Cicero informs us, that Divitiacus, the Eduan, with whom he was personally acquainted, was of this order; and that, from his knowledge of nature, "partly by augu

ries, and partly by conjecture, he said, "that he could foretel what was to hap

pen." It can scarcely be doubted, that the son of Fingal took occasion to imbibe some portion of this knowledge, and to improve his sublime genius, by all the acquisitions that were within his reach.

Of the occasion and manner of the overthrow of the Druidical order in Scotland, we can expect no account from the writers of Greece and Rome, as it was a domestic transaction, with which the Romans had no concern; and it is surely worthy of remark,

*Cic. de Divinatione, lib. 1.

"They instruct," says Pomponius Mela, (lib. iii, c. 1.) " persons of the highest rank, in secret, and for a " long time,---during twenty years,--in caves, and reti"red recesses."

that, had not the destruction of the Druids in Anglesea been particularly connected with the operations of the Roman army under Ostorius, it is probable, that we should have had no evidence from Tacitus, at least, that this order had ever existed in England.

The account of the overthrow of the Druidical hierarchy, which is handed down by tradition, is, at least, far from being improbable; viz. That the princes of the Fingallian dynasty, who had been originally elected to the supremacy, according to the manner of the Celtic nations, only for the impending occasion, feeling themselves, at length, firmly established in their power, refused to resign it, as had always hitherto been done, to the Druids; and that, in the struggle, the Druids fell, and were finally extirpated.

Here it may not be improper to remark, that, in two poems, published by Dr Smith in his collection, one entitled, Dargo, the "Son of the Druid of Bel," and the other,

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"Conn, the Son of Dargo," (which, if not the most poetical, are surely, of the whole collection, the most interesting in a historical view,) we have a particular, and very striking account of the progress and issue of the contest between the Druids and the house of Fingal.

Here, then, we find, in Celtic Caledonia, an illustrious order of sages, who, during a long period, had poured a stream of light on these northern lands. Happily, before it was extinguished, the transcendent genius of Ullin and Ossian, of Alpin and Carril, had caught the irradiation of its departing splendour. They had imbibed, even from its declining lustre, a refinement of ideas, an elevation of sentiment, and an elegance of poetical composition, which we still admire, but which, when we take into account the discipline in which they were initiated, should not excite our surprise. Those celebrated men have left behind them a mass of

poetry, to which a succession of bards, extending through more than fourteen centuries, have been able to add nothing;-but, conscious of their immense inferiority, have satisfied themselves, during the darkness which ensued, with committing to memory, and reciting, the productions of happier times.

This æra, so illustrious in poetry and in arms, is termed, in Highland tradition,current at this day,-"An Fheine," an expression which it is difficult to render into any other language, without a periphrasis. It, for the most part, signifies the Fingallian race, or that dynasty of heroes, which begins with Trenmor and ends with Ossian. It sometimes denominates the period of time, during which that dynasty subsisted; and, sometimes, the whole race of men, who lived during that period.

Mr Laing's grand argument, against the antiquity and authenticity of these Poems,

is founded on the utter improbability, that such a period of refinement, as this, existed amongst the Caledonians, previously to that barbarism, into which they have been found, a few centuries afterwards, to have sunk. This argument is detailed, in the first volume of his History of Scotland, (p. 44.) and, in the opening of his Dissertation, it is pronounced by him to be unanswerable.

But, I may be permitted to ask, whether the history of nations is not full of similar instances of change in the condition of society? Let us look back, for a moment, to ancient Egypt, the cradle of the sciences; and the stupendous monuments of whose progress in philosophy, and in the arts, have bid defiance to the depredations of time, and of the elements. Do we not there behold a people passing from the height of refinement to the most sordid ignorance, and to the lowest degrees of barbarism? From Egypt, let us turn our eyes to Greece, the