The Druids were kept entirely distinct from the body of the people; and they were exempted from all the inferior and burdensome offices of society, that they might be at leisure to attend the important duties of their own charge.  They were chosen out of the best families, and from the young men of the most promising talents:  a regulation which placed and preserved them in a respectable light with the world.  None were admitted into this order but after a long and laborious novitiate, which made the character venerable in their own eyes by the time and difficulty of attaining it.  They were much devoted to solitude, and thereby acquired that abstracted and thoughtful air which is so imposing upon the vulgar; and when they appeared in public, it was seldom, and only on some great occasion,—­in the sacrifices of the gods, or on the seat of judgment.  They prescribed medicine; they formed the youth; they paid the last honors to the dead; they foretold events; they exercised themselves in magic.  They were at once the priests, lawgivers, and physicians of their nation, and consequently concentred in themselves all that respect that men have diffusively for those who heal their diseases, protect their property, or reconcile them to the Divinity.  What contributed not a little to the stability and power of this order was the extent of its foundation, and the regularity and proportion of its structure.  It took in both sexes; and the female Druids were in no less esteem for their knowledge and sanctity than the males.  It was divided into several subordinate ranks and classes; and they all depended upon a chief or Arch-Druid, who was elected to his place with great authority and preeminence for life.  They were further armed with a power of interdicting from their sacrifices, or excommunicating, any obnoxious persons.  This interdiction, so similar to that used by the ancient Athenians, and to that since practised among Christians, was followed by an exclusion from all the benefits of civil community; and it was accordingly the most dreaded of all punishments.  This ample authority was in general usefully exerted; by the interposition of the Druids differences were composed, and wars ended; and the minds of the fierce Northern people, being reconciled to each other under the influence of religion, united with signal effect against their common enemies.

There was a class of the Druids whom they called Bards, who delivered in songs (their only history) the exploits of their heroes, and who composed those verses which contained the secrets of Druidical discipline, their principles of natural and moral philosophy, their astronomy, and the mystical rites of their religion.  These verses in all probability bore a near resemblance to the Golden Verses of Pythagoras,—­to those of Phocylides, Orpheus, and other remnants of the most ancient Greek poets.  The Druids, even in Gaul, where they were not altogether ignorant of the use of letters, in order to preserve their knowledge