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but of those religious rites and ceremonies which were afterwards developed in the form of Druidism.

That the latter was not of British origin seems obvious. Caesar's description of its observances is only reconcilable with his account of Britain, on the assumption that the chief seat of the Druids was in Ireland, for while he describes the Gauls as deriving their knowledge of Druidism from the British, he represents the latter as inferior in civilization to the Gauls. Even in the time of Tacitus the Britons are represented as ferocæ, a state of barbarism obviously incompatible with the creation of a highly wrought mysterious superstition, implying considerable intellectual advancement and scientific knowledge: a superstition, be it remembered, which is known to have existed amongst the Phœnicians and Carthaginians.

The Roman knowledge of the British isles was extremely limited and imperfect; before the time of Tacitus they were ignorant of the insular position of Britain, and the acquaintance of Agricola with Ireland was principally derived from the doubtful information of a faithless Irish chief, who sought the Roman camp to betray his country. Ireland also, according to Ptolemy, was formerly called Little Britain, therefore when Caesar speaks of the Gauls repairing to Britain in order to become instructed in the mysteries of Druidism, the term may have been intended as a general expression for the British isles (121). [290]

The Druids, Caesar tells us, are concerned in divine matters, superintend public and private sacrifices, interpret religious rites, determine controversies, inheritance, boundaries of land, rewards and punishments . . . . "They are said to learn by heart a great number of verses, for which reason some continue in the discipline twenty years."--"They use written characters."--"Much besides they discourse, and deliver to youth, upon the stars, and their motion, on the magnitude of the world and the earth, on the nature of things, on the influence and power of the immortal Gods."

This particular class, combining the double office of judge and priest, although common in the time of Caesar to the British isles, would naturally be found most enlightened in that part of the three kingdoms, whose direct communication with Spain, from a remote period, brought it into more immediate contact with the Phœnician navigators; and the appellations of "Sacred Isle," and "Sacred Promontory," in the works of Ptolemy and Avienus, lead us involuntarily to the conclusion that, hundreds of years before the Roman invasion of Britain, Ireland was the depository of those Phœnician superstitions which afterwards became adopted throughout the British Isles under the form of Druidism.

The root of the word Druid is to be found with little variation in the Hiberno-Celtic language of the present day, Draoj signifying a Druid, magician or wise man, and Draoideacht or Draoide-achta, magic or the Druidical form of worship; the golden ornaments in the shape of a half moon, which have been frequently found in the Irish bogs, are supposed to have been connected with these superstitions, of which lunar worship formed a part, and add to the numerous testimonies in proof of its great antiquity. [291]

But the high state of perfection, if it may be so called, in which the Druidical form of worship existed in Ireland, and the superior acquirements of her Pagan priesthood to those of the British, is best evinced by the vestige of the Ogham or occult character in which their mysteries were recorded, and which presents a marked resemblance to the secret mode of writing, known to have been used for similar purposes by the hierarchies of the East.

It may therefore be presumed without much stretch of credulity that the same communication with the Phœnician settlers on the coast of Spain which transmitted these eastern superstitions to the Irish shore, may have also brought with it some knowledge of navigation, and the construction of ships; and therefore, that we are not driven to the hide-covered currach for a means of transporting the Celtic settlers to the American coast.

Or if the theory of those be adopted, who would bring the first colonists of Ireland from Belgic, or Celtic Gaul, the description of that people by Caesar will furnish equal evidence of maritime knowledge at a period sufficiently early to transport an expedition to America in the first centuries of the Christian era. The Veneti, inhabiting that district of Armoric Gaul, now known by the name of Vannes, are stated to have had vessels of considerable bulk and power, and admirably adapted as well for coasting voyages, as a stormy sea. The hull was of oak, the beams a foot in breadth, and fastened with iron, the bottom flat, the sails of leather, and what to nautical men may, perhaps, appear somewhat wonderful in those early days, the anchors were secured by means of chain cables.

Looking therefore, either to the Phœnician, Carthaginian, Iberian, Belgic, Gallic, or Scythic intercourse of an [292] early period,--to the more continuous Scandinavian occupation of later years,--or to the primitive mode of transport of the simple skiff, it is evident that ample nautical means were not wanting in Ireland to transfer any part of her population to the western shores of America long before the period when Great Ireland became known to the Northmen.

The absence of any notice of such a migration in Irish Annals,--if such be the case,--is no argument against the probability of its existence. The most brilliant period of Irish History remains unsupported by Irish manuscripts. Of that enlightened age when pupils from all parts of Europe sought learning from Irish seminaries and Irish ecclesiastics,--when Columbkill dispensed the light of Christianity to the Picts, Columbanus to the French, Callus to the Swiss, and the brothers Ultan and Foilan to the Belgians,--when Virgilius, the Apostle of Carinthia, astounded the German bishops with his superior knowledge of cosmography and science--not one authentic written record now remains (122) .

Invasion from without, and internal dissension from within, have swept away all written testimonies of a time, when the intellectual and religious eminence of Ireland attracted the attention and admiration of neighbouring nations, and obtained for her the just distinction of "Sacred Island" and "School of the West:" it cannot therefore be a matter of surprise that the records of earlier history should [293] have been lost amid the ravages of such general devastation (123).

But further examination of Icelandic Annals may possibly throw more light upon this interesting question, and tend to unravel the mystery in which the original inhabitants of America are involved. Lord Kingsborough's splendid publication (124) in 1829 first brought to the notice of the British public the striking similitude between Mexican and Egyptian monuments; the ruins of Palenque, Guatemala and Yucatan, the former rivalling the pyramids of Egypt or the ruins of Palmyra, were only known to a few hunters until the end of the 18th century, and modern travellers are still engaged in bringing the hidden wonders of this and other regions of the vast American continent to the knowledge of the literary world

The argument founded upon the absence of Irish records might as reasonably be applied to these later publications of the north; and why, may it as well be asked, was the discovery of American by the Northmen in the 10th century not satisfactorily established until the nineteenth?--The [294] name of Vinland was, doubtless, known to Torfæus; and Wormskiold, Malte Brun and others, following the erroneous calculation which he had made of its locality, fixed it in a latitude with which the physical features of the country did not correspond: (125) hence the whole statement in the Sagas was long looked upon as fictitious; but the more accurate recent investigations of Danish archaeologists have set the question at rest, and the discovery of America by the Northmen has assumed its proper position in the history of the tenth century.

The existence of a Celtic or Irish settlement upon the south-eastern shores of North America, does not preclude the co-existence of other races upon the western and northern shores. A colony from western Ireland may have been planted on the east, while tribes from eastern Asia had settled on the west; and both have driven before them the less civilized, or more feeble Scythic wanderers, who may have entered at the north: all emanating,--but by distinct and separate channels,--from the one great center, which peopled the wide spread sphere, and thus multiplying, in every region and every clime, the living evidences of those sacred records which offer peace and immortality to man.

(121) It should be recollected that Cæsar merely mentions the origin of the Druids as traditionary: "Disciplinam existimatur reperta esse in Britannia," &c. Ibid. Sharon Turner would appear to lean to the opinion of Druidism having originated with the Phœnicians or Carthaginians: "if this system," he observes, "was the creature of a more civilized people, none of the colonizers of Britain are so likely to have been its parents as the Phœnicians or Carthaginians; the fact so explicitly asserted by Cæsar, that the Druidical system began in Britain, and was thence introduced into Gaul, increases our tendency to refer it to those nations. The state of Britain was Inferior in civilization to that of Gaul, and therefore It seems more reasonable to refer the intellectual parts of Druidism to the foreign visitors who are known to have cultivated such subjects, than to suppose them to have originated from the rude unassisted natives." [Back]

(122) This point Is ably handled by Mr. Moore, who shews that the arguments against ancient Irish history, founded upon the non-existence of any authentic MSS. prior to the 9th century (Psalter of Cashel), applies with much greater force to the comparatively modern periods above mentioned, the records of which are never questioned. Hist. Ir. Vol. I., p. 308. [Back]

(123) O'Halloran charges the English Government with a wholesale destruction of Irish MSS. previous to the reign of James I,:--

"What the false piety and mistaken zeal of the early Christians left unfinished, the Danes continued, and the Saxon and Norman invaders completed.. ..In Ireland, until the accession of James I, it was a part of state policy to destroy or carry off all the manuscripts that could be discovered. "What the president Carew," says the author of the Analect (p. 555) "did in one province (Munster), Henry Sidney and his predecessors did all over the kingdom, being charged to collect all the manuscripts they could, that they might effectually destroy every vestige of antiquity and letters throughout the kingdom! The learned Archdeacon Lynch, with many others, give too many melancholy instances of the kind." Hist. Ireland,, p. 94. "Many of these precious remains," says Moore, "were, as the author of Cambrensis Eversus tells us, actually torn up by boys for covers of books, and by tailors for measures. It was till the time of James I., says Mr. Webb, an object of government to discover and destroy every literary remain of the Irish, in order the more fully to eradicate from their minds every trace of their ancient independence." Moore's Hist. of Ireland, V. I. p. 309, note. [Back]

(124) "Mexican Antiquities," a work upon which this lamented nobleman expended (at least) £30,000 and the best years of his life, but the circulation of which, from the small number of copies printed, and the inaccessible price (£150) to the majority of the reading public, was necessarily very limited. [Back]

(125) Torfæus, in consequence of an erroneous interpretation of the passage, pp. 64, 65, in the Saga of Erik the Red, relating to the length of the day, which he took to be eight hours instead of nine, fixed the latitude of Vinland at 49 degrees, being that of Newfoundland. [Back]