observed M. D'Ancarville denominates Scythicism, doubtless originated among a race accustomed to behold nature in the rugged drefs which the affumes amidft" antres vaft" and the abrupt precipices of mountains lofty and ftupendous as the great Caucafus, which ferves equally as a boundary to Scythia and India. This ftone-. worship, however, was not confined to the lofty romantic regions in the neighbourhood of the Caucafus. Inftead of a ftatue, the Arabians of Petra worshipped dos Meas τετραγωνος, ατολωτος, a black fquare pillar of ftone, without any figure or representation. It was the fame deity, fays Mr. Bryant, adored by the Germans and Celtæ, called Theutates, whofe facrifices were very cruel.* In the fecond volume of Indian Antiquities alfo, I

have proved from Pocock, Ludolf, and Bruce, that the fame species of worship was widely diffused through the Thebais of Egypt and Ethiopia, whofe mountains exhibit scarcely less magnificent and terrific objects than those of the Tauric hills. A Deity was fuppofed to refide amidft the folitary grandeur of those rugged mis-fhapen rocks; fuperftition aided a disturbed imagination to give the airy phantom a form gigantic as his imagined temple; to adorn him with the symbols of vengeance and terror; and inveft him with attributes and properties congenial with their awe and apprehenfion. Hence it arofe, that, with this fpecies of rock-devotion, rites of a fombrous and melancholy nature were perpetually blended; and that their altars were ftained with fuch torrents of human as well as beftial blood.

Concerning the fanguinary rites anciently practised in Druid groves, no stronger evidence or more impreffive relation can be given, than that before adduced by me from Lucan, of thofe celebrated in the Maffilian grove, which he defcribes as a place, gloomy, damp, and scarcely penetrable; a grove in which no fylvan deity ever refided, no bird ever fang, no beast ever flumbered, no gentle zephyr

zephyr ever played, nor even the lightning could rend a paffage. It was a place of blood and horror, abounding with altars reeking with the gore of human victims, by which all the trunks of the lofty and eternal oaks, which composed it, were dyed of a crimson colour: a black and turbid water rolled through it in many a winding ftream: no foul ever entered the forlorn abode, except the priest, who, at noon, and at midnight, with paleness on his brow, and tremor in his step, went thither to celebrate the hor¬ rible myfteries in honour of that terrific deity, whofe afpect he yet dreaded more than death to behold.

The British Druids, however, seem to have exceeded, if poffible, even their Gaulic neighbours in favage ferocity of foul and boundlefs luft of facrificial blood. The pen of hiftory trembles to relate the baleful orgies which their frantic fuperftition celebrated, when inclosing men, women, and children, in one vaft wicker image, in the form of a man; and, filling it with every kind of combustibles, they fet fire to the huge coloffus. While the dreadful holocauft was offering to their fanguinary gods, the groans and fhrieks of the confuming victims were drowned amidft

fhouts