moral philosophy, their
astronomy, and the mystical rites of their religion. These verses in all
probability bore a near resemblance to the Golden Verses of
Pythagoras,--to those of Phocylides, Orpheus, and other remnants of the
most ancient Greek poets. The Druids, even in Gaul, where they were not
altogether ignorant of the use of letters, in order to preserve their
knowledge in greater respect, committed none of their precepts to
writing. The proficiency of their pupils was estimated principally by
the number of technical verses which they retained in their memory: a
circumstance that shows this discipline rather calculated to preserve
with accuracy a few plain maxims of traditionary science than to improve
and extend it. And this is not the sole circumstance which leads us to
believe that among them learning had advanced no further than its
infancy.

The scholars of the Druids, like those of Pythagoras, were carefully
enjoined a long and religious silence: for, if barbarians come to
acquire any knowledge, it is rather by instruction than, examination;
they must therefore be silent. Pythagoras, in the rude times of Greece,
required silence in his disciples; but Socrates, in the meridian of the
Athenian refinement, spoke less than his scholars: everything was
disputed in the Academy.

The Druids are said to be very expert in astronomy, in geography, and in
all parts of mathematical knowledge; and authors speak in a very
exaggerated strain of their excellence in these, and in many other
sciences. Some elemental knowledge I suppose they had; but I can
scarcely be persuaded that their learning was either deep or extensive.
In all countries where Druidism was professed, the youth, were generally
instructed by that order; and yet was there little either in the manners
of the people, in their way of life, or their works of art, that
demonstrates profound science or particularly mathematical skill.
Britain, where their discipline was in its highest perfection, and which
was therefore resorted to by the people of Gaul as an oracle in
Druidical questions, was more barbarous in all other respects than Gaul
itself, or than any other country then known in Europe. Those piles of
rude magnificence, Stonehenge and Abury, are in vain produced in proof
of their mathematical abilities. These vast structures have nothing
which can be admired, but the greatness of the work; and they are not
the only instances of the great things which