The Druids were richly clad; some of them even wore golden chains, or collars, about their necks and arms; and had their garments dyed with various colours, and adorned with gold. Chains also both of iron and gold, were worn by some of the chieftains and nobler ranks. These facts will appear so incredible, that the reader must be informed, that in most of the tumuli, or old British graves, described by King, these ornaments are found in our days. It is a remarkable omission in Mr. King, that he did not quote the three verses from the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah so descriptive of the Babylonian regal tumuli, similar to the British: “All the kings of the nations lie down in glory, each in his own sepulchre: To meet thee, O Sennacherib, Hades rouseth his mighty dead: he maketh them rise up from their thrones. All of them shall accost thee, and shall say unto thee, Art thou become weak as we? Art thou made like unto us? Is then thy pride brought down to the grave? Is the vermin become thy couch, and the earth-worm thy covering?”
Strabo, at the end of his third book, says, that “the Cassiterides, or Islands of Tin, were inhabited by men dressed in black garments, in tunics descending to the feet, a girdle around their breast; walking erect with a staff in their hand; and permitting the beard to grow like that of a goat. They subsist on their cattle, in general spending an erratic pastoral life.”
Some of the common order of Britons wore, instead of the skins of beasts, very thick coarse wrappers made of wool; a sort of blanket or rug, fastened about the neck with a piece of sharp pointed stick. They used also a coarse, slit, short vest, with sleeves; it barely reached down to the knees.
As armour, the Britons had a long two-handed sword, hanging by a chain on the right hand side; a great long wooden shield as tall as a man; long spears; and a sort of missile wooden instrument, like a javelin, longer than an arrow, which they darted merely by the hand: modern writers call these two last mentioned, Celts, fixed on the end of staves and sticks. Some of them used slings for stones, others had breast plates, made of plates of iron, with hooks, or with wreathed chains: some had helmets of different forms. Many went to battle nearly naked, and some wound chains of iron around their necks and loins.
They generally lay and reposed themselves on the bare ground, yet most of them ate their food sitting on seats. A very beautiful print is given by Mr. King of their various dresses. The plaid seems to be derived from them. The coins of the old British, which are engraven in Speed, in Borlase’s Cornwall, in Gough’s edition of Camden’s Britannia, and in Plot’s History of Oxfordshire, will explain these descriptions of the classics. Even Julius Cæsar had noticed that the Britons used either brass money, or iron circular coins reduced to a standard weight. In the scale of civilization, therefore, the ancient Britons were as advanced in the era of Cæsar, as the Romans themselves at the expulsion of their kings; as the Grecians in the age of Homer; as the Mexicans at the Spanish conquest; and as the modern Tartars.[[49]]
THE SEVEN SLEEPERS.
Among the insipid legends of ecclesiastical history, one of the most memorable is that of the Seven Sleepers, whose imaginary date corresponds with the reign of the younger Theodosius and the conquest of Africa by the Vandals, or sometime about the year 440. When the Emperor Decius persecuted the Christians, seven noble youths of Ephesus concealed themselves in a spacious cavern in the side of an adjacent mountain; where they were doomed to perish by the tyrant, who gave orders that the entrance should be firmly secured with a pile of huge stones. They immediately fell into a deep slumber, which was miraculously prolonged, without injuring the powers of life, during a period of one hundred and eighty seven years. At the end of that time, the slaves of Adolius, to whom the inheritance of the mountain had descended, removed the stones to supply materials for some rustic edifice; the light of the sun darted into the cavern, and the Seven Sleepers were permitted to awake. After a slumber, as they thought of a few hours, they were pressed by the calls of hunger; and resolved that Jamblichus, one of their number, should secretly return to the city, to purchase bread for the use of his companions. The youth, if we may still employ that appellation, could no longer recognise the once familiar aspect of his native country; and his surprize was increased by the appearance of a large cross triumphantly erected over the principal gate of Ephesus. His singular dress and obsolete language, confounded the baker, to whom he offered an ancient medal of Decius as the current coin of the empire; and Jamblichus, on the suspicion of a secret treasure, was dragged before the judge. Their mutual enquiries produced the amazing discovery that two centuries were almost elapsed since Jamblichus and his friends had escaped from the rage of a Pagan tyrant. The Bishop of Ephesus, the clergy, the magistrates, the people, and as it is said, the Emperor Theodosius himself, hastened to visit the cavern of the Seven Sleepers, who bestowed their benediction, related their story, and at the same instant peaceably expired. The origin of this marvellous fable cannot be ascribed to the pious fraud and credulity of the modern Greeks, since the authentic tradition may be traced within half a century of the supposed miracle. James of Sarug, a Syrian bishop, who was born only two years after the death of the younger Theodosius, has devoted one of his two hundred and thirty homilies to the praise of the young men of Ephesus. Their legend, before the end of the sixth century, was translated from the Syriac into the Latin language, by the care of Gregory of Tours. The hostile communions of the East preserve their memory with equal reverence; and their names are honourably inscribed in the Roman, the Abyssinian, and the Russian Calendar. Nor has their reputation been confined to the Christian world. This popular tale, which Mahomet might learn when he drove his camels to the fairs of Syria, is introduced as a divine revelation, into the Koran. The story of the Seven Sleepers has been adopted, and adorned, by the nations, from Bengal to Africa, who profess the Mahometan religion; and some vestiges of a similar tradition have been discovered in the remote extremities of Scandinavia.
JOHN RAY, THE NATURALIST.
Ray was the son of a blacksmith, at Black Notley, in Essex, where he was born in 1628. He received his education at Braintree school, at Catharine Hall, and afterwards at Trinity College, Cambridge. His intense studies, requiring country air and exercise, occasioned his predilection for botany; his first rambles in search of plants were confined in extent, but subsequently diverged throughout England and Wales; and at length passing the channel he visited many parts of Europe. His books of instruction were the works of Johnson and Parkinson, and the Phytologia Britannica. His friend and companion, Francis Willoughby,[[50]] was a gentleman as amiable as scientific, their souls seeming to be blended together. Ray having been ordained, did not chuse to accept of the emoluments of the church, with which he did not entirely unite; but just before his death, when it was too late to gain, he became reconciled to it. Mr. Willoughby, who died in 1672, left him an annuity of sixty pounds, but it does not appear what other property he possessed, except his fellowship of Trinity. Though the generations which have followed him have produced a Linnæus, a Buffon, and a Pennant, yet Ray’s fame is too well established ever to be supplanted. He was a wise, a learned, as well as a pious and modest man, and ever ready to impart that knowledge which he had taken so much pains to acquire. He died in 1705 with a devout humility that had ever distinguished him, wishing that he had spent much more of his life in the immediate service of his Creator. There was no task too arduous for Ray; if Lister, a contemporary naturalist, would have gone to the bottom of the ocean for a shell, Ray would have climbed to the extreme point of the Alps for a new plant. In the church-yard of Black Notley, his native place, there is a long and elegant inscription to the memory of this great man, and in the library of Trinity College, there is a fine marble bust of him, in company with Bacon and other splendid ornaments of that magnificent foundation.