Homer fays, that the princes and chiefs who demanded Penelope in marriage, employed themselves before the door of the house, at playing irroi (Od. «.) The antient Etrufcans always were married in the streets before the door of the house, which was thrown open at the conclufion of the ceremony. The Druids of Ireland employed ftones on this occafion; but on more ferious bufinefs, bones were employed; the divination was then called Maitheas, that is, fay the gloffaries, Mait-fhios, or the science or knowledge of Maith. Chaldee n math, pytho offium cadaverum, qui nempe magiam cum illis exercet, & futura ex iis prædicit. (Buxtorf.) N. B. Tages, was a proper name common to the antient Etrufcans, and to the Irish; as Tages an eminent Druid, father of Morna, mother to the famous Fin Mac Cuil or Finn Mac Cumhail. THE THE CEAD RAI RE. PLATE XIII.- Fig. 1. THESE golden ornaments of the Hibernian 'Druids, are frequently found in our bogs: they reprefent the moon at the first quarter, whence the name cead first, rai quarter, or divifion, Rè Moon. They were carried in the hand by the Druids in many religious ceremonies, particularly when in proceffion to cut the facred mifsletoe, which was always performed on the first quarter of the moon's age. Pliny fays it was on the 6th day of her age, ante omnia fexta luna, quæ principia menfium annorumque his facit. This ornament is extremely well expreffed on a bas-relief, found at Autun, and was engraved by Auberi in his antiquities of that place. Auberi died after the first book, and part of the second had been printed off; the work being then imperfect, was fold for wafte paper; there are very few copies now to be be found of what was finished. Montfaucon had one, which he thought the only complete copy in the world: he has copied the engraving of the bas-relief, and thus describes it: "Here we fee two Druids; one crowned with "leaves of oak, agreeable to Pliny's words, Druidas "fine ea fronde nulla facra conficere; this is pro bably the arch Druid, having a fceptre in his hand. "Near him is another Druid, not crowned, holding "in his hand the figure of the moon, fuch as fhe "makes on the 6th day of her age. I think no one "can doubt, that these figures reprefent the Druids proceeding on that ceremony. They were great aftronomers, and as it was effentially neceffary to "perform it on the fixth day of the Moon's age, an "astronomical Druid here holds a crefcent, to fignify "that the feftival is arrived. This explanation of a "monument, hitherto undecyphered, I expect will "meet no contradiction." So far from contradicting the Reverend Father and Antiquary, I perfectly agree with him, and have copied the figure, carrying the crefcent at Fig. 2. The fcrupulous, awful regard, which the Druids paid to a few plants, as the Misletoe, Samolus, and Selago, which they accounted facred, and the extravagant opinion they had of their virtues, may be reckoned among the greatest abfurdities of their fyftem: yet in this they imitated the antient Perfians and Maffagetes, who thought the Mifsletoe fomething divine, as well as the Druids *. * Borlafe's Cornwall, p. 147. Hyde, p. 249, 255. VOL. IV. No. XIII. K There |