Collins calls James Thomson (author of The Seasons) a druid, meaning a pastoral British poet or "Nature's High Priest."
In yonder grave a Druid lies.
Collins (1746).
Druid (Dr.), a man of North Wales, 65 years of age, the travelling tutor of Lord Abberville, who was only 23. The doctor is a pedant and antiquary, choleric in temper, and immensely bigoted, wholly without any knowledge of the human heart, or indeed any practical knowledge at all.
"Money and trade, I scorn 'em both; ...I have traced the Oxus and the Po, traversed the Riphæan Mountains, and pierced into the inmost deserts of Kilmuc Tartary ...I have followed the ravages of Kuli Chan with rapturous delight. There is a land of wonders; finely depopulated; gloriously laid waste; fields without a hoof to tread 'em; fruits without a hand to gather 'em: with such a catologue of pats, peetles, serpents, scorpions, caterpillars, toads, and putterflies! Oh, 'tis a recreating contemplation indeed to a philosophic mind!"—Cumberland, The Fashionable Lover (1780).
Druid Money, a promise to pay on the Greek Kalends. Patricius says: "Druidæ pecuniam mutuo accipiebant in posteriore vita reddituri."
Like money by the Druids borrowed,
In th' other world to be restored.
Butler,