These overstrained efforts had, as frequently happens, exhausted the spirits of the men, and stifled that ardor they were intended to kindle.

The Britons were defeated; and Paulinus, pretending to detest the barbarity of their superstition, in reality from the cruelty of his own nature, and that he might cut off the occasion of future disturbances, exercised the most unjustifiable severities on this unfortunate people.

He burned the Druids in their own fires; and that no retreat might be afforded to that order, their consecrated woods were everywhere destroyed.

Whilst he was occupied in this service, a general rebellion broke out, which his severity to the Druids served rather to inflame than allay.
From the manners of the republic a custom had been ingrafted into the monarchy of Rome altogether unsuitable to that mode of government.

In the time of the Commonwealth, those who lived in a dependent and cliental relation on the great men used frequently to show marks of their acknowledgment by considerable bequests at their death.