Tracts written by John Selden of the Inner-Temple, Esquire ; the first entituled, Jani Anglorvm facies altera, rendred into English, with large notes thereupon, by Redman Westcot, Gent. ; the second, England's epinomis ; the third, Of the original of ecclesiastical jurisdictions of testaments ; the fourth, Of the disposition or administration of intestates goods ; the three last never before extant.

CHAP. X.

The Druids reckoning of time. An Age consists of thirty Years. What Authors treat of the Druids. Their Doctrines and Customs savour of Pythagoras and the Cabalists. They were the eldest Philosophers and Lawyers among the Gentiles. Some odd Images of theirs in Stone, in an Abby near Voitland, described.

8.

THe Druids begun their Months and Years from the sixth Moon (so says Pliny) and that which they called an Age after the thirtieth year.

In the Attick account an Age or Generation, and that of a man in his prime and strength, was comprized within the same terms, according to the opinion of Heraclitus, and as it is in Herodotus; nor had Nestor's triple Age a larger compass, if one may believe Eusta∣thius.

Tiberius drove these Druids out of the two Gallia's, Claudius banisht them out of Rome, and the worship of the true God Christ, sped them out of Britany.

What further appertains to the sacred Rites and Doctrine of the Dru∣ids, (not to speak further of Caesar) Strabo, Pliny, Diodorus Siculus, (by the way his Latin Version we do not owe to Poggius of Florence, as the Books published would make us believe, but to John Frea formerly Fellow of Baliol Colledge in Oxford, if we may believe an Original Copy in the Library of the said Colledge.) Beside these, Lucan, Pomponius Mela, Ammianus Marcellinus, and very lately Otho Heurnius, in his Antiquities of Barbarous Philosophy, and others have, with sufficient plainness, deli∣vered, yet so, that every thing they say savours of Pythagoras (and yet I am ne're a whit the more perswaded that Pythagoras ever taught in Merton-hall at Oxford, or Anaxagoras at Cambridge, as Cantilep and Lidgate have it) I and of the Cabalists too (for John Reuchlin hath compared the discipline of Pythagoras, and that of the Cabalists, as not much unlike.) Whether the Druids, says Lipsius, had their Metempsychosis or transmi∣gration of Souls, from Pythagoras, or he from them, I cannot tell.

The very same thing is alike to be said, concerning their Laws, and the Common-wealths which they both of them managed: They have both the same features as like as may be, as it was with Cneius Pompey, and Caius Vibius. For the Samian Philosopher did not only teach those secrets of Philosophy which are reserved, and kept up close in the inner shrine; but also returning from Egypt he went to Croton, a City of Italy, and there gave Laws to the Italians, (my Author is Laertius) and with near upon three hundred Scholars, governed at the rate, as it were of an Aristocracy. The Laws of Zaleucus and Charondas are commended and had in request.

These men, says Seneca, did not in a Hall of Justice, nor in an Inns of Court, but in that secret and holy retirement of Py∣thagoras,

learn those Institutes of Law, which they might propose to Sicily and to Greece, all over Italy, both at that time flourishing.

That holy and silent recess was perchance borrowed of the Druids: Forasmuch as what Clement of Alexandria witnesses, heretofore the more secret and mysterious Arts were derived from the Barbarians to the Greeks.

However the business be, it appears hence plainly, that the Druids were of the oldest standing among the Philosophers of the Gentiles, and the most ancient among their Guardians of Laws. For grant they were of Pythagoras his School, yet even at that rate they are brought back at least to the fiftieth or sixtieth Olympiad, or if thou wilt, to the Tyranny of the Tarquins, which is about two and twenty hundred years ago. 'Tis true, Pliny, Cicero, Austin, Eusebius disagree in this point; nor will I catch that mistake by the handle, which draws him, meaning Pythagoras, back to Numa's time.

To what hath been said, I shall not grudge to subjoyn a Surplage out of Conradus Celtes. He is speaking of some ancient Images of stone, which he had seen in a certain Abby at the foot of a Hill that bears Pines, commonly called Vichtelberg, in the Neighbourhood of Voitland, which he conceives did by way of Statue represent the Druids.

They were six in number, says he, at the door of the Temple niched into the Wall, of seven foot a piece in height, bare-footed, having their Heads un∣covered, with a Greekish Cloak on, and that Hooded, and a Satchel or scrip by their side, their Beard hanging down to their very Privities, and forked or parted in two about their Nostrils; in their Hands a Book and a Staff like that of Diogenes, with a severe Forehead and a melan∣choly Brow, stooping down with their Head, and fastening their Eyes on the ground.

Which description, how it agrees with those things which are recounted by Caesar and Strabo, concerning the Golden adorn∣ments, the dyed and coloured Vestures, the Bracelets, the shaved Cheeks and Chin of the Britans, and other things of the like kind, let them who are concerned look to that.

Notes

• Plin. nat. hist. l. 16. c. 44.
• Plut. de orac. def. Herod. Euterp.

  Eustath. ad 1. Iliad.
• Senec. in A∣pocol.

  Plin. l. 30. c. 1.
• Br. Tuin. Apo∣log. antiq. Aca∣dem. Oxon. l. 3. §. 329.
• Reuch. l. 2. de arte Cabalist. Lips. Stoic. physiolog l. 3. dissert. 12. & vide Forcatu∣lum l. 1. de Gall. Imperio.
• Laert. l. 8. & Plut. orat 2. de Esu carnium.
• Senec. Epist. 91.
• Clem. l. 1. Strom.
• Apud P. Me∣rulam in Cos∣mogr. part 2. lib. 3.