which forms one of the six counties of North Wales, was to that principality what the island of Sicily was to Italy, its granary, and chief dependence for subsistence; it was likewise the favourite spot, and the last asylum of the Druids in Britain; it was to their venerable and sacred groves, in this their last sanctuary, that they fled from Roman tyranny; and it was here, around their altars, defenceless and undefended, save by firebrands snatched from beneath the sacrifice, that these venerable bigots fell, on the score of their religion, under the murderous swords of Pagans, who, their means of attaining knowledge being considered, were more ignorant than themselves. Neither have we a right, on the bare testimony of these their bloody tyrannical persecutors, to believe them to have been guilty of the horrid rites and human sacrifices of which they are accused. In what portion of history do we find the state, the hero, or the conqueror, wanting a good and sufficient reason to cover the plea for conquest or aggression; and, above all, do we ever find the Romans, throughout their history, wanting in such plea to cover the basest of their actions? It was the religious stimulus by which the Druids urged the Britons, even the females, to deeds of heroic madness, to which the Romans owed the dear purchase in life and blood of their British conquest; and which, whilst that stimulus existed, they were but too well aware, must ever be insecure: no wonder then, that to cover the inhumanity of a cold-blooded warfare of extermination against a priesthood, that controlled and guided the energies of a daring people, they should represent them in their bloody orgies as immolating human victims: nay, most probably, even the accusation was founded in truth, but grossly and wilfully misrepresented; for the ministers of religion being, most probably, the administrators of justice, and sole keepers of traditionary laws, the sacrifice of guilty culprits to such laws, to make a deeper impression on the minds of hardy but superstitious barbarians, was made a religious act. When we reflect on the late horrible sacrifices that have been made in this country in the nineteenth century, to its offended laws, and on those disgusting, though less dreadful exhibitions, which are made so frequently, in a leading street of the metropolis of Britain, that they, from their business-like, unceremonious mode of execution, no longer deter from similar offences: and when we see the culprits come forth attended by ministers of religion, who may appear to uninformed by-standers to superintend the ceremony, as to the lot of one of them it falls to give the fatal signal; we should reflect how such a spectacle may be misrepresented by an Indian, a Chinese, or an Esquimaux, and then judge with due candour of the religious rites and actions of the Druids.