Year of the

food 1256

The common notion among them was, before Chrift that fuch a fpontaneous death, for the good

622.

of the common- wealth, intitled them to a rank among the gods. In other cafes they either tied or nailed them to fome tree or poft, and fhot them to death with arrows: others they burnt with a number of beasts on a pile of hay. The fame author adds, that they threw into the fire an incredible quantity of gold, and other rich things, which was death for any one to meddle with afterwards.

To conclude; the three grand fundamentals of their religion confifted, First, In their worship of the gods. Secondly, In abstaining from all evil. And Laftly, In behaving with intrepidity upon all occafions. In order to enforce this last, on which they valued themselves moft, they taught the immortality of the foul, and a life after this of blifs or mifery, according as they had lived and this infpired them with incredible courage and contempt of death.

I fhall close this account of the ancient Gauls, with a few words of their exceffive love

*Strabo, lib. iv.

flood 1256

before Chrift

622.

love of liberty (though foreign to my fub- Year of the ject). They had fuch a fingular contempt of life, when not accompanied with liberty and martial deeds, that either upon the appearance of fervitude, or incapacity of action, through old age, wounds, or any chronic difcafes, they either put an end to their days, or elfe prevailed upon their friends to do it, efteeming this laft ftate as much a kind of flavery, as falling into the hands of their enemies,

No.

No. XXXVIII.

The Religion of the Ancient Germans.

THIS fubject hath been already so copiously handled in the last chapter; as it is so naturally interwoven with it, to say much, would be only a needlefs repetition. The Gauls and Germans, as nearly allied to each other, originally received not only their religion, but likewise their laws and customs from the fame hand, and both retained them, some few particulars excepted, during a long feries of ages, with an invincible tenacioufnefs it has been obferved that the latter continued much longer inflexible, against introducing the Roman superstition, than the former :

5

former: fo that, with regard to their ancient religion, they exactly agreed in worshipping the fupreme Deity, under the name of Efus, or Hefus, falfely faid by Roman Authors to have been Mars or Mercury. They wor shipped hm under the emblem of an oak, confecrated that tree more peculiarly to him, and had a great veneration not only for the tree itself, but for its leaves and fruit, especially the misleto, and afcr be extraordinary virtues to is, especially in epileptic diseases.* They held like them all other trees, likewise as facred, though not in the fame degree with the oak; all woods, forefts, and deferts, as well as groves, lakes, rivers, fountains, &c. in high veneration. The Druids had the fole care and direction in all religious, and the greatest sway and authority in civil matters; only it may be here observed, that though both nations held fome fort of women, whom they looked upon as propheteffes in great esteem: yet the Germans feem to have exceeded the Gauls in this kind of fuperftition, and to have retained and fhewn a much

greater

Pliny's Natural History, lib. xvi. chap. 44. Also Colebatch and Douglas on the Milleto.

greater fondness and veneration for their pretended oracles.

The Germans, we are told, never undertook any thing of importance, without confulting them, and would even forbear fighting an enemy, let the advantage appear ever fo great on their fide, if those women disapproved of it. In other things they were, as far as can be gathered from writers.* subject to, and obliged to receive their directions, like the Gauls, from their grand Druid. If there was any difference between the Gauls and Germans in point of religion, it confifted only in this, that the latter being more fierce and untractable, were not only more full and tenacious of their fuperftitious rites, but likewife more cruel and inhuman in them. They not only offered the fame expiatory human victims, and used them in their auguries, and other parts of their religion, but treated them much more cruelly than they, and made them undergo many grievous indignities and torments, before they difpatched them, fome inftances I have given in the Gaulish religion, that will hardly bear repeating.

Cæfar and Tacitus.