geance of incenfed Omnipotence. In these principles and in this conduct of the Druids we trace the evident remains of the two grand systems of theology, the pure and the depraved, which prevailed in the first ages, and among the primitive race: the former inculcated by the virtuous father of the renovated world; the latter introduced by Belus, the impious parent of the Sabian herefy; the one a system of beneficence and mercy, the other a fyftem of nefarious homicide. Men became more and more immerfed in these fuperftitious and bloody practices, as the traces of the benevolent patriarchal religion were gradually effaced from their minds; and although the Brahmins, and their pupils, the Druids, while they practifed the fanguinary rite, retained in memory fome traits of their original reference, this feems by no means to have univerfally been the cafe. In general, the farther they removed from the immediate spot on which the first great interefting fcenes were tranfacted, that is, Chaldæa, the theatre of renovated nature, the very occafion of these barbarous inftitutions intended to purify man and appease his Maker, was obliterated from their minds. They continued to practife them without knowing their allufion, and re mained polluted with blood without even the confcioufnefs of guilt, and without the profpect of redemption. The moft ancient Belus, above alluded to, whom Cicero calls Hercules-Belus, feems to have been the great progenitor of the royal Balic line, who eftablished themselves in Affyria, Phoenicia, and India, and of those colonies who, after their leader, were denominated by the Greeks Heraclidæ and Belidæ. To this great deified hero and our Celtic Mercury have been affigned, by the ancients, all those renowned exploits which form the moft brilliant annals of the infant world, and fwell the volume of its early hiftory. They were the indefatigable explorers of the most distant regions of the habitable globe; they were the intrepid chieftains who led the fucceffive colonies that iffued from the overcharged plains of Mefopotamia to riches and to glory. Concerning each of these illuftrious characters I fhall have much hereafter to remark, but, with respect to Hercules-Belus, I think it proper, at this early period of the effay, to ftate, that to his comprehenfive history and important character ought to be referred the far greater part of those heroic feats, that in fuch great profufion are heaped upon others D 3 others who bear the diftinguifhed name of Hercules. This Hercules, afterwards canonized and worshipped as the Sun, under the name of Baal, because probably he first inftituted the folar worship in Afia, ftands on record as the first great navigator to the fhores of Europe, and had a fplendid temple erected to him at the mouth of thofe ftraits, called from him the pillars of Hercules, as being the limits of his travels to the Weft. There, in that temple of Gades, probably the firft Afiatic superstitions were publicly performed in Europe, whence they would naturally become ftill farther diffufed, as the Eaftern colonies were themselves more difperfed over that continent and the ifles adjoining. But from these general ftrictures on the character of Hercules and his worship, let us take a nearer retrospect of the fage and fecluded inhabitants of the groves of Mona, The Druids are, by Pliny and other writers, afferted to have derived their name from dgus, an oak; but, as the order probably exifted prior to the Greek term, and as it is not eafy to conceive whence the Druids in their caverns should have learned to talk Greek, it is fafer to derive it, as before intimated, from DRU, or DERU, an old Celtic word of the fame fame fignification, whence, it is likely, the Greek was formed. Strabo diftinguishes this venerable tribe of philofophers into three claffes; Bagdo, bards, 'OURTES, ftrictly priefts, and Aguida, properly the facrificers under oaks.* Cæfar, in his fixth book de Bello Gallico, has difcourfed. largely concerning thefe holy hermits and their religious inftitutions. The whole of his account is too long for infertion in these pages; but it is very remarkable that he derives the Druids of Gaul from Britain, whereas the more general opinion among antiquaries is, that the Druids of Britain were a colony from Gaul. Among other points of doctrine ресиliar to them, he enumerates their belief in and inculcation of the immortality of the foul, and its fucceffive tranfmigrations through various bodies; their myfterious magical rites; their theories of the heavens, and. the motions of the ftars; their knowledge of the magnitude of the earth, and their profound speculations in phyfics, in morals, and in theology. When it is confidered that all this accumulation of fcience was confined to one * Strabo, lib. iv. p. 189. + Cæfar's Comment. lib. iv. cap. 13. D 4 order, order, or fect, of a nation, involved otherwife in the profoundeft ignorance and barbarity, there arifes ftill more abundant reason to suppose that science of exotic growth and that order of foreign original. Dr. Borlafe, author of the History and Antiquities of Cornwall, has devoted a chapter of that learned work to the confideration of the circumftances fo remarkably fimilar between the religious rites of the British Druids and the old Perfians. As, however, in the former part of the Indian Theology, I have entered at great length into the subject of the Perfian worship, and have already proved the near affinity which the Perfian religion, in many of its grand and leading points, bore to that established in India, and as we have learned from Sir W. Jones, not only that a race of Brahmins anciently fate on the throne of Perfia, but that nine words out of ten of the old Pahlavi dialect are genuine Sanfcreet; I conceive that every fresh proof adduced by Dr. Borlafe, of the ftriking fimilitude in the religious doctrines and ceremonies of thefe diftant tribes of philofophers, is an additional corroboration of the hypothefis, which afferts them to be of the ancient school of the venerable Brachmans, - and |