s are launched upon it, until, in its
majestic and lakelike extensions, rich navies ride, freighted with wealth
and power--the heavy ordnance of defence and attack, the products of
Eastern looms, the precious metals and jewels from distant mines--the best
exponents of the strength and prosperity of the nation through which flows
the river of speech, bearing the treasures of mind.

CELTIC LITERARY REMAINS. THE DRUIDS.--Let us take up the consideration of
literature in Britain in the order of the conquests mentioned in the first
chapter.

We recur to Britain while inhabited by the Celts, both before and after
the Roman occupation. The extent of influence exercised by the Latin
language upon the Celtic dialects cannot be determined; it seems to have
been slight, and, on the other hand, it may be safely assumed that the
Celtic did not contribute much to the world-absorbing Latin.

The chief feature, and a very powerful one, of the Celtic polity, was
_Druidism_. At its head was a priesthood, not in the present meaning of
the word, but in the more extended acceptation which it received in the
middle ages, when it embraced the whole class of men of letters. Although
we have very few literary remains, the system, wisdom, and works of the
Druids form one of the strong foundation-stones of English literature and
of English national customs, and should be studied on that account. The
_Druid_ proper was governor, judge, philosopher, expounder, and
executioner. The _ovaidd_, or _ovates_, were the priests, chiefly
concerned in the study of theology and the practice of religion. The
_bards_ were heroic poets of rare lyric power; they kept the national
traditions in trust, and claimed the second sight and the power of
prophecy. Much has been said of their human sacrifices in colossal images
of wicker-work--the "_immani magnitudine simulacra_" of Caesar--which were
filled with human victims, and which crackled and disappeared in towering
flame and columns of smoke, amid the loud chantings of the bards. The most
that can be said in palliation of this custom is, that almost always such
a scene presented the judicial execution of criminals, invested with the
solemnities of religion.

In their theology, _Esus_, the God Force--the Eternal Father--has for his
agents the personification of spiritual light, of immortality, of nature,
and of heroism; _Camul_ was the war-god; _Tarann_ the thunder-god; _Heol_,
the king of the sun, who inflame