be found fit to follow his father’s, or, in cafe of an accident, his
uncle’s calling. It would be ftrange indeed, if, among ten or
twelve fons, Doftor Maclean could not find one with a genius for
phyfic.
Of the G R U A G I G H.
By the Same.
T ) E F O R E the arts of carving, ingraving, or ftatuary-
U work were invented, or in the countries, into which they
were not introduced, the reprefentations of the Divinity, whether
high or fubordinate, were no other than the trunks of trees, or
rude unformed ftones. The emblem of the Supreme God zt Di-
dona, confecrated by the Hyperboreans, was the trunk of an oak,
and io it was in the Majjilian grove.
Simulacraque mifta Deonim
Arte carent, cadifque•extant informia truncis.
The emblem of Apollo at Delphi, fet up by the Pelas-Gi, the primitive
inhabitants of Greece, was no other than a pillar of ftone.
Several examples of this kind are mentioned by Clemens Alexandrinus
and Eufebius.
As the Celtic tribes worlhipped fpiritual Gods, whether the Supreme,
or fubordinate ones; they well knew that material reprefentations
could not be expreffive of them, though the trunk of
a tree ora ftone could very well mark out the place of worihip,
in -
in a grove or on the fummit of a mountain, where the fmall
focieties in the neighbourhood might convene on folemn occa-
fions, or as the neceffity of the Community might feem to require,
in order to conciliate the favor and affiftance of the Divinity
whom they reforted to. Men of different religious principles
have often been unjuft to one another in common charge
of idolatry ; the Proteftants lay it to the account of the Catholics,
the Catholics to the account of Pagans of all denominations,
which all deny, who know beft what they are employed about.
They furely pray, fuch at leaft of them as can think, not to a
ftock or a ftone, whether in the ftate of nature or formed by
art into a ftatue, but to the Divinity, of which one or the other
is an emblem. Among the variety of fubaltern Divinities, which o
the Celtic tribes worfhipped, the Spirit of the Sun was in the
foremoft rank, the Sun being the moft chearful, and the moft
univerfally beneficent of all created and vifible beings. It brought
joy and gladnefs along with it to all the animal creation, to
groves, to fields, and meadows. The day of its return was celebrated
in every diftriil by a feu de joye-, whence May-day was
called in the Gaulic, la Beltein, the day of Bel’s fire; Belis being
one of the names of the Sun in Gaul. Herodiam lib. 8. The
worihip of the Sun was fo frequent, that feveral miftook it for
the principal object of adoration. The inclofures called Gria-
nan, or Grianham, the Houfe of the Sun, are to be met with
every where, in which they offered their facrifices, commonly
horfes, burnt betwixt two large fires j whence the proverb, “ He
“ is betwixt two Beltein fires,” which is applied to one in the
K k k z hands