not understand: in another copy, it is called Y Llech a Chymmraint, the flat stone of social privilege: and this seems to describe an instrument of initiation, which admitted the aspirant to the privileges of the regenerate society.

But to dismiss this inquiry. Under what flat stones could the Arkite goddess have confined her votaries, in order to confer these privileges upon them, unless it were those which are attached to her sanctuaries, which cover receptacles proper for the purpose, which are denominated stone arks, and which, in their local designations, retain the name of Arthur and Ceridwen, and the memorial of Arkite mysteries?

Arthur is said to have been released from each of the three prisons by Goreu, Best, the son of Cystenin, which is the British name of Constantine; but no son of that prince could have released the patriarch from the prototype of the mystic cell. We may therefore suppose, that the compiler of the tale plays upon the sound of the word, and that we ought to understand Cistenin, the minister of the ark.

SECTION V.

Traditions relating to the Progress, Revolutions, and Suppression of the British Superstition.

A SUCCESSFUL investigation of the progress and revolutions of Druidism, might be expected to attract the notice of the public. It would certainly be curious to trace the changes, whether improvements or corruptions, which took place in the religion of our early progenitors, and to have an opportunity of discriminating between those rites and superstitions, which they originally brought with them into Britain, and those which, in the course of ages, they adopted from other nations, or devised from their own fancy.

But for the basis of such an investigation, we want an authentic historical document, enlighted by accurate chronology, and divested of allegorical obscurity. Upon this subject, no such aid is to be found. The religion of the Britons, like that of other heathens, grew up in the dark. All that we have left is a mass of mythological notices, which were certainly written in ages, when Druidism was in high esteem, and had many votaries and from those, the genuine opinion and tradition of the Britons, during those ages, may be in some measure collected. From these ænigmatical tablets, I shall attempt to make

a few slight sketches, with the hope of gratifying the curious, and affording some little light to the antiquary; though from the nature of my materials, I almost despair of amusing the general reader.

In the first place, it may be inferred from the tone of the evidence already produced, that the primitive religion of the Cymry (long before the age of the oldest Bard who is now extant,) was a kind of apostasy from the patriarchal religion, or a mere corruption of it.

In the tradition of this people, I have remarked the local account of a vessel, from which they assert, that their progenitors sprung after a general deluge: I have noticed their exclusive claim to the universal patriarch of all nations; I have observed, that their superstition strongly verged from all points, towards the history of the deluge, and towards that system of theology, which Mr. Bryant denominates Arkite: I have shewn that they worshipped the patriarch, as a deity, though they had not forgotten, that he was a just and pious man: and I think I have proved, that the Ceridwen of the Druids was as much the genius of the ark, as the Ceres and Isis of our great mythologist.

If the Bards exhibit, together with this Arkite supersti tion, that mixture of Sabian idolatry, or worship of the host of heaven, which the second volume of the Analysis traces, as blended with the same mythology, over great part of the ancient world; yet we observe, that the Solar divinity is always represented as the third, or youngest of the great objects of adoration: hence it may be inferred, that the worship of the patriarch, in conjunction with the sun, was an innovation, rather than an original and fundamental principle, of the Druidical religion.

That this opinion was inculcated by our old mythologists, appears from a very singular triad, which I propose to analyze. But the reader of taste may require some apology, for the homeliness of its characters.

Mythologists have never been very scrupulous in the selection of their figures. Gods and their priests have been presented to us, under the form of every animal character, from the elephant and the lion, to the insect and the reptile. And it is not to be expected, that our ancestors should have been more delicate in their choice, than other nations more enlightened and more refined.

Without any such affectation of superior taste, they bring forward three distinct states of the British hierarchy, but all of them more or less Arkite, under the characters of three mighty swine herds.

Their disciples, of course, consisted of a multitude of swine. I am not calling them names-these are the titles they thought proper to assume: and no doubt, they regarded them as very respectable and becoming.

Though this representation be partly peculiar to the Britons, it has still, some analogy with the notions and the mythology of other heathens.

Thus, we are told that the priests of the Cabiri were styled Sues-swine. Greece and Rome consecrated the sow to Ceres, and gave it the name of the mystical animal. The learned and ingenius M. De Gebelin says, that this selection was made, not only because the sow is a very prolific animal, but also, because she plows the ground, and

because the plough has a figure similar to that of her snout, and produces the same effect.*

The Cymry proceeded somewhat further, but still upon the same road. In Britain, Ceres herself assumes the character of Hwch, a sow; she addresses her child, or devotee, by the title of Porchellan, little pig; her congregation are Moch, swine; her chief priest is Turch, a boar, or Gwydd Hwch, boar of the wood, or grove; and her Hierarchy is Meichiad, a swine herd.

The triad which I have mentioned, upon the subject of the three mighty swine herds, is preserved in several copies, † from a collation of which, I shall subjoin an English version, and add some remarks upon each particular.

"The first of the mighty swine herds of the island of "Britain, was Pryderi, the son of Pwyll, chief of Annwn, "who kept the swine of his foster-father, Pendaran Dyved, "in the vale of Cwch, in Emlyn, whilst his own father, Pwyll, was in Annwn."

In order to understand the meaning of this mythology, it will be necessary first of all, to take some notice of the persons and places here introduced.

Pryderi, called also Gwynvardd Dyved, was the son of Pwyll, Lord of Dyved, the son of Meirig, the son of Arcol,