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The Druids, one of whom I have mentioned, were a peculiar people, who constituted the priesthood among the heathen Britons. They dwelt in circular houses, in the recesses of dark deep groves, where they practised barbarous rites of worship, and once a year sacrificed to their idols human victims, enclosed in gigantic wicker-work figures, made in a rude resemblance to the form of man. These Druids, however, were acquainted with astronomy, or the knowledge of the stars; they possessed a certain skill in medicine and surgery, and they understood the arts of cutting and polishing stones. Curious beads and rings, made by them from the agate stone, are even at the present time occasionally dug out of the earth, in which they have been buried for many hundred years, and are preserved in the cabinets of the curious.

Some stupendous evidences of the skill and knowledge of the Druids, as well as of the impostures which they practised on the unenlightened and idolatrous Britons, are still to be seen in various parts of our country. Among these is Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain, consisting of huge blocks of stone, which, nearly two thousand years ago, formed part of a mystic circle, that surrounded one of their heathen temples, which has long since fallen into ruin and decay.