Abury, A Temple of the British Druids, With Some Others, Described by William Stukeley

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Right Honourable,

IN a family that has been in all ages remarkably the friend of the muses, I think myself happy, that I have a particular claim. To You, my Lord, this dedication is devolv’d by hereditary right. Through Your father’s auspices and encouragement, I began and continued the work. He was ever pleas’d to look upon my mean performances with a favourable eye; and to assist me out of the inexhaustible fund of his own knowledge, in all kinds of ancient learning; and promised to patronize it, when published.

But if any thing herein be acceptable to the publick, they are indebted to Your Lordship for its appearing abroad sooner than I intended myself. Out of that innate love of letters which warms the breast of the Pembrokes, You thought fit to prompt and encourage me to the printing of it; and Your Lordship’s judgment will be an agreeable prejudice in my favour; who have cultivated Your excellent talents by your own industry; by all that can be learn’d in a curious view and observation of the antiquities of Italy; who are in every sense a master of that immense treasure of Greek and Roman marbles, which render Wilton the Tramontane Rome.

Besides that learning which is the ornament of the present age, Your Lordship knows how to put a true value on the antiquities proper to Your own country. If they want somewhat of the delicacy of the Augustan times, or that of Alexander the great; yet they have their beauties, and even elegancies, which affect so exquisite a taste as Your Lordship’s. A symmetry and harmony of parts, an amazing grandeur in the design, the incredible force of the mechanick powers employ’d in them, the most magnificent effect produc’d, will for ever recommend the works of the Druids, to those of Your Lordship’s discerning eye and accurate judgment.

We see a convincing demonstration of this, in the fine and costly model of Stonehenge, which Your Lordship introduces in the garden at Wilton; where, I may be bold to say, it shines amidst the splendours of Inigo Jones’s architecture; amidst what he did there in person, and what Your Lordship has since added, so agreeable to the former, as to render the design of that great genius complete.

So uncommon and unconfin’d is Your Lordship’s knowledge in architecture, particularly, that Great Britain beholds a bridge arising, chiefly under Your direction, superior to any the Roman power produc’d at the height of empire. And Thames, which so lately rescu’d the Danube from gallic tyranny, boasts of a nobler ornament than that which Trajan built across that famous river.

That commendable ardour of mind, which in Your younger years led you to study men and manners, places and things, in foreign countries, you now employ for the good of Your own; in the exercise of civil and military arts. Your Lordship tempers that love of liberty, which is the glory of government, with that just allegiance to the sovereign, which is the security of all; so as to give us a view of that amiable character of ancient english nobility, which adorns every page of british history. Permit me the honour to profess myself

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HISTORY is political wisdom, philosophy is religious. The one consists in the knowledge of memorable things, and application of that knowledge to the good conduct of life: in embracing the good, and avoiding the ill consequences and examples of actions. So the other teaches us to entertain worthy notions of the supreme being, and the studying to obtain his favour: which is the end of all human and divine wisdom. Religion is the means to arrive at this purpose. In order to be satisfied what is true religion, we must go up to the fountain-head as much as possible. The first religion undoubtedly is true, as coming immediately from God.

When I first began these studies about the Druid antiquities, I plainly discern’d, the religion profess’d in these places was the first, simple, patriarchal religion. Which made me judge it worth while to prosecute my enquiries about them, as a matter the most interesting and important. Knowledge is the glory of a man, divine knowledge of a christian. What I have done in this volume, is a further prosecution of the scheme I have laid down to this purpose. The noble person to whom it is dedicated, induc’d me to hasten the publication, suggesting the shortness of human life, and having a good opinion of the work.

I was willing to lay hold on the first opportunity of communicating to the world, the pleasure of contemplating so very noble antiquities, which we enjoy in our own island, before it be too late to see them. My endeavour in it is to open the times of first planting the world, after the flood; the propagation of true religion together with mankind; the deviation into idolatry; the persons that built the several kinds iiof patriarchal temples, such as we see here, in the more eastern parts of the world; the planters of Great Britain in particular; and the connexion there is between the east and west in matters of religion. All this shews there was but one religion at first, pure and simple.

Pausanias in Corinthiac. writes, “the Phliasians, one of the most ancient colonies in Greece, had a very holy temple, in which there was no image, either openly to be seen, or kept in secret.” He mentions the like of a grove or temple of Hebe, belonging to that people; and adds, “they give a mystical reason for it.” I guess the mystery to be, that it was after the first and patriarchal manner. The same author says in argol. “that at Prona is a temple of Vesta, no image, but an altar, on which they sacrifice.” The ancient Hetruscans ordain’d by a law, that there should be no statue in their temples. Lucian de dea Syr. writes, “the ancient temples in Egypt had no statues.” Plutarch, in Numa, and Clemens Alexan. strom. I. remark, “that Numa the second king of Rome, made express orders against the use of images, in the worship of the deity.” Plutarch adds, “that for the first 170 years after building the city, the Romans used no images, but thought the deity to be invisible.” So to the days of Silius Italicus and Philostratus, at the temple of Hercules our planter of Britain, at Gades, the old patriarchal method of religion was observ’d, as bishop Cumberland takes notice, Sanchoniathon, p. 266.

And our british Druids had no images. And whatever we find in history, that looks like idolatry in them, is not to be referr’d to the aboriginal Druids, but to the later colonies from the continent.

Likewise I have open’d a large communication between the patriarchal family, of Abraham particularly, and of the first planters of the coasts on the ocean of Spain, Gaul, Germany and Britain. ’Tis plain, what religion was here first planted, as being an almost inaccessible island, flourished exceedingly, and kept up to its original system, even to the days of Cæsar, I mean among the aboriginal inhabitants. The new planters from the continent, on the southern and eastern shore of the island, were tinctured at least with idolatry, in the later iii times. Whilst on the continent, where more frequent changes of inhabitants happen, idolatry every where polluted it. But in all accounts of the first beginnings of nations, they had the first religion: ’till as every where, time, riches, politeness and prosperity bring on corruption in church and state.

We find, on the continent, idolatry crept on by degrees universally, which was the occasion of providence exerting its self in the Mosaick dispensation: and thereby changing the manner of these temples, altogether polluted. Nevertheless we have no reason to think but that the Druids, in this island of ours, generally kept up to the purity of their first and patriarchal institution. And that is the reason that all our classical writers, tho’ much later than the times we are treating of, represent them as a people of a religion diametrically opposite to that of the rest of the world, even as the Jews then, or christians afterwards.

Therefore I thought it fully worth while, to bestow some pains on these temples of theirs, as the only monuments we have left, of the patriarchal religion; and especially in regard to their extraordinary grandeur and magnificence, equal to any of the most noted wonders of the world, as commonly termed.

I have shewn largely enough, the evidences that there were such kinds of temples built all the world over, in the first times; but probably nothing of them now remaining, comparable to those in our own island: which therefore we ought to seek to rescue from oblivion, before it be too late.

I propose to publish but one volume more to complete this argument, as far as I have materials for that purpose. What I have done, I look upon as very imperfect, and but as opening the scene of this very noble subject. The curious will find sufficient room to extend it, to correct and adorn the plan I have begun. And I take it to be well worthy of the pains; as it lets in upon us an excellent view of the scheme of providence, in conducting the affair of true religion, thro’ the several ages of the world. We may hence discern the great purpose of inducing the Mosaick dispensation, on that very spot of ground where the main of idolatry began, and from whence it was propagated over all the western and politer world; and over which world providence rais’d the mighty Roman empire, to pave the way of a republication of the patriarchal religion.

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We may make this general reflexion from the present work, that the true religion has chiefly since the repeopling mankind after the flood, subsisted in our island: and here we made the best reformation from the universal pollution of christianity, popery. Here God’s ancient people the Jews are in the easiest situation, any where upon earth; and from hence most likely to meet with that conversion designed them. And could we but reform from the abominable publick profanation of the sabbath and common swearing, we might hope for what many learned men have thought; that here was to be open’d the glory of Christ’s kingdom on earth.

I have render’d it sufficiently clear, that the Apollo of the ancients was really Phut son of Cham. And I have pointed to the reader, how he may have a perfect idea of the countenance of the man, in innumerable monuments of antiquity, now to be seen. I have pursued that amusing topick thro’ very many of the ancient patriarchs before and after Phut: so as to recover their, at least heroical, effigies. Which, I hope, sometime I may find an opportunity of publishing.

I shall conclude my preface with a piece of old poetry, being some nervous lines, in no contemptible vein, wrote on our subject a hundred years ago, by Samuel Danyel a domestick of queen Anne’s, wife to king James I. The curious reader will observe a remarkable delicacy in the sentiments throughout: a struggle between time and the greatness of these works, equal to that of letters, in endeavouring to recover and preserve the memory of them; which their founders, tho’ well qualified, neglected to do.

THE writers on antiquities generally find more difficulty, in so handling the matter, as to render it agreeable to the reader, than in most other subjects. Tediousness in any thing is a fault, more so in this than other sciences. ’Tis an offence, if either we spend much time in a too minute description of things, or enter upon formal and argumentative proofs, more than the nature of such accounts will well bear. Nevertheless the dignity of the knowledge of antiquities, will always insure a sufficient regard for this very considerable branch of learning, as long as there is any taste or learning left in the world. And indeed we may in short ask, what is all learning, but the knowledge of antiquities? a recalling before us the acquirements in wisdom, and the deeds of former times. But the way of writing well upon them, as I conceive, is so to lay the things together, to put2 them in such attitude, such a light, as gains upon the affection and faith of the reader, in proceeding; without a childish pointing out every particular, without a syllogistical proving, or mathematical demonstration of them: which are not to be sought for in the case. The subject of antiquities must be drawn out with such strong lines of verisimilitude, and represented in so lively colours, that the reader in effect sees them, as in their first ages: And either brings them down to modern times, or raises himself, in the scale of time, as if he lived when they were made. Then we may truly say with the poet,

In endeavouring to keep up to such a rule, I must advertise the reader of the general purport of this volume. It may be said to consist of four parts. Three are descriptions of the three kinds of Druid temples, or we may call them patriarchal temples, which I have observed in Britain. The fourth will be reflexions upon them, as to their antiquity and origin; the founders of such in the more early ages of the world, and in the more oriental countries. And tho’ in writing the descriptive part of these heads, (which I did on the spot, and with great leisure) my papers swell’d to an enormous bulk; and it was necessary for my own right understanding the antiquities: yet I shall shorten them exceedingly, in delivering the work to the publick. In doing this, I shall be very much helped by the engraven designs which at one view give the reader a better notion of the things, than the most elaborate descriptions. Likewise in that part of the work wherein I reason upon these temples, and trace out the vestiges of such as are recorded to us by the learned authors of antiquity now preserved, I shall barely lay the appearances of things together; the relation between these monuments we now see with our eyes, and the accounts of such-like (as I take them) which I find in those authors to have been from oldest time. I shall leave the reader to form his judgment from such evidence, without endeavouring to force his assent with fancied proofs, which will scarce hold good, in matters of so remote an age.

After what I have said in my former volume on STONEHENGE, which carries our ideas concerning these antiquities, up to the very earliest times of the world; I may venture to discourse a little ex priori, concerning the origin of temples in general. And this will open my purpose concerning the three first heads of this book: the three different kinds of the Druid or patriarchal temples in the Britannic isles. If we desire to know any thing of a matter so very remote, as in all other affairs of antiquity, we must necessarily have recourse to the Bible. And I apprehend, it is mentioned in that passage Genesis IV. the last verse; “and to Seth, to him also there was born a son, and he call’d his name Enos: then began men to call upon the NAME of the LORD.”

I observe on this passage, the gloss in our English Bibles is thus, to call themselves by the name of the LORD, which is very erroneous: themselves is a mere interpolation; and would we translate it truly, it ought to be, to call in the name of Jehovah; rather, to invoke in the name of Jehovah. Vatablus turns it, then began the name of Jehovah to be invoked. The jewish writers generally take this passage to mean the origin of idolatry, as if it imported, then began men to profane the Name, by calling themselves therewith. And our great Selden drops into that opinion. But 3was it probable, the divine historian would have been so careful to commemorate an epoch so disagreeable? or to what purpose, even before he had so much as mention’d any publick form of true religion? the very wording of that verse imports somewhat very remarkable, which he was going to declare, “and to Seth, to him also there was born a son, and he called his name Enos: then began men to invoke in the name of Jehovah.”

In understanding this verse aright, we must certainly affirm that Moses intended hereby, to assert the practice of publick religion; which necessarily includes two things, the origin of temples, and the sabbatical observance. For in all publick actions, time and place are equally necessary. In the generation, or days of Enos, grandson of Adam, when mankind were multiply’d into distinct families; besides private and family devotion, the publick worship of God was introduc’d in places set apart for that purpose, and on sabbath days. Publick worship necessarily implies all this.

Many and great authorities confirm this understanding of the words, as well as the reason of things. The Targum of Onkelos, Aquila’s translation. Rabbi Elieser in Maase Bereschit XXII. R. Salomon Jarchi, the Chaldee paraphrast. Vossius in comm. on Maimonides de idololatria. And very many more, too tedious to be recited.

Try the place by other like expressions in scripture, and we find, it amounts to the same thing. Genes. xii. 8. Abram builded an altar unto Jehovah, and invoked in the name of Jehovah. So it ought to be translated. This was the second altar he built in Canaan, being the second place he settled at, near Bethel. In the preceding verse, we have an account of his first settling at Sichem, and of Jehovah appearing to him personally and conversing with him: and of his building an altar to that Jehovah, who appeared unto him. But I think there is so little difficulty in it, that ’tis needless to multiply authorities or argumentations: yet the importance of it demanded thus much.

Here three things most evidently appear, 1. Jehovah was that person in the deity, who appeared visibly and discoursed with the patriarchs, not the invisible supreme. 2. That Abram erected an altar to this divine person Jehovah, worshipped him, and invoked in his name. Invoked whom? the supreme unquestionably, i. e. prayed to the supreme Being, in the name, virtue, effect, and merit of Jehovah, the mediatorial deity. The word NAME, in these passages of scripture, means the mediatorial deity, JEHOVAH by name: Ὁ Θεος Επιφανης, the God who appear’d personally to the patriarchs, who was the king of the Mosaic dispensation, and of the Jewish people, call’d the anointed or Messiah, 1 Sam. ii. 10, 35. he was the captain of the Israelites, that conducted them from Egypt to Canaan, Exod. xxiii. 20. the royal angel, the king, emperor. The angel of his face or presence, Isaiah lxiii. 9. the angel of the covenant, Malachi iii. 1. Melech Jehovah the angelick king, Zechar. iii. 1, 2, 3, 4. he is very God: for, says the supreme, in the before quoted passage in Exodus, behold I send an angel before thee (the angel, it ought to be read) to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him and obey his voice, provoke him not, for he will not pardon your transgressions; for my NAME is in him. This same way of speaking Joshua uses, Josh. xxiv. 19. Ye cannot serve Jehovah; for he is a holy deity, he is a jealous God, he will not forgive your transgressions, nor your sins. The Jews confess this doctrine to be just. Rabbi Hadersan upon that passage in Zephaniah iii. 9. to call upon the NAME of Jehovah, says, this Jehovah is no other than4 Messiah. All this shews the patriarchs had a knowledge of the true nature of the deity, and that the Christian or mediatorial religion is the first and the last. And when men were quite deviated from the first, the Mosaic dispensation was but an intervening vail upon the effulgence and spirituality of true religion for a time, to reduce them to it, in the actual advent of the Messiah. 3. These altars, as they are here called, were the patriarchal temples like those of our druids, the places of publick worship; and invoking in the name of Jehovah, is a form of speech importing publick worship on sabbath days: equivalent to our saying, to go to church on sundays. Whence Servius on the Æneid III. v. 85. writes, in the most ancient manner of worshipping, they only pray’d directly to the deity, without offering sacrifice. And thus I apprehend, we are to understand Herodotus II. where he says the Athenians learn’d invoking, of the Pelasgi, who were Phœnicians: and probably they had it from Abraham, who was introduc’d into the land of Canaan, as a reformer of religion. Invoking was the ordinary method of devotion on sabbath days: sacrificing was extraordinary.

It was Abraham’s custom, wherever he dwelt, to build one of these temples: as afterward, in the plain of Mamre, by Hebron, Gen. xiii. 18. And at Beersheba we are told he planted a grove, and there invoked in the name of Jehovah, the everlasting God, Gen. xxi. 33. It cannot be doubted but there was an altar and work of stones at the same place. And this was the usage of all the patriarchs, his successors, ever after; as is obvious in scripture, even to Moses’s time. Isaac builded an altar in Beersheba, and invoked in the Name of Jehovah, who personally appear’d to him, Gen. xxvi. 25. Jacob set up the anointed pillar at Bethel, xxviii. 18. and the temple there, xxxv. At Shechem he builded another, xxxiii. 20. At Bethel he set up a pillar, where Jehovah personally appeared to him, and blessed him: he anointed it, and poured a drink-offering, or libation thereon, xxxv. 14. In Exod. xxiv. 4. we read, Moses rose early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, which we have no reason to doubt were set in a circle. The like was done after they were seated in the land of Canaan, till the temple of Solomon was built: for Samuel, when he dwelt at Ramah, built an altar, to Jehovah there, whereat to celebrate publick offices of religion, 1 Sam. vii. 17.

Hence we gather further these three things. 1. That they planted groves in patriarchal times, as temples for publick worship. It seems that this was done in those hot countries, for convenience in the summer-season: and perhaps for magnificence. For we are told, Abraham dwelt long at Beersheba, where he planted the grove. These were as our cathedrals; they were planted round about the circular parts of stones, as porticos for receiving of the congregation. Whence groves and temples became a synonymous appellation, both in sacred and heathen writers. 2. That these temples which they call’d altars, were circles of stones, inclosing that stone more properly nam’d the altar. The circles were greater or less, of more or fewer stones, as the will or convenience of the founder prompted. Moses his temple was a circle of twelve stones: and such we have in England. 3. They were commonly made on open plains, and rising grounds, conspicuous and commodious for multitudes, a whole neighbourhood to assemble in. This is the consequence of the nature and reason of the thing: for a matter of publick use must be in the most publick and conspicuous place. 4. The patriarchal religion, and the christian, is but one and the same. Hence in Isaiah xix. 19. the prophet speaking of the restitution of 5the patriarchal religion in Egypt, under the gospel dispensation, says, “In that day shall there be an altar to Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt; and a pillar, at the border thereof, to Jehovah.” This is expressly making use of the terms of a patriarchal temple, with a view to that religion restor’d, meaning the christian.

These monuments of the piety of the patriarchs in the eastern parts of the world, were in time desecrated to idolatrous purposes, and at length destroy’d, even by the people of Israel, for that reason: and temples square in form and cover’d at top, were introduc’d at the Mosaic dispensation, in direct opposition to that idolatry. But before then, that first method pass’d all over the western world, and to Britain, where we see them to this day. By the way, we trace some footsteps of them, but there is always a fable annex’d; as generally at this day, in our Druid temples at home. Thus Pausanias in corinthiacis informs us, that near the river Chemarus, is a septum or circle of stones. He says, they have a report there, that this is the place whence Pluto carry’d away Proserpine. By such story we must understand, the mysteries were there celebrated. Pausanias writes, that the Thracians us’d to build their temples round, and open at top, in Bœotic. He speaks of such at Haliartus, by the name of Ναος, equivalent to the Hebrew Beth, which name Jacob gave to his temple. He speaks of several altars dedicate to Pluto, set in the middle of areas fenc’d in with stones: and they are call’d hermionenses. He tells us too, among the Orchomenians, is a most ancient temple of the Graces, but they worship ’em in the form of stones. From the number three, we may easily guess this was a Kist vaen, as our old Britons call it, or Kebla, like that in our great temple of Abury, and elsewhere. Indeed, the stones of these Kebla in time, instead of a direction in worship, became the object of worship; as Clemens Alexandrinus affirms.

That our Druids were so eminently celebrated for their use of groves, shews them to have a more particular relation to Abraham, and more immediately from him deriving the usage: by which way, I pointed at in good measure, in the account of STONEHENGE. Hence the name of Druid imports, priest of the groves; and their verdant cathedrals, as we may call them, are celebrated by all old writers that speak of this people. We all know the awful and solemn pleasure that strikes one upon entering a grove; a kind of religious dread arises from the gloomy majesty of the place, very favourable to the purpose intended by them. Servius upon Æneid III.

observes, Virgil never mentions a grove without a note of religion. Again, Æneid IX. ver. 4. Strabo says, the poets call temples by the name of groves. And this is frequently done in the scripture. But it is natural for our classic writers, when speaking of the Druids and their great attachment to religious rites, so different from what they were acquainted with, to insist much upon their groves; overlooking our monuments, which they would scarce dignify with the name of temples, because not covered like their own. Yet if with some, we would from hence conclude, that they were the only temples of the Druids, and therefore Stonehenge and the works we are upon, were none of theirs, we should err as much, as if we asserted Abraham only made use of groves, and not of the other temples erected on plains and open places.

Thus far I premis’d with brevity, as an introduction to our discourse, shewing the origin of temples among mankind; a necessary provision for 6 that duty we owe to our sovereign author and benefactor. For unless we can prove ourselves self-sufficient and independent, all nature cries aloud for our acknowledgment of this duty. Private and domestic prayer is our duty as private persons and families, that we have life, and subsistence, and the common protection of providence: but the profession and exercise of publick religion is equally necessary as we are a community, a part of the publick, a parish, a city, a nation, link’d together by government, for our common safety and protection; in order to implore at the hands of God almighty the general blessings of life, wanting to us in that capacity. And that person who secludes himself from his share in this duty, is a rebel and traitor to the publick, and is virtually separated from the common blessings of heaven. But time is equally necessary to this publick duty as place, as every one’s reason must dictate. Therefore was the sabbath instituted; the very first command of our maker, even in the happy seat of Paradise, and before our fatal transgression. ’Tis the positive institution of God, and founded upon the strictest reason. So that if we allow the patriarchs to have built these temples, wherein to assemble for publick devotion, and disallow of the sabbath, because not particularly mention’d in the scripture that they did celebrate it, we think absurdly, and err against common sense and reason. The scriptures were given to teach us religion, but not to inform us of common sense and reason.

The duty of the sabbath commences as early as our being, and is included with great propriety in that observation of the divine historian concerning Adam’s grandson, Enos; when it pass’d from a family-ordinance to that of several families united, as then was the case. The particularity of the expression, invoking in the name of Jehovah, dictates to us the form of their religion, founded on the mediatorial scheme, which Mediator was a divine person, to be worshipped; and thro’ our faith and hope in him, or in his Name, we were to invoke God almighty for our pardon and protection. Therefore the same scheme of religion subsists, from the beginning to this day, the Mosaic system intervening chiefly as a remedy against idolatry, till the world was prepar’d for the great advent; and patriarchal religion should be republish’d under the name of christian.

From all this we must conclude, that the ancients knew somewhat of the mysterious nature of the deity, subsisting in distinct personalities, which is more fully reveal’d to us in the christian dispensation. All nature, our senses, common reason assures us of the one supreme and self-originated being. The second person in the deity is discoverable in almost every page of the old testament. After his advent, he informs us more fully of the nature of the third person: and that third person is discoverable in almost every page of the new testament. That the ancients had some knowledge of this great truth, the learned Steuchus Eugubinus demonstrates, in perenni philosoph. from their writings which are still left, such as Hermes, Orpheus, Hydaspes, Pythagoras, Plato, the Platonics, the sibylline verses, the oracles, and the like. Our Cudworth has very laudably pursued the same track, and Kircher, and our Ramsey in his history of Cyrus, and many more, to whom I refer the curious reader, who has a mind to be convinced of it. I shall only add this, that upon supposition only of an ancient tradition of it, having been handed down from one generation to another, in order to light up and kindle our reason concerning it; that ’tis a doctrine so far from being contrary to reason, or above human reason, that ’tis deducible therefrom, and perfectly agreeable to it, as I shall shew in Chap. XV.

Nor is this a slight matter; for if knowledge be a valuable thing, if it be 7the highest ornament and felicity to the human mind; the most divine part of all knowledge is to know somewhat of the nature of the deity. This knowledge the Druids assuredly attempted to come at, and obtained, as we gather from the different kinds of their temples; and when we have described them, we shall beg leave to resume this argument, and briefly to discourse on it again, as being the chief and ultimate purpose of all antique inquiries.

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TEMPLE is a word deriv’d from the greek Τεμενος, a place cut off, inclosed, dedicated to sacred use, whether an area, a circle of stones, a field, or a grove. This matter, as all others, advanced from simplicity, by degrees, till it became what we now call a temple. Thus we read in Iliad II, of Ceres’s field. Iliad VIII, of Jupiter’s field and altar.8 In XXIII, another at the fountain of Sperchius. In Odyss. VIII, that of Venus Paphia. Pausanias mentions many of these. Cicero too among the Thebans, de nat. deor. III. In Odyss. XVII, a grove perfectly round by Ithaca. And these were encompass’d by a ditch which Pollux calls peribolus. Pausanias makes this particular remark in Achaic, of the grove of Diana servatrix. They were kept by priests who dwelt there for that purpose, as Maron in Odyss. IX.

Tempe signifies a grove or temple, which is the same thing. Strabo writes, that the poets, for ornament sake, call all temples groves. This was in affectation of antiquity.

Tempulum, or contractedly templum, is a lesser grove, or temple properly speaking, built with pillars, as it were in imitation of a great grove. The patriarchal temeni were call’d במיה excelsa, because generally made on high places. Hence the greek word βωμος. By the hebrew writers they were call’d sacella montana, mountain oratories. Sacellum, says Festus, is an open chapel, or without a roof. At length the word temple was apply’d to sacred structures built with a roof, in imitation of Solomon’s. And that was a durable and fixed one, an edifice of extraordinary grandeur and beauty, made in imitation of the Mosaic tabernacle, which was a temple itinerant, the first idea of a cover’d one, properly. There were two reasons, among others, why it was cover’d and square in form. 1. By way of opposition to the heathen ones, practised in all the countries round about, which were imitations of the first patriarchal temples there, and now were converted to idolatrous purposes. 2. Because it was a type of Messiah, or JEHOVAH who was to come in the flesh, therefore cover’d with skins. And that we may have the greatest authority in the case, our Saviour himself declares in the most publick manner, that the temple of Jerusalem was symbolical of his body, as we find it recorded in the gospel, John ii. 19. And the author of the Hebrews largely deduces the necessity of making temples to be the pictures of heavenly things, and particularly of the mediator, Heb. ix. 11, 23. which can be done no otherwise than symbolically. And authors that describe the tabernacle and temple, insist upon this largely. Nor is it otherwise with us christians, in our cathedrals, designing our saviour’s body extended on the cross. But in the more ancient patriarchal times, before the great advent, they form’d them upon the geometrical figures or pictures, or manner of writing, by which they express’d the deity, and the mystical nature thereof. And this same design of making temples in some kind of imitation of the deity, as well as they could conceive it, was from the very beginning. The heathen authors retain some notion of this matter, when they tell us, of temples being made in the form and nature of the gods. Porphyry in Eusebius pr. ev. III. 7. affirms the round figure to be dedicated to eternity, and that they anciently built temples round; but he did not understand the whole reason. And when they built temples properly, in imitation of the jewish, they made them often of a round form, and often open at top, to preserve as near as might be, the most ancient manner they had been acquainted with. Whence Pausanias writes, the Thracians us’d to build their temples round, and open at top.

Thus at Bethel, the place where Jacob built his temple, and where his grand9father Abraham had built one before, Jeroboam chose it for his idolatrous temple, call’d by the Alexandrian Greeks in after times, οικος Ων, the temple of On. S. Cyril in his comments on Hosea writes, that On is the sun, from its round form. The heathen had done all they could to corrupt the remembrance of the name of the true God, and turn’d Beth-el, which signifies the house of EL or God, to οικος Ων, the house of On, or the sun. As ηλιος, is a word undoubtedly made from EL, in the Hebrew, expressing God’s power and sovereignty; so much like Elion a name of God in Scripture, signifying Hypsistus, the most high. Gen. xiv. 18. Luke i. 37. in Arabic, allah taâla the most high God. Whence Atlas the name of consecration of the African hero, allah taâl.

When these ancient patriarchal temples in other countries came to be perverted to idolatry, they consecrated many of them to the sun, thinking their round form ought to be referr’d to his disc; and that these pyramidal stones, set in a circle, imitated his rays. Hence call’d Aglibelus, rotundus Deus, as interpreted by Bochart. עגל בעל, ζευς επικυκλιος among the orientals, as Schedius observes. And had the ancient Greek writers seen our temples of Stonehenge, and the rest, they would have concluded them dedicated to the sun.

These temples of ours are always of a round form: and there are innumerable of them, all over the Britannic isles, nevertheless they are to be ranked into three kinds; for tho’ they are all circular, yet there are three manifest diversities which I have observ’d, regarding that threefold figure, by which the ancients, probably even from Adam’s time, express’d in writing, the great idea of the deity. This figure by Kircher is call’d ophio-cyclo-pterygo-morphus. ’Tis a circle with wings, and a snake proceeding from it. A figure excellently well design’d to picture out the intelligence they had, no doubt, by divine communication, of the mysterious nature of the deity. And it was the way of the ancients in their religious buildings, to copy out or analogize the form of the divine being, as they conceiv’d it, in a symbolical manner. By this means they produc’d a most effectual prophylact, as they thought, which could not fail of drawing down the blessings of divine providence upon that place and country, as it were, by sympathy and similitude.

I shall therefore make it the subject of the present volume, to describe one or two of each sort of the temples built upon the plan of these figures: wherein the founders have left an incontestible proof of that knowledge which the ancient world had of the divine nature, by these durable and magnificent monuments. The remainder of these temples (as many as are come to my knowledge) together with the places of the sports and games of the ancient Britons, and the religion of the Druids, I shall publish in the succeeding volume.

Names or words are necessary for the understanding of things; therefore 1. The round temples simply, I call temples; 2. Those with the form of a snake annext, as that of Abury, I call serpentine temples, or Dracontia, by which they were denominated of old; 3. Those with the form of wings annext, I call alate or winged temples. And these are all the kinds of Druid temples that I know of. We may call these figures, the symbols of the patriarchal religion, as the cross is of the christian. Therefore they built their temples according to those figures.

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ROWLDRICH.

I shall begin with Rowlright or rather Rowldrich, and as a specimen of what requisites are sought for in these enquiries, I shall draw them up in a kind of order: which may be useful in all researches of this sort.

1. A situation on high ground, open heaths, by heads of rivers.

ROWLDRICH is a temple of the Druids of the first kind, a circular work which has been often taken notice of in print, lying in the north-west part of Oxfordshire: upon high ground, where the counties of Oxford, Warwick, and Glocester meet. ’Tis near the town of Chippin-Norton. Two rivers rise here, that run with quite contrary directions; the Evenlode towards the south part of the kingdom, which joining the Isis below Woodstock, visits the great luminary of Britain, Oxford, and then meets the Thames at Dorchester, the ancient Episcopal see of the Mercian kingdom. At this Dorchester are fine remains both of Saxon church antiquity, of Roman, and of British. The inquisitive that prefer our own country antiquities to the vain tour of foreign, will find much of curious amusement there. The other river Stour runs from Rowldrich directly north, to meet the Avon at Stratford, thence to the Severn sea. So that Rowldrich must needs stand on very high ground, and to those that attentively consider the place itself, it appears to be a large cop’d hill, on the summit of an open down; and the temple together with the Archdruid’s barrow hard by, stand on the very tip of it, having a descent every way thence: and an extensive prospect, especially into Glocestershire and Warwickshire. The country hereabouts was originally an open, barren heath; and underneath, a quarry of a kind of rag stone. At present near here are some inclosures, which have been plough’d up. The major part of our antiquity remains: tho’ many of the stones have been carried away within memory, to make bridges, houses, &c.

2. ’Tis an open temple of a circular form, made of stones set upright in the ground. The stones are rough and unhewn, and were (as I apprehend) taken from the surface of the ground. I saw stones lying in the field north of Norton, not far off, of good bulk, and the same kind as those of our antiquity. There are such in other places hereabouts, whence the Druids took them: tho’ in the main, carry’d off ever since, for building and other uses.

3. We observe the effect of the weather upon these works. This we are treating of, stands in a corner of the hedge of the inclosure, near the northern summit of the hill, “a great monument of antiquity,” says the excellent Mr. Camden, “a number of vastly great stones plac’d in a circular figure. They are of unequal height and shape, very much ragged, impair’d and decay’d by time.” Indeed as from hence we must form some judgment of their age, we may pronounce them not inferior to any in that respect; corroded like worm-eaten wood, by the harsh jaws of time, and that much more than Stonehenge, which is no mean argument of its being the work of the Druids.

4. We are led to this conclusion from the name. Mr. Camden calls them Rolle-rich stones. Dr. Holland in his note says, in a book in the Exchequer (perhaps he means doomsday book) the town adjacent, (whence its name) is Rollendrich, if it was wrote exactly, I suppose it would be Rholdrwyg, which means the Druids’ wheel or circle. Rhwyll likewise in the 11 British, is cancelli, for these stones are set pretty near together, so as almost to become a continued wall, or cancellus. Further, the word Roilig in the old irish language, signifies a church; then it imports the Druids’ church, chancel, or temple, in the first acceptation of the word. We may call this place the Gilgal of Britain, to speak in the oriental manner, a word equivalent to the Celtic Rhol, a wheel or circle, which gave name to that famous camp or fortress where the host of Israel first pitch’d their tents in the land of Canaan; after they pass’d the river Jordan in a miraculous manner, dry-shod, as ’tis described in the sublimest manner, and equal to the dignity of the subject, in Joshua iv. There also we read, that Joshua caused twelve men, a man out of each tribe, to pitch twelve stones in the channel of the river Jordan, where the ark stood whilst the people pass’d over, when the stream was cut off; they were set there for a memorial. And they likewise took up twelve stones out of the bed of the river, and Joshua pitch’d them in Gilgal, in a circular form, which gave name to the place, meaning a rhowl or wheel. And to this he alludes in the next chapter, in that passage, which otherwise is difficult to be understood; for here Joshua circumcised the people, that rite having been omitted in the young race during their peregrination in the wilderness: “And the LORD said unto Joshua, this day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you; wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day.”

Commentators not apprehending this, run into many odd solutions, as not seeing a reason between name and thing. Some therefore suppose it so call’d, because from hence Joshua conquer’d all his enemies round about, and the like. But the truth is, Joshua set the stones in a circular form, like the ancient temples; but placed no altar there, because they had no need to use it as a temple, where the tabernacle was present, therefore call’d it simply the wheel. So I doubt not but the altar which Moses built under mount Sinai, with twelve pillars, was a circular work, as our Druid temples, Exod. xxiv. 4. The like we ought to think of the altar which Moses built, and called Jehovah Nissi, which the heathen perverted into Jupiter Nyseus, or Dionysus, Exod. xvii. 15. The like must be affirm’d of all the patriarchal altars of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These works of ours prove it, which are but little later in time, and made in imitation of theirs; and without a pun, or false logic, these matters may be said to prove each other in a circle; where ’tis absurd to demand any positive proof thro’ extreme distance of times and places. I apprehend nothing further ought to be expected from us than to lay together circumstantial evidence, a concurrence of numerous and strong verisimilitudes; as is now the case with us concerning Rowldrich.

5. We very justly infer this is a temple of the Druids, from the measure it is built upon. In a letter from Mr. Roger Gale to me, dated from Worcester, Aug. 19, 1719, having been to visit this antiquity at my request, he tells me, the diameter of the circle is 35 yards. So the bishop of London writes, the distance at Stonehenge from the entrance of the area to the temple itself is 35 yards; so the diameter of Stonehenge is 35 yards. We suppose this is not measur’d with a mathematical exactness; but when we look into the comparative scale of English feet and cubits, we discern 60 cubits of the Druids is the measure sought for. The diameter of the outer circle of Stonehenge, and this circle at Rowldrich, are exactly equal.

I have repeated the table of the Druid cubits collated with our English feet, which will be of service to us throughout this work, plate II.

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The circle itself is compos’d of stones of various shapes and dimensions, set pretty near together, as may best be seen by the drawings, Table III, IV. They are flattish, about 16 inches thick. Originally there seems to have been 60 in number, at present there are 22 standing, few exceeding 4 foot in height; but one in the very north point much higher than the rest, 7 foot high, 5½ broad. There was an entrance to it from the north-east, as is the case at Stonehenge. Ralph Sheldon, esquire, dug in the middle of the circle at Rowldrich, but found nothing.

6. Another argument of its being a Druid temple, is taken from the barrows all around it, according to the constant practice in these places. To the north-east is a great tumulus or barrow of a long form, which I suppose to have been of an arch-druid. Between it and our temple is a huge stone standing upright, called the kingstone; the stone is 8 foot high, 7 broad, which, together with the barrow, may be seen in Tables III, V. but the barrow has had much dug away from it. ’Tis now above 60 foot in length, 20 in breadth, flattish at top.

I know not whether there were more stones standing originally about this barrow, or that this belong’d to some part of the administration of religious offices in the temple, as a single stone.

In the same plate may be seen another barrow, but circular, below the road to the left hand, on the side of the hill. Under it is a spring-head running eastward to Long Compton. This barrow has had stone-work at the east end of it. Upon this same heath eastward, in the way to Banbury, are many barrows of different shapes, within sight of Rowldrich; particularly, near a place call’d Chapel on the heath, is a large, flat, and circular tumulus, ditch’d about, with a small tump in the center: this is what I call a Druid’s barrow; many such near Stonehenge, some whereof I opened; a small circular barrow a little way off it. There are on this heath too, many circular dish-like cavities, as near Stonehenge, we may call them barrows inverted.

Not far from the Druid’s barrow I saw a square work, such as I call Druids’ courts or houses. Such near Stonehenge and Abury. ’Tis a place 100 cubits square, double-ditch’d. The earth of the ditches is thrown inward between the ditches, so as to a raise a terrace, going quite round. The ditches are too inconsiderable to be made for defence. Within are seemingly remains of stone walls. ’Tis within sight of the temple, and has a fine prospect all around, being seated on the highest part of the ridge. A little further is a small round barrow, with stone-work at the east end, like that before spoken of near Rowldrich; a dry stone wall or fence running quite over it, across the heath.

Return we nearer to the temple, and we see 300 paces directly east from it in the same field, a remarkable monument much taken notice of; ’tis what the old Britons call a Kist vaen or stone chest; I mean the Welsh, the descendants of those invaders from the continent, Belgæ, Gauls and Cimbrians, who drove away the aboriginal inhabitants, that made the works we are treating of, still northward. Hence they gave them these names from appearances; as Rowldrich, the wheel or circle of the Druids; as Stonehenge they call’d choir gaur, the giants’ dance; as our saxon ancestors call’d it Stonehenge, the hanging-stones, or stone-gallows. Every succession of inhabitants being still further remov’d from a true notion and knowledge of the things.

Our Kist vaen is represented in plates VI. and VII. One shews the fore13side, the other the backside; so that there needs but little description of it. ’Tis compos’d of six stones, one broader for the back-part, two and two narrower for the sides, set square to the former; and above all, as a cover, a still larger. The opening is full west, to the temple, or Rowldrich. It stands on a round tumulus, and has a fine prospect south-westward down the valley, where the head of the river Evenlode runs. I persuade myself this was merely monumental, erected over the grave of some great person there buried; most probably the king of the country, when this temple was built. And if there was any use of the building, it might possibly be some way accommodated to some anniversary commemoration of the deceased, by feasts, games, exercises, or the like, as we read in the classic poets, who describe customs ancienter than their own times. It is akin to that Kist vaen in Cornwall, which I have drawn in plate XXXVII.

Near the arch-druid’s barrow, by that call’d the Kingstone, is a square plat, oblong, form’d on the turf. Hither, on a certain day of the year, the young men and maidens customarily meet, and make merry with cakes and ale. And this seems to be the remain of the very ancient festival here celebrated in memory of the interr’d, for whom the long barrow and temple were made. This was the sepulture of the arch-druid founder. At Enston, a little way off, between Neat Enston and Fulwell, by the side of a bank or tumulus, stands a great stone, with other smaller. ’Tis half a mile south-west of Enston church. A famous barrow at Lineham, by the banks of the Evenlode.

7. Mr. Camden writes further concerning our antiquity, that “the country people have a fond tradition, that they were once men, turn’d into stones. The highest of all, which lies out of the ring, they call the king. Five larger stones, which are at some distance from the circle, set close together, they pretend were knights, the ring were common soldiers.” This story the country people, for some miles round, are very fond of, and take it very ill if any one doubts of it; nay, they are in danger of being stoned for their unbelief. They have likewise rhymes and sayings relating thereto. Suchlike reports are to be met with in other like works, our Druid temples. They savour of the most ancient and heroic times. Like Perseus, turning men into stones; like Cadmus, producing men from serpents’ teeth; like Deucalion, by throwing stones over his head, and such like, which we shall have occasion to mention again, chap. XIV.

8. We may very reasonably affirm, that this temple was built here, on account of this long barrow. And very often in ancient times temples owe their foundation to sepulchres, as well as now. Clemens Alexandrinus in Protrept. and Eusebius, both allow it; and it is largely treated of in Schedius and other authors; ’tis a common thing among these works of our Druids, and an argument that this is a work of theirs. I shall only make two observations therefrom. 1. That it proceeded from a strong notion in antiquity of a future state, and that in respect of their bodies as well as souls; for the temples are thought prophylactic, and have a power of protecting and preserving the remains of the dead. 2. That it was the occasion of consecrating and idolizing of dead heroes, the first species of idolatry; for they by degrees advanc’d them into those deities of which these figures were symbols, whereof we shall meet with instances in the progress of this work.

Thus we pronounce Rowldrich a Druid temple, from a concurrence of all the appearances to be expected in the case; from its round form, situation14 on high ground, near springs, on an extended heath, from the stones taken from the surface of the ground, from the name, from the measure it is built on, from the wear of the weather, from the barrows of various kinds about it, from ancient reports, from its apparent conformity to those patriarchal temples mentioned in scripture. This is the demonstration to be expected in such antiquities. Nor shall I spend time in examining the notion of its belonging to Rollo the Dane, and the like. Mr. Camden had too much judgment to mention it. ’Tis confuted in the annotations to Britannia, and in Selden’s notes on Drayton’s Polyolbion, page 224. And let this suffice for what I can say upon this curious and ancient monument: the first kind, and most common of the Druid temples, a plain circle: of which there are innumerable all over the Britannick isles; being the original form of all temples, ’till the Mosaick tabernacle.

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WHEN we contemplate the elegance of this country of Wiltshire, and the great works of antiquity therein, we may be persuaded, that the two atlantic islands, and the islands of the blessed, which Plato and other ancient writers mention, were those in reality of Britain and Ireland. They who first took possession of this country, thought it worthy of their care, and built those noble works therein, which have been the admiration of all ages. Stonehenge we have endeavoured to describe; and we are not more surpriz’d at the extraordinary magnitude of this work of Abury, than that it should have escap’d the observation of the curious: a place in the direct Bath-road from London. Passing from Marlborough hither, ’tis the common topic of amusement for travellers, to observe the gray weathers on Marlborough downs, which are the same kind of stones as this of our antiquity, lying dispers’d, on the surface of the ground, as nature originally laid them. When we come to this village, we see the largest of those stones in great numbers, set upright in the earth, in circles, in parallel lines and other regular figures, and a great part inclos’d in a vast circular ditch, of above 1000 foot diameter. And what will further excite one’s curiosity, the vallum or earth, which is of solid chalk, dug out of that ditch, thrown on the outside; quite contrary to the nature of castles and fortifications. The ditch alone, which is wide and deep, is a very great labour, and the rampart very high, and makes the appearance of a huge amphitheatre, for an innumerable company of spectators; but cannot possibly be design’d for offence or 15 defence. This is twice passed by all the travellers: and its oddness would arrest one’s attention, if the stones escap’d it.

The mighty carcase of Stonehenge draws great numbers of people, out of their way every day, as to see a sight: and it has exercis’d the pens of the learned to account for it. But Abury a much greater work and more extensive design, by I know not what unkind fate, was altogether overlooked, and in the utmost danger of perishing, thro’ the humor of the country people, but of late taken up, of demolishing the stones. Mr. Camden the great light of British antiquities, took Kennet avenue to be plain rocks, and that the village of Rockley took its name from them. It is strange that two parallel lines of great stones, set at equal distance and intervals, for a mile together, should be taken for rocks in their natural site. As for the town of Rockley, ’tis four miles off, has nothing to do with this antiquity, tho’ probably had its name from the adjacent gray weathers, whence our stones were drawn.

Dr. Holland, his annotator, writes thus of it. “Within one mile of Selbury, (by which he means Silbury-hill) is Abury, an uplandish village, built in an old camp, as it seemeth, but of no large compass. It is environed with a fair trench, and hath four gates, in two of which stand huge stones, as jambs; but so rude, that they seem rather natural than artificial: of which sort, there are some other, in the said village.” In the time, when this was wrote, all the circles of these great stones, within the village of Abury, were nearly perfect; two of about 150 foot diameter, two of 300 foot diameter, and the great one of above 1000: which merited a higher notice. The largeness of the circles hinder’d an incurious spectator from discerning their purpose.

I persuade my self the intelligent reader, by casting his eye over the plate in the frontispiece, being the village of Abury, will see enough to excite a vast idea of the place: more so, if they conceive that the two avenues of Kennet and Bekamton, going off at the bottom, to the right and the left, extend themselves each, above a mile from the town.

Dr. Childrey likewise, in his Britannia Baconica, takes these stones about Kennet to be mere rocks. Thus if our minds are not properly dispos’d for these inquiries, or we believe nothing great in art, preceded the times of the Romans, we may run into Munster’s error, in cosmograph. iii. 49. who believes, plain celtic urns dug up in Poland, to be the work of nature. Harrington in his notes on Orlando furioso speaks likewise of Abury.

Just before I visited this place, to endeavour at preserving the memory of it, the inhabitants were fallen into the custom of demolishing the stones, chiefly out of covetousness of the little area of ground, each stood on. First they dug great pits in the earth, and buried them. The expence of digging the grave, was more than 30 years purchase of the spot they possess’d, when standing. After this, they found out the knack of burning them; which has made most miserable havock of this famous temple. One Tom Robinson the Herostratus of Abury, is particularly eminent for this kind of execution, and he very much glories in it. The method is, to dig a pit by the side of the stone, till it falls down, then to burn many loads of straw under it. They draw lines of water along it when heated, and then with smart strokes of a great sledge hammer, its prodigious bulk is divided into many lesser parts. But this Atto de fe commonly costs thirty shillings in fire and labour, sometimes twice as much. They own too ’tis excessive hard work; for these stones are often 18 foot long, 13 broad,16 and 6 thick; that their weight crushes the stones in pieces, which they lay under them to make them lie hollow for burning; and for this purpose they raise them with timbers of 20 foot long, and more, by the help of twenty men; but often the timbers were rent in pieces.

They have sometimes us’d of these stones for building houses; but say, they may have them cheaper, in more manageable pieces, from the gray weathers. One of these stones will build an ordinary house; yet the stone being a kind of marble, or rather granite, is always moist and dewy in winter, which proves damp and unwholsom, and rots the furniture. The custom of thus destroying them is so late, that I could easily trace the obit of every stone; who did it, for what purpose, and when, and by what method, what house or wall was built out of it, and the like. Every year that I frequented this country, I found several of them wanting; but the places very apparent whence they were taken. So that I was well able, as then, to make a perfect ground-plot of the whole, and all its parts. This is now twenty years ago. ’Tis to be fear’d, that had it been deferr’d ’till this time, it would have been impossible. And this stupendous fabric, which for some thousands of years had brav’d the continual assaults of weather, and by the nature of it, when left to itself, like the pyramids of Egypt, would have lasted as long as the globe, must have fallen a sacrifice to the wretched ignorance and avarice of a little village unluckily plac’d within it; and the curiosity of the thing would have been irretrievable.

Such is the modern history of Abury, which I thought proper to premise, to prepare the mind of the reader. All this was done in my original memoirs, which I wrote on the spot, very largely. Tho’ it was necessary for me then to do it, in order to get a thorough intelligence of the work; yet I shall commit nothing more to the press, than what I judge absolutely necessary to illustrate it.

In regard to the natural history of the stones, ’tis the same as that of Stonehenge, which is compos’d of the very same stones, fetch’d from the same Marlborough-downs, where they lie on the surface of the ground in great plenty, of all dimensions. This was the occasion, why the Druids took the opportunity of building these immense works in this country. The people call these great stones, sarsens; and ’tis a proverb here, as hard as a sarsen; a mere phœnician word, continued here from the first times, signifying a rock. The very name of Tyre is hence derived, of which largely and learnedly Bochart, Canaan II. 10. This whole country, hereabouts, is a solid body of chalk, cover’d with a most delicate turf. As this chalky matter harden’d at creation, it spew’d out the most solid body of the stones, of greater specific gravity than itself; and assisted by the centrifuge power, owing to the rotation of the globe upon its axis, threw them upon its surface, where they now lie. This is my opinion concerning this appearance, which I often attentively consider’d. ’Tis worth while for a curious observer to go toward the northern end of that great ridge of hills overlooking Abury from the east, call’d the Hakpen, an oriental name too, that has continued to it from Druid times. A little to the right hand of the road coming from Marlborough to Abury, where are three pretty barrows, and another dish-like barrow, if we look downwards to the side of the hill toward Abury, we discern many long and straight ridges of natural stone, the same as the gray weathers, as it were emerging out of the chalky surface. They are often cross’d by others in straight lines, almost at right angles. For hereabouts, it seems, that the chalk contracting itself, and growing 17closer together, as it hardened, thrust the lapidescent matter into these fissures. ’Tis a very pretty appearance. This is near that part of the downs call’d Temple-downs. There are no quarries, properly speaking, nearer Abury than Swindon, and those have not long been dug. In Caln they dig up a paltry kind of stone, fit for nothing but mending the highways. But our gray weather stone is of so hard a texture, that Mr. Ayloff of Wooton-basset hewed one of them to make a rape-mill stone, and employ’d twenty yoke of oxen to carry it off. Yet so great was its weight, that it repeatedly broke all his tackle in pieces, and he was forc’d to leave it. It may be said of many one of our gray weathers,

Lord Pembroke caus’d several of these stones to be dug under, and found them loose, and detach’d. My lord computed the general weight of our stones at above fifty tun, and that it required an hundred yoke of oxen to draw one. Dr. Stephen Hales makes the larger kind of them to be seventy tun. Mr. Edward Llwyd, in his account of the natural history of Wales, Phil. Trans. abridg’d, Vol. V. 2. p. 118. writes, he found a strange appearance of great stones, and loose fragments of rocks on the surface of the earth, not only on wide plains, but on the tops too of the highest mountains. So the moor stones on the wastes and hill-tops of Cornwall, Derbyshire, Devonshire, Yorkshire, and other places, of a harder nature than these, and much the same as the Egyptian granite.

As to the internal texture of this stone, when broke, it looks whitish like marble. It would bear a pretty good polish, but for a large quantity of bluish granules of sand, which are soft, and give it a grayish or speckled colour, when smooth’d by an engine. It consists, as all other stones, of a mixture of divers substances, united by lapidescent juices, in a sufficient tract of time. Sometimes in one stone shall be two or three colours, sometimes bits of flints kneaded amongst the rest. In one stone fetch’d from Bekamton avenue, near Longstone barrow (as commonly call’d) and which was broken and made into a wall, at the little alehouse above Bekamton, in the Devizes road, I saw several bones, plainly animal, part of the composition of the stone. This I admir’d very much, and concluded it to be antediluvian. The stone in general is shining, close, and hard, little inferior to common marble; yet the effect which time and weather has had upon it, far beyond what is visible at Stonehenge, must necessarily make us conclude the work to be many hundred years older in date. In some places I could thrust my cane, a yard long, up to the handle, in holes and cavities worn through by age, which must needs bespeak some thousands of years continuance.

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THE situation of Abury is finely chose for the purpose it was destin’d to, being the more elevated part of a plain, from whence there is an almost imperceptible descent every way. But as the religious work in Abury, tho’ great in itself, is but a part of the whole, (the avenues stretching above a mile from it each way,) the situation of the intire design is likewise projected with great judgment, in a kind of large, separate plain, four or five miles in diameter. Into this you descend on all sides from higher ground. The country north of Abury, about Berwick-basset and Broad Hinton, is very high, tho’ not appearing so to be, and much above the level of Abury town. In a field of Broad Hinton the water runs two ways, into the Thames and Severn, and they pretend ’tis the highest ground in England. ’Tis indeed part of that very great ridge of hills, coming from Somersetshire, and going hence north-eastward, to the white-horse hill. So that the ground northward and westward, tho’ not much appearing so, is still very high, a cliff descending that way; and whilst guarded to the east by the Hakpen, yet it may be called like the thessalian, of the same name,

The whole temple of Abury may be consider’d as a picture, and it really is so. Therefore the founders wisely contriv’d, that a spectator should have an advantageous prospect of it, as he approach’d within view. To give the reader at once a foreknowledge of this great and wonderful work, and the magnificence of the plan upon which it is built, I have design’d it scenographically in Table VIII. the eye being somewhat more elevated than on the neighbouring hill of Wansdike, which is its proper point of sight, being south from it.

When I frequented this place, as I did for some years together, to take an exact account of it, staying a fortnight at a time, I found out the entire work by degrees. The second time I was here, an avenue was a new amusement. The third year another. So that at length I discover’d the mystery of it, properly speaking; which was, that the whole figure represented a snake transmitted thro’ a circle; this is an hieroglyphic or symbol of highest note and antiquity.

In order to put this design in execution, the founders well studied their ground; and, to make their representation more natural, they artfully carry’d it over a variety of elevations and depressures, which, with the curvature of the avenues, produces sufficiently the desired effect. To make it still more elegant and picture-like, the head of the snake is carried up the 19southern promontory of the Hakpen hill, towards the village of West Kennet; nay, the very name of the hill is deriv’d from this circumstance, meaning the head of the snake; of which we may well say with Lucan, lib. IV.

Again, the tail of the snake is conducted to the descending valley below Bekamton.

Thus our antiquity divides itself into three great parts, which will be our rule in describing the work. The circle at Abury, the fore-part of the snake, leading towards Kennet, which I call Kennet-avenue; the hinder part of the snake, leading towards Bekamton, which I call Bekamton-avenue; for they may well be look’d on as avenues to the great temple at Abury, which part must be more eminently call’d the temple.

This town is wrote Aubury, Avebury, Avesbury, sometimes Albury: ’tis hard to say which is the true. The former three names may have their origin from the brook running by, au, aux, water, awy in welsh; the old german aha. The latter points to Aldbury, or old work, regarding its situation within the vallum. Nor is it worth while to dwell on its etymology; the saxon name is a thing of so low a date, in comparison of what we are writing upon, that we expect no great use from it; unless Albury has regard to al, hal, healle, gothicè a temple or great building. There are two heads of the river Kennet rising near it: one from a little north-west of Abury, at Monkton, runs southward to Silbury-hill; this affords but little water, except in wet seasons. At Silbury-hill it joins the Swallow head, or true fountain of the Kennet, which the country people call by the old name, Cunnit; and it is not a little famous among them. This is a plentiful spring. It descends between east and west Kennet, by the temple on Overton-hill, which is properly the head of the snake: it passes by Overton, and so to Marlborough, the roman Cunetio, which has its name from the river.

To conduct the reader the better through this great work, I must remind him of what I wrote in the account of Stonehenge, p. 11, concerning the Druid cubit or measure, by which they erected all their structures, that ’tis 20 inches and four fifths of the english standard. For this purpose I have repeated the plate wherein the english foot and Druid cubit is compar’d to any lengths, which must necessarily accompany us in the description. A ready way of having the analogism between our feet and the cubits is this, 3 foot 5 inches and a half makes 2 cubits. A staff of 10 foot, 4 inches, and a little more than half an inch, becomes the measuring-reed of these ancient philosophers, being 6 cubits, when they laid out the ground-plot of these temples; where we now are to pursue the track of their footsteps which so many ages have pass’d over.

The whole of this temple, wherein the town of Abury is included I have laid down in Table I, the frontispiece, done from innumerable mensurations, by which means I fully learn’d the scheme and purport of the founders. ’Tis comprehended within a circular ditch or trench above 1400 foot in diameter, which makes 800 cubits, being two stadia of the ancients. A radius of 400 cubits, one stadium, struck the inner periphery of the ditch, in the turf. This is done with a sufficient, tho’ not a mathematical exact20ness. They were not careful in this great measure, where preciseness would have no effect, seeing the whole circle cannot be taken in by the eye on the same level. The ditch is near 80 foot, which is 45 cubits broad, very deep, like the foss that encompasses an old castle. The great quantity of solid chalk dug out of it, is thrown on the outside, where it forms a mighty vallum, an amphitheatrical terrace, which hides the sight of the town as we come near it, and affords a good shelter from the winds. ’Tis of the same breadth at bottom as the ditch at top. The compass of this, on the outside, Mr. Roger Gale and I measured about 4800 feet, August 16, 1721.

The included area of the temple containing about 22 acres, I observ’d to have a gentle descent, from the meridian line of it to the east, and to the west: carrying the rain off both ways. The north point is the highest part of the whole. About 35 feet or 20 cubits within the verge of this circular ditch, is a great circle of great stones. The epithet may well be redoubled. These great masses are really astonishing, if we contemplate a single stone, and consider how it was brought hither, and set upright in the ground, where it has stood, I doubt not, 3 or 4 thousand years. But how is the wonder heightened, when we see the number one hundred, which composes this mighty circle of 1300 foot diameter! The stones of this circle, tho’ unhewn, are generally about 15, 16, or 17 foot high, and near as much in breadth. About 43 English feet, measures regularly from the center of one stone, to the center of the other. Look into the scale and we discern these measures of the height and breadth of the stones. 17 feet is ten cubits; 43 feet the central distance from stone to stone, is 25 cubits of the Druids; so that the interval between is 15 cubits. Tho’ this be the general and stated measure, which was proposed by the founders, where the stones suited, and of the largest dimensions, yet we must understand this, as in all their works, with some latitude. The ancients studied a certain greatness: to produce an effect, not by a servile exactness no way discernible in great works, but in securing the general beauty; especially we must affirm this of our Druids, who had to do with these unshapely masses, and where religion forbad them applying a tool. But the purpose they proposed, was to make the breadth of the stone to the interval, to be as two to three. They very wisely judg’d that in such materials, where the scantlings could not be exact, the proportions must still be adjusted agreeable to their diversities, and this both in respect of the particulars, and of the general distance to be filled up. These stones were all fetched from the surface of the downs. They took the most shapely, and of largest dimensions first; but when ’twas necessary to make use of lesser stones, they set them closer together, and so proportion’d the solid and the vacuity, as gave symmetry in appearance, and a regularity to the whole.

Therefore tho’ 25 cubits be the common measure of the interval between center and center of the largest stones of this circle, yet this is not always the rule; for if we measure the two stones west of the north entrance (which entrance was made for the convenience of the town, by throwing the earth of the vallum into it again) you will find it to be about 27 feet. This is but 16 of the Druid cubits, and here us’d, because these stones are but of moderate bulk. The next intervals are 43 feet as usual, being of the larger kind of stones, so plac’d 25 cubits central distance, and then they proceed. This is in that call’d pasture IIII. in the ground plot.

I have always been at first in some perplexity in measuring and adjusting these works of the Druids, and they seem’d magical, ’till I became master 21of their purpose. Therefore to make it very plain to the reader, I shall repeat what I have deliver’d in other words, concerning this great circle, which is a general rule for all others.

As to the construction of this circle, by diligent observation, I found this to be the art of the Druids. ’Tis not to be thought, they would be at the trouble of bringing so many mountains together, of placing them in a regular form, without seeking how to produce the best effect therein, and thus they obtain’d their purpose. As it was necessary, the stones should be rude and native, untouch’d of tool, and that it was impossible to procure them of the dimensions exactly; they consider’d that the beauty in their appearance must be owing to their conformity, as near as may be, and to the proportion between the solid and the void interval. This ratio with judgment they chose to be as two to three: two parts the breadth of the stone, the interval three. And this they accommodated to the whole circle. So that they first brought 100 of their choicest stones together, and laid them in the destin’d circle, at the intended distances, according to that proportion: and then raised them into their respective places.

Hence I find, that where the stones are 15, 16, or 17 feet high above ground, and as much broad, as for the most part they are, about 43 English feet measures, from the center of one stone to the center of another; there the square of the solid or stone is ten cubits, the void or interval is 15: the whole central distance 25. Therefore the proportion of the solid to the void is as two to three.

But before I found out this key to the work, I met with a good deal of difficulty, because the central intervals and the voids were different, for they proportion’d these to the breadths of the stones, as above. Still they chose whole numbers of cubits for that proportion; for instance, in the stones at the northern and modern entrance, where they are but of a moderate bulk, you measure but about 27 feet central distance. This is 16 cubits.

Further I observ’d, they took care to make a reasonable gradation, between greater and lesser stones, not to set a great stone and a little one near one another, but make a gradual declension; by this means in the whole, the eye finds no difference. The proportion of solid and void being the same, the whole circle appears similar and altogether pleasing.

I thought it adviseable to give a plate of a very small part of this magnificent circle, being 3 stones now standing in situ. ’Tis a most august sight, and whence we may learn somewhat of the appearance of the whole.

I observ’d further, that as these stones generally have a rough and a smoother side; they took care to place the most sightly side of the stone inwards, toward the included area. For this vast circle of stones is to be understood, as the portico inclosing the temple properly. Between this circle and the ditch is an esplanade or circular walk quite round, which was extraordinary pretty when in its perfection. It was originally 25 cubits broad, equal to the central distances of the stones. The quickset hedges now on the place, sometimes take the range of the stones, sometimes are set on the verge of the ditch. Further I observ’d they set the largest and handsomest stones in the more conspicuous part of the temple, which is that southward, and about the two entrances of the avenues.

Out of this noble circle of stones 100 in number, there was left in the year 1722, when I began to write, above 40 still visible: whereof 17 were standing, 27 thrown down or reclining. Ten of the remainder all contiguous, were at once destroy’d by Tom Robinson, anno 1700, and their22 places perfectly levelled, for the sake of the pasturage. In the north entrance of the town one of the stones, of a most enormous bulk, fell down, and broke in the fall.

It measured full 22 feet long. Reuben Horsall, clerk of the parish, a sensible man and lover of antiquity, remembers it standing. And when my late lord Winchelsea (Heneage) was here with me, we saw three wooden wedges driven into it, in order to break it in pieces.

In the great frontispiece plate, I have noted many dates of years, when such and such stones were demolished, and took down the particulars of all: some are still left buried in the pastures, some in gardens. I was apt to leave this wish behind;

The seat of many is visible by the remaining hollow; of others by a hill above the interr’d. Of many then lately carry’d off the places were notorious, by nettles and weeds growing up, and no doubt many are gone since I left the place. But the ground-plot representing the true state of the town and temple, when I frequented it, I spare the reader’s patience in being too particular about it.

When this mighty colonnade of 100 of these stones was in perfection, there must have been a most agreeable circular walk, between them and the ditch; and it’s scarce possible for us to form a notion of the grand and beautiful appearance it must then have made.

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THE great circle of stones last described, together with the ditch and rampart inclosing all, may be esteemed as the præcinctus of the temple, not properly the temple; but including the area thereof. There are strictly within this great compass, two temples, of like form and dimensions: each temple consists of two concentric circles. The line that connects their centers, runs from north-west to south-east: which line passes thro’ the center of the whole area. The outer circles of them consist each of 30 stones of like dimensions with those of the outer circle, and at like intervals. The inner circles of both consist each of 12 stones, of the same size and distances. The geometry therefore of them, when laid down on paper, shews, the inner circle must be 100 cubits in diameter, the outer 240.

The centers of these two double circles are 300 cubits asunder. Their circumferences or outward circles are 50 cubits asunder, in the nearest part. By which means they least embarrass each other, and leave the freest space about ’em, within the great circular portico (as we may call it) inclosing the whole; which we described in the former chapter. There is no other difference between these two temples (properly) which I could discover, save that one, the southermost, has a central obelisc, which was the kibla, whereto they turn’d their faces, in the religious offices there performed: the other has that immense work in the center, which the old Britons call a cove: consisting of three stones plac’d with an obtuse angle toward each other, and as it were, upon an ark of a circle, like the great half-round at the east end of some old cathedrals: or like the upper end of the cell at Stonehenge; being of the same use and intent, the adytum of this temple. This I have often times admir’d and been astonish’d at its extravagant magnitude and majesty. It stands in the yard belonging to the inn. King Charles II. in his progress this way, rode into the yard, on purpose to view it.

This cove of the northern temple was undoubtedly the kibla thereof. It opens pretty exactly north-east, as at Stonehenge. It measures 34 foot, from the edge of the outer jambs; 20 cubits: and half as much in depth. Varro V. divinorum, writes, altars were of old call’d ansæ. So Macrobius saturn. II. 11. It seems that they mean this figure before us. And I suppose ’tis what Schedius means; de dis germ. c. 25. speaking of altars among the old germans set in a triangle, he says, the Druids understood a mystery thereby. Perhaps they intended it for a nich-like hemispherical figure, in some sort to represent the heavens. Sex. Pompeius writes, the ancients24 called the heavens, cove. The altar properly lay upon the ground before this superb nich. That, no doubt, was carry’d off long ago, as not being fix’d in the earth, and one of the wings is gone too, the northern. It fell down 1713, as marked in the ground-plot.

They told me it was full seven yards long, of the same shape as its opposite, tall and narrow. We measur’d this 17 foot above ground, 10 whole cubits; 7 foot broad, two and a half thick. These were the ansæ or wings of this noble ellipsis. That on the back, or in the middle, is much broader, being 15 foot, as many high, 4 thick; but a great piece of one side of it has been broke off by decay of the stone. We cannot conceive any thing bolder, than the idea of those people that entertain’d a design of setting up these stones. The vulgar call them the devil’s brand-irons, from their extravagant bulk, and chimney-like form. These coves, as Maundrel says of the turkish kiblas, shew the Druids’ aversion to idolatry, expressing the reality of the divine presence there, and at the same time its invisibility; no doubt a most ancient and oriental custom.

Of the exterior circle of this northern temple but three stones are now left standing, six more lying on the ground, one whereof in the street by the inn-gate. People yet alive remember several standing in the middle of the street; they were burnt for building, anno 1711. That at the corner of the lane, going to the north gate of the town, not many years since lying on the ground, was us’d as a stall to lay fish on, when they had a kind of market here. The ruin of the rest is noted in the ground-plot, and so of the others. But they told us, that about a dozen years ago both circles were standing, and almost entire. Those in the closes behind the inn, were taken up a year ago; (this was when I first went thither, about 1718,) farmer Green chiefly demolished them to build his house and walls at Bekamton. Of the southern temple several stones were destroy’d by farmer John Fowler, twelve years ago; he own’d to us that he burnt five of them; but fourteen are still left, whereof about half standing. Some lie along in the pastures, two let into the ground under a barn, others under the houses. One lies above ground under the corner of a house, over-against the inn. One buried under the earth in a little garden. The cavities left by some more are visible, in the places whereof ash-trees are set. All those in the pastures were standing within memory.

The central obelisk of this temple is of a circular form at base, of a vast bulk, 21 feet long, and 8 feet 9 inches diameter; when standing, higher than the rest. This is what the scripture calls a pillar, or standing image, Levit. xxvi. 1. These works, erected in the land of Canaan by the same people, the Phœnicians, as erected ours, were ordered to be demolished by the Israelites, because at that time perverted to idolatry. All the stones, our whole temple, were called ambres, even by our phœnician founders; but this particularly. The Egyptians by that name call’d their obeliscs; which Kircher did not rightly understand, interpreting it to be sacred books; but meaning petræ ambrosiæ, main ambres in celtic, anointed, consecrated stone; Manah, the name of a great stone of this sort which the Arabians worshipped. They were called likewise, gabal, and the present word kibla or kebla comes from it, but in a larger sense. Elagabalus is hence deriv’d after they turn’d these kiblas into real deities. It means the god obe25lisc; and hence our english words, gable end of a house, javelin or roman pile, and gaveloc a sharp iron bar.

Exactly in the southern end of the line that connects the two centers of these temples, viz. in that pasture mark’d IX. in our ground-plot, is an odd stone standing, not of great bulk. It has a hole wrought in it, and probably was design’d to fasten the victim, in order for slaying it. This I call the ring-stone. From this we may infer the like use of that stone at Stonehenge, in the avenue near the entrance into the area of the temple. I spoke of it under the name of crwm leche, p. 33. It has a like hole in it.

These two temples were all that was standing originally in the great area, within the circular colonnade. Very probably it was the most magnificent patriarchal temple in the world. Now a whole village of about thirty houses is built within it. This area would hold an immense number of people at their panegyres and public festivals; and when the vallum all around was cover’d with spectators, it form’d a most noble amphitheater, and had an appearance extremely august, during the administration of religious offices.

Each of these temples is four times as big as Stonehenge.

About 1694, Walter Stretch, father of one of the present inhabitants, found out the way of demolishing these stones by fire. He exercis’d this at first on one of the stones standing in the street before the inn, belonging to the outer circle of the southern temple. That one stone, containing 20 loads, built the dining-room end of the inn. Since then Tom Robinson, another Herostratus of the place, made cruel havock among them. He own’d to us, that two of them cost eight pounds in the execution. Farmer Green ruin’d many of the southern temple to build his houses and walls at Bekamton. Since then many others have occasionally practis’d the sacrilegious method, and most of the houses, walls, and outhouses in the town are raised from these materials. Sir Robert Holford resented this destruction of them; and Reuben Horsall, parish-clerk, had a due veneration for these sacred remains, and assisted me in the best intelligence he was able to give. Concerning the purport of the disposition and manner of the temple hitherto described, I shall speak more largely in chap. X. toward the end, concluding this with an inscription of the Triopian farm consecrated by Herodes Atticus.

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SEVERAL Roman coins have from time to time been found here, and in the neighbouring fields. A mile off goes the roman way, which I have described in my Itinerary, p. 132. call’d Via Badonica, being the way from London to Bath. It comes from Marlborough Cunetio, crosses the Hakpen-hill by Overton-hill, quite over the neck of the snake belonging to our temple, goes close by Silbury-hill, thro’ Bekamton-fields; then, a little southward of the tail of the snake, ascends Runway-hill, up the heath, where ’tis very plain, just as the Romans left it. Plate IX. exhibits a view of it from the present road to Bath and Devizes, and at the same time affords us a demonstration that our Druid antiquities, which we are here describing, are prior in time to these works of the Romans. This way is not compos’d, as they generally are, of materials fetch’d from a distance, made into a high bank, but only a small ridge of chalk dug up all along close by. We discern upon the heath the little pits or cavities, on both sides, whence it was taken to make the ridge of the road. For this road is not finished, though mentioned in Antoninus’s itinerary, journey XIV, only chalk’d out, as we may properly say. Moreover, the workmen for readiness, have par’d off above half of a sepulchral barrow on the right hand, of a very finely turn’d bell-like form, to make use of the earth; and there is a discontinuance of the line of the little cavities there for some time, till it was not worth while any longer to fetch materials from it. And on the left hand they have made two of their little pits or cavities within the ditch of a Druid’s barrow (as I call them) and quite dug away the prominent part of the barrow, consisting of a little tump over the urn, inclos’d with the circular ditch of a much larger dimension. This observation is of a like nature with that of Plate IV. of Stonehenge. It must be noted, that this roman road here, being mark’d out only; I suppose it was done toward the declension of their empire here, when they found not time to finish it.

I could well enough discern from which point the roman workmen carry’d this way, by observing the discontinuity of these little pits, on account of the materials they took from the larger barrow, viz. from Cunetio Marlborough, to Verlucio Hedington, and so to Bath.

This road, as it goes farther on, and passes to the other side of Runway-hill (Roman-way hill) gives us two other remarkable appearances, both which are seen in Plate X. which I have repeated again in this book, to which it 27more properly belongs. It serves to rectify our notions concerning the high antiquity of the temple we are writing upon. 1. We discern the artifice of the roman workmen, in conducing their road along the precipicious side of this hill, and preserving at the same time the straight line, as much as may be. 2. We see a part of the famous Wansdike, or boundary of the belgic kingdom in Britain, drawn under their king Divitiacus, spoken of by Cæsar in his commentaries. He built the neighbouring town, the Devizes, so call’d from his name, and most probably the city of his residence. I treated of this matter in Stonehenge. 3. We may remark the union of the roman road and Wansdike, for some space, and a proof that Wansdike was made before this roman road, because the bank of the dike is thrown in, in order to form the road. Cæsar says, this Divitiacus, king of the Suessions in Gaul, lived an age before him.

At the bottom of this hill is Hedington, another roman town, call’d Verlucio. Calne, less than five mile off Abury, was a roman town too, where many roman coins are found. Several of them I saw. Hence, the romans being very frequent in this country, ’tis no wonder their coins are found about Abury. I think I may well be excus’d from entering into a formal argumentation to prove that we must not hence gather, the Romans were founders of Abury. In my own opinion, who have duly consider’d these affairs, the temple of the Druids here is as much older than the roman times, as since the Romans to our own time.

Return we down Runway-hill, and contemplate that most agreeable prospect, of which I have given a faint representation in Plate XI. We see here the whole course of this Via Badonica hence, in a straight line to Marlborough, by Silbury-hill, the great tomb of the founder of Abury. I saw several roman coins found about this road on Overton-hill, near the white-hart alehouse. On the left hand is the strong roman camp of Oldbury. Every where we behold great numbers of the barrows of the old Britons, regarding the temple of Abury. On the right hand we may discern a vast length of the Wansdike, carried along the northern edge of the high range of hills parting north and south Wiltshire. Below is a pretty work like a roman camp, cut in the fine turf. It should seem to be somewhat belonging to the Druids, of which afterwards.

Beside some roman coins accidentally found in and about Abury, I was inform’d of a square bit of iron taken up under one of the great stones, upon pulling it down. I could not learn particularly what it was, tho’ no doubt it belonged to the British founders. They found likewise a brass ax-head, under an ash-tree dug up near the smith’s shop by the church. I understood, by the description they gave of it, it was one of those Druid axes or instruments call’d Celts, wherewith they cut the misletoe, fastening it occasionally on the end of the staff, which they commonly carry’d in their hands, one of the insignia of their office, as a pastoral staff of bishops.

When the lord Stowell, who own’d the manor of Abury, levell’d the vallum on that side of the town next the church, where the barn now stands, the workmen came to the original surface of the ground, which was easily discernible by a black stratum of mold upon the chalk. Here they found large quantities of bucks’ horns, bones, oyster-shells, and wood coals. The old man who was employ’d in the work says, there was the quantity of a cart-load of the horns, that they were very rotten, that there were very many burnt bones among them.

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They were remains of the sacrifices that had been perform’d here; probably before the temple was quite finish’d, and the ditch made. These are all the antiquities I could learn to have been found in and about the town of Abury.

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THE Druids, by throwing outwards the earth dug out of the huge circular ditch environing the town, demonstrated to all comers at first sight, that this was a place of religion, not a camp or castle of defence. They prevented its ever being us’d as such, which must have ruin’d their sacred design. Moreover it adds to the solemnity of the place; it gives an opportunity for a greater number of people to assist at the offices of religion.

This further great convenience attends the disposition of ditch and vallum, that the water falls off the area every way, and keeps it dry, which provides for the stability of their work, and convenience of the priests in their ministry. I observ’d the earth that composes the vallum was laid a small distance from the verge of the ditch, so as to leave a parapet or narrow walk between. This was as the podium of an amphitheater, for the lower tire of spectators. The ditch and rampart are each 60 feet, or 35 cubits broad. And now the whole is an agreeable terrace-walk round the town, with a pleasant view upon sometimes corn-fields, sometimes heath; the hill-tops every where cover’d with barrows; and that amazing artificial heap of earth call’d Silbury-hill in sight. The great belgic rampart, the Wansdike, licks all the southern horizon, as far as you can see it, crowning the upper edge of that range of hills parting north and south Wiltshire. Part of this pleasant prospect I have given in plate XXIII, as seen from Abury church-steeple.

Let us then walk out of the confines of the temple properly, by the southern entrance of the town. Passing the vallum, the road straight forwards leads to Kennet and Overton, that on the right hand to the Bath. But our present way lies straight forwards, which is south-eastward, and may properly enough be call’d Via sacra, as being an avenue up to the temple; besides, it forms one half of the body of the snake, issuing out of the circle. There were but two gates or entrances into the temple originally; this was one. And this way I call Kennet-avenue.

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By repeated mensurations, by careful attention and observations, by frequently walking along the whole track thereof, from one end to the other, I found out its purpose, its extent, the number of stones it is compos’d of, and the measures of their intervals. It extends itself from this southern entrance of Abury town to Overton-hill, overhanging the village of West-Kennet. There was another double circle of stones, which made the head of the snake. All the way between there, and this southern entrance, which is above a mile, was set with stones on each hand, opposite to one another, and at regular distances. This was the avenue, and form’d the forepart of the snake.

The Druids, in laying down this design, that it might produce a magnificent effect suitable to so great and operose a work, studied the thing well. As this was to be a huge picture or representation of an animal, they purposed to follow nature’s drawing, as far as possible. A snake’s body has some variation in its thickness, as slenderer toward the neck, than at its middle. This the Druids imitated in making the avenue broader toward this southern entrance of Abury; and drawing it narrower as it approached Overton-hill. Again, when a snake is represented in its sinuous motion, the intervals of the stones sideways must have a variation, as set in the inner or the outer curve; so as to make them stand regularly opposite to one another: yet this necessarily makes some little difference in the intervals, and this too is properly regarded in the work.

The whole length of this avenue consists of a hundred stones on each side, reaching from the vallum of Abury town, to the circular work on Overton-hill. Measuring the breadth of it in several places where I had an opportunity of two opposite stones being left, I found a difference; and the like by measuring the interval of stones sideways; yet there was the same proportion preserved between breadth and interval; which I found to be as two to three. So that here by Abury-town, in a part that represented the belly of the snake, the breadth of the avenue was 34 cubits, 56 feet and a half, and the intervals of the stones sideways 50 cubits, the proportion of two to three; twice 17 being 34, thrice 17 50. These 34 cubits take in the intire space of two intervals of the stones of the outer great circle of the temple of Abury within the ditch, together with the intermediate stone, which is the entry of the avenue to the temple. A most ancient manner, a double door with a pillar in the middle. Such was that of the Mosaick tabernacle: and such very often of our cathedrals. When we mount up Overton-hill, the avenue grows much narrower. And this observation help’d me in the discovery of the purport and design of the whole figure of the snake; and in the nature of the scheme thereof. Of which wonderful work we may well say with the poet; elsewhere,

When I abode here for some time on purpose, for several summers together; I was very careful in tracing it out, knew the distinct number of each stone remaining, and where every one stood that was wanting; which often surpriz’d the country people, who remembred them left on the ground or standing, and told me who carried them away. Many of the farmers made deep holes and buried them in the ground: they knew where they lay. Lord Winchelsea with me counted the number of the stones left, 72,30 anno 1722. I laid it all down in the nature of a survey, on large imperial sheets of paper, and wrote a detail of every stone present, or absent. But it would be very irksome to load the press with it. I shall recite no more of it, than what I think most useful and necessary.

Standing at the southern entrance of Abury, one stone the first, lies on the eastern side or left hand, close by the ditch: its opposite stood where at present a sycamore tree is planted. The next stone on the right hand is standing, by the turning of the Bath-road. Twenty four stones on both sides, next following, are carried off. At about 20 intervals going along the road to Kennet, which is the same as the avenue, we descend a gentle valley, and then lose sight of Abury. There you discern the curving of the avenue, many stones being left together on both sides. Here two stones are standing opposite to each other. I measur’d them near 60 feet asunder, which is 34 cubits. Then we ascend again a little hillock, where a good number of stones remain on both sides.

In a close on the left hand of the avenue, or east of it, not far from Abury town, is a pentagonal stone laid flat on the ground, in the middle of which is a bason cut, always full of water, and never overflowing. The country people have a great regard to it: it proceeds from a spring underneath, and for ought I know, it may have been here from the foundation of our temple. Coming out of Abury, you observe the line of the avenue regards Overton-hill before you, but soon you find it leaves it, and curves to the right hand a little. At the number of 65 stones on each side, you come to a hedge belonging to the inclosures of West-Kennet. In the year 1720 I saw several stones just taken up there, and broke for building; fragments still remaining and their places fresh turf’d over, for the sake of pasturage. Where the corn-fields or pasturage have infring’d upon the sacred ground, our work generally goes to wreck. Where the heath remains, ’tis still perfect enough; of which we say with the great poet,

so that the covetous farmer and grazier have conspired to abolish this most magnificent monument; and that just about the time I was there. Charles Tucker Esq; late of East-Kennet a gentleman of sense, us’d to be very angry at the ruin of these stones, and prevented it as much as he could.

As to the stones that compos’d this avenue, they were of all shapes, sizes, and height that happen’d, altogether rude. Some we measur’d 6 feet thick, 16 in circumference. If of a flattish make, the broadest dimension was set in the line of the avenue, and the most sightly side of the stone inward. The founders were sensible, all the effect desired in the case, was their bulk and regular station. All the hill tops, especially the Hakpen, are adorn’d with barrows as we go along. When the avenue comes to the inclosures aforementioned of West-Kennet, it passes through three of them, crosses a little field lane, and the common road from Marlborough to Bath, just after the road makes a right angle descending from Overton-hill. We must note that we have been a good while ascending again. In this angle the Roman-road from Marlborough coming down the hill, enters the common road. This is the via Badonica aforementioned.

John Fowler, who kept the alehouse hard by, demolish’d many of these stones by burning. The alehouse (the white hart) and the walls about it, were built out of one stone.

31

As before, the avenue coming out of Abury town bended itself to the right, now ’tis easily enough discernible, that it makes a mighty curve to the left, the better to imitate the creature it’s intended for.

Passing the Roman road, it traverses an angle of a pasture, and falls into the upper part of the same road again, and marches through two more pastures, all along the quickset hedge-side: so that the quick is planted in the very middle of it. Many of the stones are seen lying in their proper places, both in the pastures and in the road. These stones are all thrown down or reclining, and very large. We measur’d one by the style 12 feet long, 6 and a half broad, 3 and a half thick.

At the bottom of these pastures on the right, runs the virgin stream of Kennet, just parted from its fountain by Silbury-hill. One stone is still standing by a little green lane going down to the river. Now our avenue marches directly up the hill, across some plough’d fields, still by the hedge of the Marlborough road, where yet stands another stone belonging to it. Then we are brought to the very summit of the celebrated Overton-hill, properly the Hakpen or head of the snake, which is 7000 feet from the vallum of Abury town. 400 cubits, according to Herodotus II, was the stadium of the ancients, our furlong; a space that Hercules is said to run over at one breath. Had the side-interval of the stones of this avenue been the same throughout, 50 cubits, that repeated 100 times the number of the intervals, would produce 5000 cubits. But because, as I said, they lessen’d this interval proportionably, as they came to the neck of the snake, it amounts to 4000 cubits, which is ten stadia, an eastern mile in Dr. Arbuthnot’s tables, amounting to 7000 feet, as Mr. Roger Gale and I measur’d its whole length.

We may observe the proportion between the diameter of the great circle of Abury town, which was 800 cubits, two stadia, and the length of the avenue, which is five times the other. Observe farther, they carry’d the avenue up the side of the hill, so sloping as to make the ascent gradual and easy.

This Overton-hill, from time immemorial, the country-people have a high notion of. It was (alas, it was!) a very few years ago, crown’d with a most beautiful temple of the Druids. They still call it the sanctuary. I doubt not but it was an asylum in Druid times; and the veneration for it has been handed down thro’ all succession of times and people, as the name, and as several other particulars, that will occasionally be mention’d. It had suffer’d a good deal when I took that prospect of it, with great fidelity, anno 1723, which I give the reader in plate XXI. Then, about sixteen years ago, farmer Green aforemention’d took most of the stones away to his buildings at Bekamton; and in the year 1724 farmer Griffin plough’d half of it up. But the vacancy of every stone was most obvious, the hollows still left fresh; and that part of the two circles which I have drawn in the plate, was exactly as I have represented it. In the winter of that year the rest were all carry’d off, and the ground plough’d over.

The loss of this work I did not lament alone; but all the neighbours (except the person that gain’d the little dirty profit) were heartily griev’d for it. It had a beauty that touch’d them far beyond those much greater circles in Abury town. The stones here were not large, set pretty32 close together, the proportions of them with the intervals, and the proportions between the two circles, all being taken at one view, under the eye, charm’d them. The great stones of the great circles at Abury were not by them discern’d to stand in circles, nor would they easily be persuaded of it. But these of the sanctuary they still talk of with great pleasure and regret.

This Overton-hill, whereon was the elegant temple we are speaking of, is a very pleasant place. ’Tis the southern end of that ridge call’d the Hakpen, broken off by the river Kennet. All the water that falls in that plain wherein the whole work of Abury stands, descends this way. It is a round knoll with a gentle declivity to the east, west, and south. The Kennet, as it were, licks its feet on all those sides. The whole hill has its name from this end.

To our name of Hakpen alludes אחים ochim call’d doleful creatures in our translation, Isaiah xiii. 21. speaking of the desolation of Babylon, “Wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of ochim, and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.” St. Jerom translates it serpents. The Arabians call a serpent, Haie; and wood-serpents, Hageshin; and thence our Hakpen; Pen is head in british.

עכן acan in the chaldee signifies a serpent, and hak is no other than snake; the spirit in the pronunciation being naturally degenerated into a sibilation, as is often the case, and in this sibilating animal more easily. So super from υπερ, sylva from υλη, sudor, υδωρ. So our word snap comes from the gallic happer, a snacot fish from the latin acus, aculeatus piscis. And in Yorkshire they call snakes hags, and hag-worms. Vide Fuller’s Misc. IV. 15.

The temple that stood here was intended for the head of the snake in the huge picture; and at a distance, when seen in perspective, it very aptly does it. It consisted of two concentric ovals, not much different from circles, their longest diameter being east and west. By the best intelligence I could obtain from the ruins of it, the outer circle was 80 and 90 cubits in diameter, the medium being 85, 146 feet. It consisted of 40 stones, whereof 18 remained, left by farmer Green; but 3 standing. The inner circle was 26 and 30 cubits diameter, equal to the interval between circle and circle.

The stones were 18 in number, somewhat bigger than of the outer circle, but all carried off by Green aforesaid. Every body here remembers both circles entire, and standing, except two or three fallen.

Mr. Aubury, in his manuscript notes printed with Camden’s Britannia, mentions it, “a double circle of stones, four or five feet high, tho’ many are now fallen down. The diameter of the outer circle 40 yards, and of the inner 15. He speaks of the avenue coming up to it, as likewise of our before-describ’d avenue, from Abury to West-Kennet, set with large stones. One side, he says, is very nearly entire, the other side wants a great many.” He did not see that ’tis but one avenue from Abury to Overton-hill, having no apprehension of the double curve it makes. And he erred in saying there was a circular ditch on Overton-hill.

The view here is extensive and beautiful. Down the river eastward we see Marlborough, and the whole course of the Roman road hence going along Clatford-bottom. We see a good way in the road to Ambresbury, and the gap of the Wansdike, where we pass thro’. Thence the Wansdike skims the edge of all the hill tops to Runway-hill. There we enter upon the view presented in plate XXI. The Roman road runs upon the edge of the hill, on the right hand of that plate, between the barrows there. It descends the hill, and runs to the left hand of Silbury, and close by it; and then up 33Runway-hill. Next we see Oldbury camp, over West-Kennet village. Then we may view the whole length of the avenue hence to Abury, and observe the two great curves it makes, to imitate the figure of a snake, as drawn in the ancient hieroglyphics. Coming from Abury town it curves to the right-hand or eastward, then winds as much to the west, till it ascends this Overton-hill, full east.

I observed the breadth of the avenue here is narrower than elsewhere, as being the neck of the snake. ’Tis 45 feet or 26 cubits, equal to the diameter of the inner circle here. And as it is narrower than elsewhere, they made the side-distance between stone and stone proportional, being two thirds of that in breadth. Mr. Smith, living here, informed me, that when he was a school-boy, the Kennet avenue was entire, from end to end. Silbury-hill answers the avenue directly, as it enters this temple, being full west hence. Here is a great number of barrows in sight from this place, two close by; and a little north-eastward that chain of barrows design’d in plate XXIX. the lower part, looking toward Marlborough. Human bones found in digging a little ditch by the temple, across some small barrows there, and where there were no barrows. Mr. Aubury says, sharp and form’d flints were found among them; arguments of great antiquity. They were of the lower class of Britons, that were not at the charge of a tumulus.

Thus we have conducted one half, the forepart of the snake, in this mighty work, up to Overton-hill, where it reposed its bulky head, and not long ago made a most beautiful appearance. I happen’d to frequent this place in the very point of time, when there was a possibility just left, of preserving the memory of it. In order to do it, I have laid down the groundplot thereof in plate XX. just as I found it for three years together, before it was demolish’d. I found that a line drawn between Overton-mill and the entrance of Kennet avenue in Abury town,is the ground-line of this avenue, from which it makes two vast curves contrary ways, to imitate the winding of a snake, and the hieroglyphic figures we see on Egyptian and other monuments. From Overton-mill is a most glorious prospect, overlooking the whole extent of Abury temple, and the sacred field it stands in, and beyond that, into Gloucestershire and Somersetshire.

As we descend Overton-hill by the neck of the snake, we discern the main part of the track of this avenue between here and Abury town, and may observe its huge curves both ways. And when we are near entring Abury town again, upon mounting the hill by the hedge-corner, at about eighteen intervals of stones from the vallum, you see a most advantageous prospect or approach to the temple, partly represented in plate XVIII. Windmill-hill, with its easy acclivity, fronting you directly, the northern end of Hakpen on the right and Cherill-hill on the left closing the horizon like scenes at a theater.

I observed many of these studied opportunities in this work, of introducing the ground and prospects, to render it more picture-like.

Pausanias in Bœotic. writes, that in the way from Thebes to Glisas, is a space fenc’d round with select stones, which the Thebans call the snake’s head. And they tell a silly story about it, of a snake putting his head out of a hole there, which Tiresius struck with his sword. Just by it, he says, 34 is a hill call’d the supreme, and a temple to Jupiter the supreme, and the brook Thermodon runs under it.

Can we doubt but this was an ancient temple, like what we are describing? It was built by Cadmus, or some of his people, of whom we shall talk more in chapter XIV.

I conclude this account with a verse of the poet’s, which I believe was upon a work of the very same nature, as we shall explain by and by.

---

AFTER I had carefully laid down the plan of Kennet avenue, and not understanding the full purport of it; in the year 1722, I found out this other, extending itself above a mile from the town of Abury, by another direction. It goes toward the village of Bekamton, therefore I call it Bekamton avenue. ’Tis really the hinderpart of the hieroglyphic snake, which the Druids meant here to picture out, in this most portentous size.

The former avenue goes out of Abury town at the south-east point; this full west, at the interval of 25 stones, or a quadrant of the great circle from Kennet avenue, and proceeds by the south side of the churchyard. Two stones lie by the parsonage-gate on the right hand. Those opposite to them on the left hand, in a pasture, were taken away 1702, as mark’d in the ground-plot of Abury. Reuben Horsal remembers three standing in the pasture. One now lies in the floor of the house in the churchyard. A little farther, one lies at the corner of the next house, on the right hand, by the lane turning off to the right, to the bridge. Another was broke in pieces to build that house with, anno 1714. Two more lie on the left hand, opposite. It then passes the beck, south of the bridge. Most of the stones hereabouts have been made use of about the bridge, and the causeway leading to it. A little spring arises at Horslip north-west, and so runs by here to Silbury-hill, where the real head of the Kennet is. But sometimes by a sudden descent of rain coming from Monkton and Broad-Hinton, this is very deep. The picture here humours the reality so far, as this may be call’d the vent of the snake.

Now the avenue passes along a lane to the left hand of the Caln road, by a stone house call’d Goldsmiths-farm, and so thro’ farmer Griffin’s yard, thro’ one barn that stands across the avenue, then by another which stands on its 35direction. Two stones and their opposites still lie in the foundation; immediately after this, it enters the open plow’d fields; the Caln road running all this while north of it. If we look back and observe the bearings of Abury steeple, and other objects, a discerning eye finds, that it makes a great sweep or curve northwards. The avenue entring the open corn-fields, runs for some time by the hedge, on the right hand. When it has cross’d the way leading from South-street, we discern here and there the remains of it, in its road to Longstone cove. Farmer Griffin broke near 20 of the stones of this part of the avenue.

This Longstone cove, vulgarly call’d long stones, is properly a cove, as the old Britons call’d ’em, compos’d of three stones, like that most magnificent one we described, in the center of the northern temple at Abury; behind the inn. They are set upon the ark of a circle, regarding each other with an obtuse angle. This is set on the north side of the avenue; one of the stones of that side makes the back of the cove. This is the only particularity in which this avenue differs from the former. I take it to be chiefly a judicious affectation of variety, and serv’d as a sacellum or proseucha to the neighbourhood on ordinary days of devotion, viz. the sabbath-days. For if the Druids came hither in Abraham’s time, and were disciples of his, as it appears to me; we cannot doubt of their observance of the sabbath. It stands on the midway of the length of the avenue, being the fiftieth stone. This opens to the south-east, as that of the northern temple to the north-east. ’Tis placed upon an eminence, the highest ground which the avenue passes over: these are call’d Longstone-fields from it. You have a good prospect hence, seeing Abury toward which the ground descends to the brook: Overton-hill, Silbury, Bekamton; and a fine country all around. Many stones by the way are just buried under the surface of the earth. Many lie in the balks and meres, and many fragments are remov’d, to make boundaries for the fields; but more whole ones have been burnt to build withal, within every body’s memory. One stone still remains standing, near Longstone cove.

Longstone cove, because standing in the open fields, between the Caln road and that to the Bath, is more talk’d of by the people of this country, than the larger, and more numerous in Abury town. Dr. Musgrave mentions it in his Belgium Britannicum, page 44. and in his map thereof.

Mr. Aubury in his manuscript observations publish’d with Mr. Camden’s Britannia, speaks of them by the name of the Devil’s coits. Three huge stones then standing. It was really a grand and noble work. The stone left standing is 16 feet high, as many broad, 3½ thick. The back stone is fallen flat on the ground, of like dimension.

The other was carried off by that destroyer Richard Fowler, together with many more, but seven years ago (when I was there). The people that saw it broken in pieces by fire, assured me there were perfect flints in its composition and bones. And I verily believe I saw a piece of this same stone in a garden-wall of the little alehouse below in Bekamton-road, which had evidently a bone in it. Whence probably we may conclude, that these stones were form’d by nature since Noah’s deluge, and these bones are of an antediluvian animal, which casually fell into the petrifying matter. 36 They told me the stone contain’d 20 good loads, that the bones were in the middle of the stone, and as hard as the stone. That stone now standing, was the right hand or eastern jamb of the cove.

A little way hence is a bit of heath-ground, but the plough will soon have devoured it. Here remains a great barrow, call’d Longstone long barrow; and from hence we see innumerable more barrows. The avenue continu’d its journey by the corn fields. Three stones lie still by the field-road coming from South-street to the Caln-road. Mr. Alexander told me he remember’d several stones standing by the parting of the roads under Bekamton, demolish’d by Richard Fowler. Then it descends by the road to Cherill, ’till it comes to the Bath-road, close by the Roman-road, and there in the low valley it terminates, near a fine group of barrows, under Cherill-hill, in the way to Oldbury-camp; this is west of Bekamton-village. This point facing that group of barrows and looking up the hill is a most solemn and awful place; a descent all the way from Longstone cove, and directed to a descent, a great way further, down the Bath-road, where no less than five valleys meet. And in this very point only you can see the temple on Overton-hill, on the south side of Silbury-hill.

Here I am sufficiently satisfied this avenue terminated, at the like distance from Abury-town, as Overton-hill was, in the former avenue; 100 stones on a side, 4000 cubits in length; ten stadia or the eastern mile. Several stones are left dispersedly on banks and meres of the lands. One great stone belonging to this end of the avenue, lies buried almost under ground, in the plow’d land between the barrow west of Longstone long barrow, and the last hedge in the town of Bekamton. Richard Fowler shew’d me the ground here, whence he took several stones and demolish’d them. I am equally satisfied there was no temple or circle of stones at this end of it. 1. Because it would be absurd in drawing. The head of the snake was aptly represented by that double circle on Overton-hill: but this place, the tail of the snake, admitted no such thing, and I doubt not but it grew narrower and narrower as before we observed, of the neck of the snake. 2. Here is not the least report of such a thing among the country people. It would most assuredly have been well known, because every stone was demolish’d within memory, when I was there. I cannot doubt but many have suffered since; and I have had very disagreeable accounts thereof sent to me. I apprehend this end of the avenue drew narrower in imitation of the tail of a snake, and that one stone stood in the middle of the end, by way of close. This I infer from the manner of the end of that avenue of the Druid temple at Classerness; which I take to be the tail of a snake. Of which hereafter.

For a more mathematical determination of this end of the avenue, see Chap X. at the end.

The avenue took another circular sweep of a contrary manner, as it descended from Longstone cove, bending southward.

as Virgil writes of this creature, Æneid II.

And it went over variety of elevations and depressures as the other of Kennet avenue; but that terminated on a hill, as this in a valley. With great judgment, they thus laid out the ground, to make the whole more picture-like.

37

Bekamton-village lies very low, at the bottom of a valley subject to inundations, and the ground is springy: they can’t make cellars there: whereas Abury is very dry, and their wells deep.

There are many barrows on the south downs, between St. Anne’s-hill and Bekamton, which chiefly regard this avenue. Many as we go up to the Roman camp of Oldbury, and in Yatesbury-field. And pretty near the termination, in the valley of Bekamton under Cherill-hill, is a group or line of half a score of very different forms, which make a pretty appearance. So the valley along the present road from Bekamton to the Devizes and Bath, is full of barrows on both sides; all regarding this part of the sacred work, the tail of the snake.

I am confident, the reader by this time has conceiv’d a just notion of this wonderful work, which we have describ’d with as much brevity as possible; and at the same time he will resent its fate, that a few miserable farmers should, within the space of 20 years, destroy this the noblest monument, which is probably on the face of the globe; which has stood so many ages, and was made to stand as many more. The grandeur of the work has render’d it altogether unnecessary to add any heightning, or any flourishes. I leave it as an out-line of the most masterly hand, a picture that requires no colouring.

Concerning the forms of the religious performances here, I can say but little, more than that I see nothing, but what appears to be in the ancient patriarchal mode, before cover’d temples were introduc’d in the world; the æra of which time, I am fully convinc’d, was that of the Mosaick tabernacle. We may well assert this to be ancienter than that time; as the largest, so probably one of the most ancient in the Britannic isles. The Druids were tempted to make this work here, by the appearance of the stones on the downs, on the other side of Hakpen-hill, call’d the gray weathers. Finding the ground all overspread with these enormous masses, they had no difficulty in resolving, and they made none in putting their resolution in execution; in conveying 650 of the choicest of them, to make this notable temple. Thus we cast up the number.

The outer circle of Abury town	100
The outer circle of the northern temple	030
The inner circle	012
The cove	003
The outer circle of the southern temple	030
The inner circle	012
The ambre or central obelisc	001
The ring stone	001
The avenue of Kennet	200
The outer circle of Hakpen	040
The inner	018
The avenue of Bekamton	200
Longstone cove jambs	002
The inclosing stone of the serpent’s tail	001
	——
	650

The square of Solomon’s temple was 700 cubits; the diameter of Abury is 800. But Abury, in square content, is to Solomon’s temple as 50 to 49. If we take into the account the vallum of Abury, we find this would hold incomparably more people than the other, as spectators or assistants. An hun38dred oxen in sacrifice was an hecatomb. Twenty two thousand were offered by Solomon at the dedication, beside other animals. Three times in the year the whole nation of Israel assembled there, to pay their devotions and sacrifices, the aboriginal covenant made between God and man, in order to obtain favour and pardon. For ought we know, there might be as many here, and on the same account. I believe their most common times of these extraordinary religious meetings were on the four quarters of the year, the equinoxes and solstices.

We may well wonder how these people could bring together so many of these great stones, and set them up so exactly. The stones they had not far to fetch, only from the other side of the Hakpen, from the gray weathers. Their vicinity, their lying on the surface of the ground, the soil here being solid chalk, was the great inducement for the Druids, in these most early ages, to build this temple. The manner of their mechanics, which undoubtedly was very simple, must be equally surprizing. I apprehend, they brought the stones upon strong carriages, and drew them by men. For even in Cæsar’s time, there was an infinite multitude of people. Their manner of raising the stones seems to have been with tall trees, us’d for leavers, and no doubt very artfully apply’d. The method of fixing these enormous blocks of stone was, to dig a hole in the solid chalk, and ram the foundation of it in, with lesser stones, flints, and coggles, very artfully. They are not let in above two feet and a half deep. And the country being all a solid bed of chalk, was another reason why here, as at Stonehenge, they chose it for this extraordinary building. The conducting and rightly managing an immense number of hands, the providing for their maintenance, was a matter of wisdom and great authority. The marvellous effect produced, might well establish the glory of the Druids of Britain, which echoed across the ocean, and very much favour’d the opinion mankind had conceiv’d of their practising magick. For magick is nothing else but the science that teaches us to perform wonderful and surprizing things, in the later acceptation of the word. And in very many ages after the Druid times, mankind had the same notion, and the vulgar have to this day, concerning these works. And most probably from them sprung the character, which Pliny gives of our british Druids practising magic, and being so great proficients therein, as to equal the persian and chaldean magi, “so that one would even think,” says he, “the Druids had taught it them.”

I judge it much more probable, the Druids learn’d it from them, at least they both derive it from the same original fountain. And whatever they might practise of real magic, the notion of mankind concerning them, receiv’d strength from the name magi, which they might bring with them from the east. Magus there originally signifies no more than a priest, or person who officiates in sacreds. The word comes from maaghim meditabundi, people of a contemplative, retir’d life; whom more commonly in the west, they call’d Druids. I am not dubious in thinking the times we are talking of, when this temple of Abury was built, are of the extremest antiquity, near that of Abraham. I was very often on the spot, furnish’d with what I thought a convincing argument, from considering the wear of the weather, what effect it had upon these stones of a very firm texture, a kind of gray marble. And thus my reasoning was founded.

I had sufficient opportunity of comparing the effect of the weather upon the stones here, and upon those at Stonehenge. For some years together, I went from one to the other directly, staying a fortnight or more at each 39place to make my observations. Nothing is more manifest, than that the stones of Stonehenge have been chizel’d, some quite round, some on three sides, easily to be distinguish’d. The stones of Abury are absolutely untouch’d of tool. No doubt, at that time of day, the aboriginal patriarchal method from the foundation of the world was observ’d, not to admit a tool upon them. Even when Solomon’s temple was built, tho’ the stones were all carv’d with great art, yet that was done before they were brought to the building; for no ax or hammer was heard thereon. The like, probably, may be said of Stonehenge.

It seems likely, that when Stonehenge was built, the Druids had some notice from phœnician traders, of the nature of Solomon’s temple; therefore they made their impost work, as some kind of advance, toward a cover’d temple, and likewise chizel’d their stones in compliance thereto. By using the best of my judgment, in comparing the effect of the weather upon Stonehenge and Abury, I could easily induce myself to think that Abury was as old again. For in some places there were cavities a yard long, corroded by time, and on those sides that originally lay on the ground, which, if they had not been expos’d to the weather, by being set upright, would have been smooth. Several other persons of good judgment have been of the same sentiment.

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SO many ages as Abury was the great cathedral, the chief metropolitical or patriarchal temple of the island, no wonder there are an infinite number of these barrows about it. Great princes, and men within a considerable tract of country round here, would naturally choose to leave their mortal remains in this sacred ground, more peculiarly under the divine regard. Every hill-top within view of the place is sure to be crowned with them. As at Stonehenge, so here, there are great varieties of them, which no doubt, originally, had their distinctions of the quality and profession of the person interr’d. In the additions to Mr. Camden’s Wiltshire, several sorts of them are mention’d.

1. Small circular trenches, with very little elevation in the middle. These are what I call (for distinction-sake) Druid barrows. An eminent one I have given plate XXII, on the Hakpen hill, overlooking Kennet avenue.

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2. Ordinary barrows, meaning plain round ones, common all over England. Some may be roman, or saxon, or danish, as well as british.

3. Barrows with ditches round them. These are commonly such as I esteem royal, of the newest fashion among the old Britons; generally of an elegantly turn’d bell-form. These two last sort I call king-barrows.

4. Large oblong barrows, some with trenches round them, others without. These I call, for method sake, archdruids’ barrows. Several of ’em near Abury and Stonehenge. And sometimes we find ’em in other places about the kingdom. A druid celt was found in that north of Stonehenge, which induc’d me to give them the title. I shall speak a little concerning them in the method mention’d, as they are observable about Abury, but we ought to begin with Silbury, which, says our right reverend and learned author, is the largest barrow in the county, and perhaps in all England.

Silbury indeed is a most astonishing collection of earth, artificially rais’d, worthy of Abury, worthy of the king who was the royal founder of Abury, as we may very plausibly affirm. By considering the picture of Abury temple, we may discern, that as this immense body of earth was rais’d for the sake of the interment of this great prince, whoever he was: so the temple of Abury was made for the sake of this tumulus; and then I have no scruple to affirm, ’tis the most magnificent mausoleum in the world, without excepting the Egyptian pyramids.

Silbury stands exactly south of Abury, and exactly between the two extremities of the two avenues, the head and tail of the snake. The work of Abury, which is the circle, and the two avenues which represent the snake transmitted thro’ it, are the great hierogrammaton, or sacred prophylactic character of the divine mind, which is to protect the depositum of the prince here interr’d. The Egyptians, for the very same reason, frequently pictur’d the same hieroglyphic upon the breast of their mummies, as particularly on that in my lord Sandwich’s collection; and very frequently on the top and summit of Egyptian obeliscs, this picture of the serpent and circle is seen; and upon an infinity of their monuments. In the very same manner this huge snake and circle, made of stones, hangs, as it were, brooding over Silbury-hill, in order to bring again to a new life the person there buried. For our Druids taught the expectation of a future life, both soul and body, with greatest care, and made it no less than a certainty.

Here might be said, with the same poet,

’Till in the month of March, 1723, Mr. Halford order’d some trees to be planted on this hill, in the middle of the noble plain or area at the top, which is 60 cubits diameter. The workmen dug up the body of the great king there buried in the center, very little below the surface. The bones extremely rotten, so that they crumbled them in pieces with their fingers. The soil was altogether chalk, dug from the side of the hill below, of42 which the whole barrow is made. Six weeks after, I came luckily to rescue a great curiosity which they took up there; an iron chain, as they called it, which I bought of John Fowler, one of the workmen: it was the bridle buried along with this monarch, being only a solid body of rust. I immerg’d it in limner’s drying oil, and dried it carefully, keeping it ever since very dry. It is now as fair and entire as when the workmen took it up. I have given a sketch of it in plate XXXVI. There were deers’ horns, an iron knife with a bone handle too, all excessively rotten, taken up along with it.

Pausanias, in Eliacis, writes, how in his time, a roman senator conquer’d at the olympic games. He had a mind to leave a monument of his victory, being a brazen statue with an inscription. Digging for the foundation, just by the pillar of Oenomaus, they took up fragments of a shield, a bridle and armilla, which he saw.

Our bridle belong’d to the harness of a british chariot, and brings into our thoughts the horses and chariots of Egypt, mention’d in earliest days. The Tyrian Hercules, who, I suppose, might bring the first oriental colony hither, was a king in Egypt. In scripture, when Joseph was prime minister there, we find chariots frequently mention’d, both for civil and military use. In Joshua’s time, xvii. 16, 18. the Canaanites, Rephaim or giants, (Titans) and Perizzites had them. So the Philistines. Our ancestors the Britons coming both from Egypt and Canaan, brought hither the use of chariots; and they remain’d, in a manner, singular and proper to our island, to the time that the romans peopled it. And it was fashionable for the romans at Rome, in the height of their luxury, to have british chariots, as we now berlins, landaus, and the like.

Philostratus, vit. sophist. xxv. Polemon, remarks the enameling and ornament of phrygian and celtic bridles, as being very curiously wrought. Ours is perfectly plain and rude; an argument of its great antiquity.

Silbury is the name of the hill given by our saxon ancestors, meaning the great or marvellous hill. So Silchester, the Vindoma of the Romans, means the great Chester. It cannot help us to the name of the monarch there buried. When I consider this hill standing at the fountain of the Kennet Cunetio, still call’d Cunnet by the country people, and that among the most ancient Britons the name of Cunedha is very famous, that they talk much of a great king of this name, it would tempt one to conjecture, this is the very man. This conjecture receives some strength from what my old friend Mr. Baxter writes about Cunetio or Marlborough, which the river first visits. He thinks it had its name from a famous king, Cunedha, who lived at Marlborough, called Kynyd Kynüidion, which we may english, Cunedha of Marlborough, which name is mention’d in the ancient british genealogies before the grandfather of king Arthur; tho’ we scarce imagine their genealogies can truly reach the founder we are thinking of. But Cyngetorix, a king in Britain, who fought Julius Cæsar, and Cunobelin, king of the island in Augustus’s time, may be descendants of this man, at least their names have some relation. And in Cæsar’s Comment. B. G. VII. Conetodunus a gaulish prince, is the same name.

We may remember too, that Merlin the magician, who is said to have made Stonehenge by his magic, is affirm’d to have been buried at Marlborough. Mr. Camden recites it from Alexander Necham. Doubtless 43Stonehenge, much more Abury, are incomparably older than Merlin’s time. But the oldest reports we can expect to have of these affairs, must be from the Britons, the oldest inhabitants left. And ’tis natural for them to affix old traditions vastly beyond their knowledge, to the last famous persons they have any account of; so that we may well judge some truths are generally latent in these old reports. It is likely our king Kunedha lived at Marlborough, was buried in Silbury, was the founder of Abury. And the archdruid, who with him was the projector and executor of the stupendous work of Abury, was buried at Marlborough. For Marlborough is in sight of that part of the temple which is the Hakpen, or snake’s head, on Overton-hill.

Strabo writes in XII, that there is a tumulus of king Marsyas, where he was buried, at the head of the river Marsyas. This seems to be an exact parallel case with ours, and that the river preserves the name of the king to this day, from whom it had its name. Pausanias Bœot. writes, the tomb of Asphodicus is at the spring-head of the river Oedipodias. And Tiresias’s sepulchre is by the fountain Telphussa. And the like of very many more.

The person that projected the forming this vast body of earth, Silbury-hill, had a head as well as hands, and well chose his ground, well contriv’d how to execute his purpose. He pitch’d upon the foot of the chalk hill, by the fountain of the Kennet, in the very meridian line of Abury. The bottom of the hill is natural earth, and beyond the verge of its circumference at bottom, they dug the earth of the hill away to the level of the adjacent meadow, in order to furnish materials for the artificial part of the hill, leaving as it were an isthmus, or neck of original land. Further, to render this artificial part more detach’d from the natural, they dug a deep trench on the land-side, in the middle of the isthmus, but left two bridges, as it were, or passages up to the hill. By this means the ascent for the multitude employ’d, was render’d more easy, for the natural hill was as a half-pause or resting-place for them.

The diameter of Silbury-hill at top is 105 feet, the same as Stonehenge. At bottom ’tis somewhat more than 500 feet, in reality 300 cubits, as at top 60 cubits. 100 cubits its exact perpendicular altitude. They that have seen the circumference of Stonehenge, will admire that such an area should be carried up 170 feet perpendicular, with a sufficient base to support it: and they that consider the geometry of this barrow, as I have drawn it in plate XXVIII, will be equally pleased with the natural and easy proportion of it. But without actually seeing it, we can scarce have a full idea of it. The solid contents of it amount to 13558809 cubic feet. Some people have thought it would cost 20000l. to make such a hill.

Some old people remember king Charles II, the duke of York, and duke of Monmouth riding up it. The Roman way, via Badonica, coming from Overton-hill to Runway-hill, should have pass’d directly thro’ Silbury-hill; wherefore they curv’d a little southward to avoid it, and it runs close by the isthmus of the hill, then thro’ the fields of Bekamton. This shews Silbury-hill was ancienter than the Roman road. They have lately fenc’d out the Roman road (which they call the french way) in the plough’d fields of Bekamton; but you see the continuation of it when it reaches the heath ground, as in plate IX.

It seems no difficult matter to point out the time of the year when this great prince died, who is here interr’d, viz. about the beginning of our44 present April. I gather it from this circumstance. The country people have an anniversary meeting on the top of Silbury-hill on every palm-sunday, when they make merry with cakes, figs, sugar, and water fetch’d from the swallow-head, or spring of the Kennet. This spring was much more remarkable than at present, gushing out of the earth in a continued stream. They say it was spoil’d by digging for a fox who earth’d above, in some cranny thereabouts; this disturb’d the sacred nymphs, in a poetical way of speaking.

We observed before, concerning the temple of Rowldrich, there was a like anniversary meeting at that place, which doubtless has been continued thro’ all ages, and all succession of inhabitants, from the death of the arch-druid there buried. If we read the fifth Æneid of Virgil, we shall there find the major part of it to be a description of the very matters we are writing of. The great poet who affectedly describes all ancient customs, speaks of his hero making a tumulus for his father Anchises, and a temple and sacred grove; providing priests and officers necessary for that purpose. Celebrating the anniversary remembrance of his deceased parent, with great magnificence, with sacrifices, feasting, games, sports and exercises, and distributing rewards to the victors. So Virgil in Georg. 3.

So Herodotus describing the manner of sepulture among the Thracians and Macedonians. The whole matter is so notorious, that I leave the reader to make the particular application and parallel. Here at Silbury, the country being all a fine and exquisite down, I cannot point out the place where the games were kept: perhaps on the meadow between Abury and the hill.

I took notice that apium grows plentifully about the spring-head of the Kennet. Pliny writes defunctorum epulis dicatum apium. To this day the country people have a particular regard for the herbs growing there, and a high opinion of their virtue.

The king-barrows which are round, both here and elsewhere vary in their turn and shape, as well as magnitude, as we see in a group together; whereof still very many are left, many destroy’d by the plough. Some of the royal barrows are extremely old, being broad and flat, as if sunk into the ground with age. There is one near Longstone cove set round with stones. I have depicted two groups of them, one by the serpent’s head, on Overton-hill; another by the serpent’s tail, in the way between Bekamton and Oldbury camp: some flat, some campani-form, some ditch’d about, some not. One near the temple on Overton-hill was quite levell’d for ploughing anno 1720; a man’s bones were found within a bed of great stones, forming a kind of arch. Several beads of amber long and round, as big as one’s thumb end, were taken from it, and several enamel’d British beads of glass: I got some of them, white in colour, some were green. They commonly reported the bones to be larger than common. So Virgil Georg. 1.

I bought a couple of British beads, one large of a light blue and rib’d, the other less, of a dark blue, taken up in one of the two barrows on Hakpen-hill, east of Kennet avenue. These two barrows are ditch’d about, 45and near one another. The single barrow next it toward the snake’s head temple, is large and beautifully turn’d, with a ditch about it, at a distance, which throws it into a campanule form.

Mr. Bray of Monkton open’d a barrow, among many others, at Yatesbury. There was a great stone laid at top, just under the surface. When taken up, they found a body laid in a stone coffin, form’d by several stones. He says, in another they found a body, with a flat gold ring, which was sold for 30s. and a piece of brass, about the bulk of a pint mug, with spear-heads of iron.

A man of Ambresbury, who had liv’d here, told me of a brass spear-head dug up in a barrow between Monkton and Abury, by a body: and that under some stones in a barrow, south of Silbury, they found a bit of gold, (I suppose the covering of a button, or the like, such as that I dug up at Stonehenge,) and many sharp bits of iron.

Mr. Aubury speaks of a barrow opened in Kennet parish, anno 1643, two stones 11 feet long, laid side by side, and a corps between, with a sword and knife. Another like stone laid over all.

There is a very delicate hill north of Abury, of a round form, with an easy ascent quite round; ’tis call’d Windmill-hill. The turf as soft as velvet. ’Tis encompass’d with a circular trench, exceeding old. Fifteen barrows of a most ancient shape thereon. Many barrows are on the top, of several shapes. I open’d a small one, very old, flat, and round, and found an entire urn turn’d up-side down, into a hole cut in the solid chalk. The bones very rotten. I have given a drawing of the urn, plate XXXVI. It was red without, black within, 14 inches high, 9 in diameter at the aperture, wrought a little both within and without, and at the bottom, which stood uppermost.

South of Abury town is a hill, between it and Silbury, call’d Windmill-hill; it lies between our two avenues, and intercepts the view from one to the other. This too is crown’d with barrows of different sorts and sizes. The Via Badonica runs on the southern skirt of it, going from Overton-hill to Silbury. I took notice there of a barrow of that kind I call Druids. This happening too near the track of the Roman road, it goes over part of it. Part is fill’d up, and the lump in the middle, under which the urn lay, they have dug away: A further demonstration, that it is of a date posterior to our celtic works here. This hill too is call’d Weedon-hill, perhaps from the Roman way.

At Winterburn-basset, a little north of Abury, in a field north-west of the church, upon elevated ground, is a double circle of stones concentric, 60 cubits diameter. The two circles are near one another, so that one may walk between. Many of the stones have of late been carry’d away. West of it is a single, broad, flat, and high stone, standing by itself. And about as far northward from the circle, in a plough’d field, is a barrow set round with, or rather compos’d of large stones. I take this double circle to have been a family-chapel, as we may call it, to an archdruid dwelling near thereabouts, whilst Abury was his cathedral.

There are likewise about Abury some pyriform barrows, longish, but broad at one end: some compos’d of earth, thrown into a tumulus. Of this sort a very long one in the valley from Bekamton to Runway-hill. Another among the furze bushes south of Silbury, set with stones, which farmer Green carry’d away. Others made of stones set upright in that form. Of the latter, a very large one in Monkton-fields, about 20 stones left on one side.46 ’Tis directly north of Abury town. Another such south of Silbury-hill. Another pyriform, made only of earth, under Runway-hill. Another on the hill south-west from Bekamton, cut through with some later division dike.

The long barrows are what I call archdruids’. There are but few about Abury left, and but two at Stonehenge. The paucity seems to confirm the notion. One very large at East-Kennet, points to Abury, but with its lesser end: no less than 200 cubits in length, which is 350 feet, a huge body of earth. Another not far off points to the snake’s head temple, being at a right angle with the former.

By Horslip-gap is another considerable long barrow of a large bulk, length and height: it regards the snake’s head temple, tho’ here not in sight.

By Bekamton cove another, a vast body of earth, as thick as the vallum of Abury, and points to the cove hard by; which shews that cove to be as a chapel. Another large round barrow near it.

In Monkton, west of the town, is a large and flat long barrow, set round with stones, which I have depicted in plate XXX, ’tis just 120 cubits long, 30 cubits broad in the broadest end. It stands due east and west, the broadest end eastward. Its breadth the fourth part of its length: a most magnificent sepulchre, and call’d Milbarrow.

But even this is much exceeded in south long barrow, near Silbury-hill, south of it, and upon the bank of the Kennet. It stands east and west, pointing to the dragon’s head on Overton-hill. A very operose congeries of huge stones upon the east end, and upon part of its back or ridge; pil’d one upon another, with no little labour: doubtless in order to form a sufficient chamber, for the remains of the person there buried; not easily to be disturbed. The whole tumulus is an excessively large mound of earth 180 cubits long, ridg’d up like a house. And we must needs conclude, the people that made these durable mausolea, had a very strong hope of the resurrection of their bodies, as well as souls who thus provided against their being disturbed.

Upon the heath south of Silbury-hill, was a very large oblong work, like a long barrow, made only of stones pitch’d in the ground, no tumulus. Mr. Smith beforemention’d told me, his cousin took the stones away (then) 14 years ago, to make mere stones withal. I take it to have been an archdruid’s, tho’ humble, yet magnificent; being 350 feet or 200 cubits long.

Pausanias in Eliac. II. writes, upon the bank of the river Cladeus is the barrow of Ænomaus; of earth, incompass’d with stones. Again in Arcadic. he says, at Pergamus is the monument of Auge, being a barrow of earth, incompass’d with a circle of stones. In the same Arcadic. Book VIII. he says, he studiously contemplated the tumulus of Æpitus, because Homer makes mention of it, admiring it, for he had seen no finer. ’Twas made of earth not very large, incompass’d with a circle of stones. Thus naturally does a genius admire works of antiquity! he seems thereby to antedate his own being, and to have lived in those times long before. He writes again in Bœot. at the barrow of Amphion are many rude stones, which they report, were the stones he drew together with his harp. Likewise there are three rude stones near the tomb of Melanippus; and the antiquarians say, Tydeus was buried there.

To go much higher in time, and equal to those we have been describing: Genes. xxxv. 20. Jacob set a pillar upon Rachel’s grave.

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THERE is still another of these long archdruids’ tumuli at Abury, which leads me to describe a kind of ancient monuments which I meet with here, and near Stonehenge and elsewhere; which I take to be houses of the Druids, or their courts of judicature, or both. The principal of them here, is a remarkable thing, upon the Hakpen-hill east of Abury, near a mile, between it and Rockley. That part of the downs thereabouts is called Temple-downs, and the thing is called old Chapel. Lord Winchelsea, Lord and Lady Hertford and myself were curious in observing it, July 6, 1723. ’Tis a large square, intrench’d, 110 druid cubits by 130, like a little Roman camp, with one entrance on the south-west side, towards Abury: for it is posited with accuracy, (as all these works are) from north-east to south-west. The situation of the place is high, and has a descent, quite round three of its sides; the verge of the descent inclosing it like a horseshoe. The entrance is on the side next Abury, on the isthmus of the peninsula (as it were,) on the shortest side of the square, the south-west. It is made of a vallum and ditch; beyond that, a row of flat stones set quite round and pretty close to one another, like a wall. Beyond that, another lesser ditch. There are stones too set on each side the entrance. On the north-west side is a large long barrow 50 cubits in length, with two great stone works upon it. One on the end next the great inclos’d place, we have been describing: another stonework towards the other end; which seems to have been a semicircular cove, or demi-ellipsis consisting of five great stones; a Stonehenge cell in miniature, but now in ruins. This probably48 gave the name of old Chapel to the place; the barrow likewise has been set quite round with great stones.

In the second stone-work, one stone lies flat on the ground, along the middle line of the barrow. On each side a flat stone stands upright, and two flat stones stand upright at right angles, as wings to ’em. Upon them I suppose other stones were pil’d as a kist-vaen. Here probably lies the body of the interr’d. The stones are generally very large, about ten feet long.

The whole I take to have been the palace and interment of an arch-druid, and his tribunal or seat of justice. ’Tis posited exactly enough south-east and north-west. The learned Mr. Rowland, who wrote the history of the Isle of Mona, describes just such works as this in that place, and calls them houses of the Druids.

This place stands near a great cavity call’d Balmore-pond, which seems to have some regard to this work. ’Tis a pyriform concavity, set with stones on the inside. It answers exactly to old chapel entrance; and the people have a report that there is a vault under it. One would be tempted to think it was a prison, and the pond was the place of executions, being form’d theatrically. Otherwise it might be a place of sports and spectacles. ’Tis 150 cubits broad, 180 long, form’d like an Amazonian shield.

In a valley between here and Rockley, are nine round barrows of different bulk. And upon all the highest ground thereabouts are an infinite quantity of immense stones, or sarsens, or gray weathers, some of as large dimensions as any at Abury, and lying as thick as leaves in autumn. Some upon the very surface of the ground, some half sunk in; and many deep holes whence stones have been taken, are visible.

If we descend the Hakpen-hill, westward from hence towards Winterburn-basset, upon the declivity of the Hakpen, is another Druid’s house, called too Old Chapel. ’Tis a square, double ditch’d, but small ditches, in the middle a broad oblong square bank. Before it a sort of court, nearly as big as the other. Near it, they say, they have found much old iron and pewter. It seems to have been set round with stones.

There is another of these places in a delightful circular hollow, under the Hakpen-hill, on the west side, hanging over Kennet avenue, just 180 cubits square. It lies on a northern declivity, for coolness as one may judge. The entrance is in the middle of the lowest side. But toward the upper side is another lesser oblong square, what we should call a prætorium in a Roman camp. And to this there was a distinct entrance on the south. ’Tis plac’d exactly north and south.

In Bekamton town, near the termination of Bekamton avenue, or the snake’s tail, is such another place, call’d Old Chapel or Chapel field. ’Tis full of great stones, many buried under-ground. Richard Fowler, that great depopulator, told me, he demolished one stone standing near the hedge of the pasture. Near it a great stone lies upon the mouth of an old well, as they say, but never remember that it was open, only speak by tradition. This field belongs still to the church.

There is another very pretty place of this sort (for ought I know) between the Wansdike and Via Badonica, running up Runway-hill. ’Tis a charming pleasant concavity. An oblong square, with another lesser, as a prætorium within. In the vallum are many gaps at equal intervals. You will see a large part of it in plate XI. called the model of a camp. ’Tis abusing our time to be tedious, either in descriptions or enquiries, about these matters, 49of which ’tis scarce possible to arrive at any certainty at this time of day. The pleasure arising from them, is in being upon the spot, and treading the agreeable downy turf, crowded with these antiquities; where health to the body and amusement to the mind are mingled so effectually together.

In Monkton-fields, directly north-east from Abury, is a monument of four stones, which probably is a kist-vaen. I have exhibited a print of it in table XXXVII. These seem to be what Mr. Edward Llwyd calls Kromlechon, or bowing-stones. I believe it was a sepulchral monument, set on a barrow, tho’ chiefly now plow’d up; and that the great covering-stone is luxated.

Table XXXII, XXXIII, XXXIV, are views of another eminent work of this sort, in Clatford-bottom between Abury and Marlborough, which require no further description.

Table XXXV, two old british urns found at Sunbury by the Thames, shewn at the antiquarian society some years ago. The inscription on the monument of Chyndonax, an archdruid among the Gauls, of which a large account publish’d in french. Father Montfaucon questions the genuineness thereof, but I think his objections are trifling.

In table XXXVI, I have etch’d the bit of the king’s bridle found in Silbury-hill, the founder of Abury, in my possession. Underneath is the british urn which I dug up in a barrow on Windmill-hill north of Abury. This plate is consecrated to the memories of Sir Robert Halford, knight, and Charles Tucker, Esq; who were very solicitous in preserving these noble antiquities.

I have given the reader as plain and as concise a description of these works about Abury, as I possibly could. We cannot but make this general reflexion upon the whole: 1. That this temple, with the things belonging to it, when in perfection, must have been the work of a very great and learned people. The kind, manner, and idea of it, shews its extreme antiquity. When we view the ruins of Rome, of Greece, Egypt, Syria, Persia, or the like, we readily enough enter into a notion of the wisdom and flourishing estate of the people that performed them. The like we must do of these british Druids. These very works justify the high reports made concerning them in classic authors. And if we pretend to oppose them by other reports out of like authors, concerning the rudeness and barbarity of the old Britons; the answer is obvious. They speak of different times, or perhaps of different people, new successions from the continent, that drove out the former possessors who performed these works, more northward and westward. The works themselves are an evidence of the genius of the founders. Learning commonly arrives at its height within no long space of time. These works here have a notorious grandeur of taste, a justness of plan, an apparent symmetry and a sufficient niceness in the execution: In compass very extensive, in effect magnificent and agreeable. The boldness of the imagination we cannot sufficiently admire. When this whole area, which is about four miles square, was entirely sacred ground, under the care and custody of the Druids, one of their great seminaries or academies, every where a fine turf, cover’d over with an infinite variety of barrows, it was a most agreeable scene, and merely a picture.

When one traverses about this ground, an intelligent person will discern abundance of remarkable beauties in the manner and disposition of the temple. The wise Druids knew the internal meaning and purport of this great symbol of the fecundity of the deity, first exerted in producing the50 second person represented thereby, who with them was the creator of all things. From the supreme proceeded the divine essences equal to himself; but the son of the supreme formed the material words, whence call’d the mind, the creator, and the wisdom of the father, both by the Druids and us christians. And never since the creation, was so magnificent an idea form’d in mortal minds, as this hieroglyphic here before us made in stone-work. This snake of ours may be near three of our common miles in length, justly laid down, its proportions adapted to nature, its sinuosity well represented in huge curves running contrary ways, conduced over several elevations and depressures of ground. Two hills, one on each side the stream running from Abury to Silbury, hide the view of the avenues from each other. So that probably the vulgar then knew not the true figure of the whole, no more than now. But those that approached this place with a purpose of religion, and that understood the mystical meaning thereof, must be extremely affected with it; the greatest picture, no doubt, on the globe of the earth, naturally exciting in their minds that disposition proper for those approaches!

2. I observe that Abury, even now, lays its claim to all the old appendages: the bounds of the parish taking in chiefly all that the snake reaches, and the environs, as Southstreet, West-Kennet, and Bekamton, and part of Winterburn-basset, and Stan-more south of Winterburn-basset, (they say it has been a town;) and Overton-hill, South-downs, West-downs, Cheril-hill, almost to Oldbury-castle.

3. I remark, tho’ the people know nothing of the figure of a snake made by the two avenues, yet a notion has been handed down from all times, that gives an obscure hint of the thing, and of the prophylactic virtue in this figure of the snake. For they say, that in all this trail of ground, which we may call the sacred field, there never was a snake seen; and if a snake should be brought hither, it would not live. Nevertheless snakes abound in all the country round, even to Clatford, between Marlborough and here, but never come higher up. This notion, I know not whether ’tis justly founded, but ’tis deeply rooted in the mind of the inhabitants. Pliny has a great deal about the Druids’ fondness of snakes, but a little unintelligible, as we find most of what authors have said concerning them. And we must be content at this time, to mark out some obscure traces of things that seem to our purpose, relating to this affair of theirs, which shall be the subject of the next chapters.

4. When we contemplate the manner and disposition of our temple, in regard to its parts in the circle at Abury, and in regard to its position upon the cardinal points, some questions arise in our mind, which we desire a resolution of: Concerning which I believe the hints following will give us some satisfaction. Ever since the world began, in building temples or places of religious assemblies, they have been studious in setting them according to the quarters of the heavens. For they consider’d the world as the general temple or house of God, and that all particular temples should have a proper regard to it. The east naturally claims a prerogative, where the sun and all the planets and stars arise: this therefore they accounted as the face and front of the world, or universal temple. The north then was consider’d as the right-hand and great power of the world, the south as the left-hand or lesser power. For when the sun approaches the northern region, passing over the vernal equinoctial, he brings plenty, and the fulness of his fructiferous influence; when he returns to the south, the face of 51nature languishes in its winter attire. Therefore they thought the polar region not only highest, but of most eminence and effect.

Whence Orpheus: “Thou who holdest the scepter of the pole, venerable on many accounts, the throne of the world in the north.”

Psellus says, “the Pandochean power of the world reigns in the north.”

Hence Plutarch writes, “That Xenophon says of the Egyptians, they thought that part where the sun rises was the face of the world; the north was its right-hand, where the Nile rises its left.” And this helps us to explain several Egyptian antiquities.

But to apply this to our purpose. We cannot but observe, that the whole of Abury temple, or Mausoleum, regarded as a picture, has its upper part to the north, and its face (if we may so speak) toward the east. Thitherward the serpent goes. That way the cove of the northern temple opens; that way the cove of Bekamton avenue; that way the face of Stonehenge temple looks. So that the Druids appear to have the same notions with the other wise men of the oriental ancients.

This therefore shews the reason why they set their temples fronting the east, in all antiquity, and why the coves of our works look that way. As to the two temples at Abury, the northern and southern, included in the great circle, it should seem that the northern one had the preeminence, and was the more sacred of the two. As the cove was the adytum of that temple, so the whole northern temple may be esteem’d as the adytum of the whole work, the southern being as the body of it. Solomon’s temple, we know, consisted of three parts: the adytum, or holy of holies; the holy place, or sanctuary; the porch. By this means there is a conformity between it and Abury; and to Stonehenge likewise, which has an elliptic adytum, a circular or outer part, and the area. Doubtless the different order of priests, and of religious offices, took up these different parts. And, if we may give our opinion, ’tis natural to think, that because the ring-stone is by the southern temple, there the sacrifices were offer’d and administer’d by the lesser orders of priests, around the ambre or central pyramidal. The highest part of religion was to be perform’d by the archdruid and the upper order of priests before the magnificent cove of the northern temple, together with hymns, incense, musick, and the like.

5. In my account of Stonehenge I suggested a surmise, that the Druids, in laying down these works of theirs, used a compass or magnetic instrument; whence I founded a conjecture concerning the time of building that temple, by observing the variation with a theodolite. As the variation in all the works about Stonehenge is between six and seven degrees to the east of the north, I found it at Abury to be about ten degrees the same way, and as precisely as possible. This will necessarily excite one’s attention, as there is less reason to suppose ’tis accidental. The whole work was manifestly design’d to be set on the cardinal points of the heavens, but they all vary one way, exactly the same quantity; and ’tis impossible to account for it in any wise, but that they us’d a magnetic instrument. This is the reason that the neck of the snake on Overton-hill crosses the Roman road running east and west, which would otherwise have been the ground-line of this work.

Thus Kennet avenue enters the town of Abury ten degrees north of the north-west point, which north-west point was the Druids’ purpose. The neck of the snake going down from Overton-hill regards Silbury precisely, and their intent was that it should be full west, but ’tis ten degrees north of the west. The meridian line of the whole work passes from Silbury-hill to52 the center of the temple at Abury, this varies ten degrees to the east from the north-point. The stupendous cove in the northern temple opens ten degrees east of north-east. It was their purpose that it should regard the north-east. The diameter of the great circle of the great stones at Abury, on which the north and south temples are built, was design’d to have been set on the line from north-west to south-east, but it verges ten degrees northward; and so of all other particulars. And by this very means we may, at any time, point out the line of the termination of Bekamton avenue, tho’ entirely destroy’d. For from Silbury-hill, it was design’d by the Druids to have been set full west, as Overton-hill full east. Therefore a line mark’d from Silbury-hill, ten degrees north of the west point, and at the proper length of the avenue, being 4000 cubits, an eastern mile, determines the spot where Bekamton avenue ended. That spot is south of the square inclosure going up to Cheril-hill, where Silbury-hill bears ten degrees south of east, where Abury steeple bears twenty-five degrees west of south-west. From Silbury-hill you mark it by the line that goes to Oldbury camp, on the left hand of Cheril-hill. In that line was the termination of Bekamton avenue; it being the intention of the Druids to place the founder’s tumulus or mausoleum of Silbury-hill in the middle, between the two ends of the avenue, the head and tail of the snake, upon the east and west line, and exactly south of the center of the great circle at Abury. This whole work therefore was properly the mausoleum, or made, as it were, one tumulus over the founder. A prophylactic form’d by the great symbol of the deity, guarded the ashes of the deceased hero. And from this custom in mythologic times, they invented the notion of a snake being the genius of departed heroes; or of such being turn’d into snakes and the like, as is said of Cadmus, and many more.

Thus Virgil describing Æneas celebrating the anniversary of his father’s death, at his tumulus in Sicily, recites the ancient rites practis’d at these places and on these occasions, and introduces a snake creeping out of the adytum of the tumulus, passing by the altars and holy utensils, and retiring again, in Æneid V.

Much might I recite to our purpose out of the ancient commentators on this passage, to which I refer the inquisitive. From the word adytis we may be apt to conclude the tomb of Anchises had a cove built upon it, as that we describ’d at Rowldrich. But to return.

I apprehend the reader will scarce excuse me, if I make not some inference from that observation of the variation of the needle here from the cardinal points. Indeed in these works of antiquity, I would be as temperate as possible in multiplying conjectures; and to nothing more can I pretend in this case, and that too but in gross, for we want sufficient data. A future age may pronounce with more certainty, when we know the entire revolution of the circle of the magnetic variation.

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Dr. Halley supposes the whole period is perform’d in about the space of 700 years. I am sufficiently satisfy’d from considering the different effect of the weather between Abury and Stonehenge, the great diversity in the manner of the works, and some other considerations, that Abury must be above 700 years prior in time to Stonehenge. But if we take two entire revolutions, 1400 years, and set it 460 years before the christian æra, the supposed time of the building of Stonehenge, it brings us, in Usher’s chronology, which, I take to be the best, to the year of the death of Sarah, Abraham’s wife, which happen’d in the summer time of the 1859th year before Christ. This was a little before the time of Inachus.

By the best light I can obtain, I judge our Tyrian Hercules made his expedition into the ocean, about the latter end of Abraham’s time: and most likely ’tis, that Abury was the first great temple of Britain, and made by the first Phœnician colony that came hither; and they made it in this very place on account of the stones of the gray-weathers, so commodious for their purpose.

Usher makes this retirement of the Hycsi, or royal pastors out of Egypt, which was done by our Hercules, to be 34 years after that date. But my numbers make it somewhat later.

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IN my description of Abury, and its parts, I endeavour’d to make every thing as plain as I could from fact and view; but now we come to our speculative part, I can only propose to entertain, perhaps, the reader’s curiosity, with what light I could gather from ancient learning concerning it.

We have seen by our description, that the plan on which Abury is built, is that sacred hierogram of the Egyptians, and other ancient nations, the circle and snake. The whole figure is the circle, snake, and wings. By this they meant to picture out, as well as they could, the nature of the divinity. The circle meant the supreme fountain of all being, the father; the serpent, that divine emanation from him which was called the son; the wings imported that other divine emanation from them which was called the spirit, the anima mundi.

This is that figure which Kircher names ophio cyclo-pterygomorphos, and discourses largely of. But that we may have a better understanding of it than hitherto has been, we shall open our mind concerning this abstruse matter by degrees.

Dracontia was a name among the first learned nations, for the very ancient sort of temples, of which they could give no account, nor well explain their meaning upon it. Strabo XIV. this was a name of this kind of patri55archal temple, of which Abury is one, deduc’d to later times, whilst the thing itself, and manner of building, was disus’d and forgot.

Servius on the second Æneid, writes, “anguis is a proper name of the water-snake, serpens of the land, draco of those belonging to temples.” By which, ultimately, our representations must be meant, tho’ probably by the author not understood, as having no acquaintance with our kind of works. But it unavoidably brings to our mind the temples of the ancients kept by dragons, which we so frequently meet with in classical history. And we may well presume they mean such temples as this of Abury, Dracontia.

“The serpent,” says Maximus of Tyre, Dissert. 38. “was the great symbol of the deity to most nations, and as such was worshipped by the Indians.” The temples of old made in the form of a serpent, were called for that reason, Dracontia. The universality of this regard for serpents, shews the high antiquity of the symbol, and that it was antediluvian.

To give us light into the affair, first it will be convenient to discourse a little concerning the nature of the serpent, and why mankind should make it a symbol of divinity. For it looks a little strange, after our first mother was seduc’d from her innocence, by the devil under this form, that so high a regard should be paid to it.

The first learning in the world confided chiefly in symbols. The wisdom of the Chaldeans, Phœnicians, Egyptians, Jews, of Zoroaster, Sanchoniathon, Pherecydes Syrus, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, of all the ancients, that is come to our hand, is symbolic. “It was the mode,” says Serranus, on Plato’s Symposium, “of the ancient philosophers, to represent truth by certain symbols and hidden images. It leads us gradually, sweetly, yet most efficaciously, towards the contemplation of the first being, which is the end of all philosophy and theology.” We may add, it was the method of ancient divines too, from the beginning to our Saviour’s time. No one cultivated it more than he, in all his sermons and discourses, which were affecting, well wrought up, lively, apposite, entertaining in the highest degree. Some of them complete dramas. And in general, we must conclude, it gives a beautiful gloss and amiable face to truth.

That the Druids studied in this enigmatic and symbolic way, appears from what we are writing upon; and Diogenes Laertius, in his proem, affirms it of them. He ranks them with the Magi, Chaldeans, and Gymnosophists, gives some of their doctrines, and makes them rather ancienter than the Egyptians, meaning the learned among the Egyptians. He says, “the Gymnosophists are descended of the Magi, and some affirm the Jews too.” He means the ancestors of the Jews, Abraham in particular. I believe, Druids, Chaldeans, Gymnosophists, and Egyptians, all descended, or rather disciples of the Magi, who were the first and patriarchal priests after the flood. Sanchoniathon calls Shem (as I take it) by the name of Magus, as the prince of the order. He says the Egyptians vail their doctrines under the figure of beetles, snakes, birds, and other animals. And it seems to be the origin of animal worship in Egypt. Thus Gale, in his court of the gentiles, P. I. p. 64. again P. II. p. 35. “the ancient mode of expressing things worthy of memory, by hieroglyphic forms, notes, and symbols, was very common amongst the ancients, in the oriental parts especially, both poets and philosophers; and exceeding proper for that infant state of the world, wherein knowledge was so imperfect and impolite. And we need no way doubt but that this symbolic kind of discourse, or language, had its original from the divine œconomy which God prescribed in his infant church, 56 consisting of many terrene images and sensible forms, symbols and types, for the shadowing forth highest contemplations and heavenly mysteries. Which way of conveying and preserving knowledge is not only helpful to the memory, grateful to the fancy and judgment, but also very efficacious for the moving of the affections.”

A symbol is an arbitrary, sensible sign of an intellectual idea. And I believe the art of writing at first was no other, than that of making symbols, pictures, or marks of things they wanted to express. So that every letter was the picture of an idea. This was the first and antediluvian way of writing, before alphabet writing was invented. This latter was a postdiluvian invention, in my opinion. The reasons I shall give on another more immediate occasion. Servius, on the Æneid V. septem ingens gyros, speaking of the snake encompassing Anchises’s tomb, writes, that this method was prior to alphabet-writing. I believe the Chinese method of writing to be the antediluvian one; and the like, perhaps, may be affirmed of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. The Egyptians had the good sense, when alphabet writing was communicated to them, to embrace it, tho’ the Chinese will not. Still the Egyptians retain’d a particular veneration for their former method, and dedicated it to sacred uses altogether.

This symbol of the snake and circle, which is the picture of the temple of Abury, we see on innumerable Egyptian monuments. Always it holds the uppermost, the first and chief place; which shews its high dignity.

Mr. Selden, upon the Arundel marbles, p. 132, says, “this figure in abbreviated writing, among the Greeks, signifies Δαιμων, the deity.” And Kircher, in his third tome, affirms the like of the Brachmans of the East-Indies.

I can by no means admit it to be an Egyptian invention. The Egyptians took this, and hieroglyphic writing in general, from the common ancestors of mankind. This is sufficiently prov’d from the universality of the thing, reaching from China in the east, to Britain in the west, nay, and into America too.

Nothing of so high account among the Chinese, as the representation of dragons and serpents, as we see in all their pictures and utensils; nay, the very stamps upon their ink. ’Tis the genial banner of their empire. It means every thing that is sacred among them. In baron Vischer’s elegant book of ancient architecture, Tab. XV. you have the picture of a Chinese triumphal arch (of which there are many in the city of Pekin) twice upon it is pictur’d, in a tablet over the front, a circle and two snakes, as on Egyptian works. They adorn their temples, houses, habits, and every thing with this figure, as a common prophylaxis. I apprehend it was from the beginning a sacred amuletic character. ’Tis carv’d several times on the cornishes of the temple (I take it so to be) of Persepolis, as we see in Sir John Chardin, Le Brun, Kæmfer. Dragons were the Parthian ensigns, from whom the Romans in later times took them, and our saxon ancestors from the Romans. ’Tis a known verse in the satyrist,

The Druids had no less a veneration for it, as we find by Abury and by their fondness of snake stone beads and the like, which Pliny calls snakes’ eggs, and discourses on, largely, in relation to our Druids.

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Here we see the sacred regard paid to snakes from China to Britain. Still as we before suggested, it appears somewhat strange, when we consider that the patriarchs, of whose age and times we are now chiefly treating, were not ignorant of the evil deriv’d to mankind thro’ this creature.

We may satisfy our selves about this difficulty, by considering, 1. the natural history of the serpent, and 2. the nature of forming of symbols.

First, the natural history of this animal. Can we divest our selves of original prejudice, we must allow the serpent kind, as to their outward appearance, among the most beautiful creatures in the world. The poets, those great masters of nature, are luxuriant in their descriptions of them, comparing them to the most glorious appearance in the universe, the rainbow. Thus Virgil Æneid V.

Thus Lucan,

Of Cadmus’s snake.

Hephæstion II. writes concerning the Hydra of Hercules, that half his head was of gold. I saw a snake of such exquisite beauty in Surrey. The motion and the appearance or bright golden colour, being so like to angelick, seraphick beings; no wonder the ancients conceiv’d so high a regard for the serpent, as to reckon it a most divine animal. There is a kind of them bred in Arabia and Africa, of a shining yellow colour, like brass, or burnish’d gold, which in motion reflects the sun-beams with inconceivable lustre. Some of them are said to have wings, called Seraphs, Saraphs, Seraphim, mention’d Deut. xii. 15. this is the name given to the brazen serpent. And equally to the angels and celestial messengers, who are described of this appearance, in scripture. So the cherubim that supported the Shechinah in Ezekiel i. 7. “sparkled like the colour of burnished brass.” The divine appearance between the candlesticks in Apocalypse i. 15. “His feet were like to fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace.” Hence his ministers are called a flame of fire. Psalm civ. 4.

Secondly, consider the motion of a serpent,’tis wonderful; perform’d without the help of legs, nay incomparably quicker than their kindred of the crocodile and lizard kind, which have four legs: ’tis swift, smooth, wavy, and beautiful. The ancients conceiv’d it to be like the walking of the gods; whence the notion of deify’d heroes, with serpents’ feet. Pherecydes Syrus says, the gods have snakes’ feet: meaning their motion was smooth and sweeping, without the alternate use of legs.

Heliodorus III. speaks of the wavy motion of the gods, not by opening their feet, but with a certain aerial force; it was call’d incessus. Non ambulamus, sed incedimus, says Seneca.

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So the prophet Ezekiel describes the motion of the alate globes under the cherubims’ feet; as it ought to be understood, Ezek. i. 12. Sanchoniathon the Phœnician in Euseb. p. e. I. 7. writes, that the nature of serpents is divine. “’Tis the most spiritual animal of all and fiery; that it performs all its various motions by its spirit, without other organs;” and much more of this kind, to our purpose. Jerem. xlvi. 22. The shout and the march of an army is compar’d to the motion of a serpent.

Thirdly, from the form, pass we to the mind of the serpent, if we may be allowed so to talk. The wisdom of this creature is celebrated from the time of creation itself. Moses writes, it was more subtle than any other creature, Genes. iii. 1. Our Saviour recommends to the ministry, to imitate the prudence of serpents, as well as the innocence of doves: he makes it the symbol of Christian prudence. The psalmist compares the slyness of the wicked to the serpent, which refuses to be charmed. Aristotle writes, that this animal is very crafty; but if we inquire into authors, concerning this wisdom of the creature, nothing occurs satisfactory: in truth ’tis figurative and symbolical; meaning the charm of rhetorick and oratory, taken from the divided tongue of this creature, and more especially regarding the preachers of evangelical truths: διγλωσσία among the antients was prudence. Our Saviour in the forecited place of the apocalypse, is represented with a two-edged sword in his mouth, meaning the efficacy of preaching. The people affirmed, “never man spake like this man;” and he sent the divine spirit of eloquence and languages upon his apostles, in the likeness of cloven tongues of fire.

Servius on the second Æneid, speaking of the tongue of Laocoon’s serpent,

tells us, no creature moves its tongue with so much swiftness; so that it seems triple.

Says Ovid of Cadmus’s snake.

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The tongue was the only active arms of the apostles, as the bifid tongue of the serpent is its only weapon; and which, as the ancients thought, carried life and death with it.

From the numerous and credible accounts I have seen, snakes, I am persuaded, have a power of charming, by looking steadfastly with their fiery eyes, on birds, mice, and such creatures as they prey upon. They are put into such an agony, as to run by degrees into their open mouth. Further, snakes were thought to have an inchanting power, not only with their eyes, but likewise by whispering into the ears: for by that whispering they communicated a prophetick and divine spirit. The scholiast of Euripides writes, of Helenus and Cassandra, that serpents licking their ears, so sharpened their hearing, that they only could hear the counsels of the gods; 59and became great prophets thereby. This incantation by the ears, is elegantly apply’d by the fathers, in their writings, to the preachers of the gospel, and to our Saviour himself. Clemens in pædagog. V. calls him Επωδὸς the inchanter, as the learned Spanheim observes: and often St. Chrysostom uses the like expression.

All these put together, I take to be some good reasons (to omit several more for brevity’s sake) for the extraordinary veneration paid to this creature, from all antiquity. Our oldest heathen writer Sanchoniathon says, the Phœnicians call’d it agathodæmon, the good angel. Epies the Phœnician in Eusebius pronounces it a most divine animal. Maximus of Tyre before quoted writes, that the serpent was the great symbol of the deity, in most nations, even among the Indians. Sigismund in his Muscovite-history, says the like of the Samogitians, in the northern parts of that vast empire. Gaguin in his Sarmatia, of the Lithuanians. So Scaliger in his notes on Aristotle of animals, concerning the people of Calicut in the East-Indies; all books of travels into the West-Indies, the like. This sufficiently proves the notion nearly as old as mankind.

From these notions in antiquity, arose the strange humour of the ophite sect or heresy, who affirm the seducer serpent was the son of God. Epiphanius, Tertullian, St. Augustin and others speak of it. They kept a serpent in a box and worshipped it.

2. We are to consider the nature of forming of symbols. The serpent simply, as it was curs’d of God, and composite, as hanging on a tree, was symbolical of Christ: according to the sense both of Jewish and Christian writers.

We have seen the serpent in very advantageous light, which was in order to remove our prejudice, by the high notion its natural history presents us, to which much might have been added. But this is not necessary in the formation of symbols, for if we should think this a mean and contemptible animal, unworthy to convey to us so great an idea, I answer, it was one of the arts of the inventors of symbols and emblems, to picture out the highest things by what we may esteem the lowest subjects: a beetle, for instance, is the symbol of no less than what the heathen call anima mundi; and to picture out the greatest good by its contrary. Just as Isaiah in the prophetical style calls that most excellent prince king Hezekiah, by the name of dragon, basilisk, cockatrice, and fiery flying serpent, xiv. 26. This is understood not in regard to any pravity of his own disposition, but in regard to the enemies of God’s people, to whom he was as a dragon, a divine avenger against enemies, a protector of his own. Again consider the serpent as a prophylactick symbol, and the highest of sacred characters, thought most effectually to guard against and drive off all evil power. It was the method in making these prophylactick symbols, to take the figure of the thing we want to remedy. A most remarkable and apposite instance of this nature, is the famous brazen serpent erected by Moses, being suspended on a cross-pole, like that on which military banners are hung. They that were bitten by the fiery serpents, were order’d to look on this, and be whole. So that manifestly the symbol is to excite faith and obedience. They are the proper cure, not the intrinsick efficacy of the symbolical figure, Wisd. xvi. 6, 7.

All writers Jewish and Christian with one mouth assert, this was a type of the Messiah. Philo is in a rapture about it; supposes somewhat extraordinary, future, is meant thereby. Rabbi Moses Gerundinensis writes thus.60 “It seems to me, concerning this mystery, that ’tis agreeable to the course of the divine law, as to miraculous works, that the mischief should be remedied by a thing similar to that which caus’d it.” And it makes the miracle more illustrious and divine, that God should direct a snake to cure those bitten by snakes.

Others of the rabbin are of the same way of thinking, as David Kimchi, Michlol II. And Abarbenel upon the place, f. 305. And Nachmanides. Our Saviour applies the Mosaic serpent directly to himself; no wonder then that the Christian fathers do so. Christus veluti serpens in cruce pependit, says St. Ambrose. Moebius treats largely of this resemblance between Christ and the serpent, exercitatio de æneo serpente, p. 63. Highly honour’d was the serpent, that, as it had been the instrument of introducing the greatest evil to mankind, to it was directed God’s word when he promised to us the greatest good, the Messiah, imply’d in those words, Gen. iii. 15. He shall bruise thy head: αυτος in the LXX.

Another like case is that in 1 Samuel v. the ark of God was taken captive by the Philistines, and they dar’d to look into the venerable secrecy thereof. The nation was smote in the hinder-parts, the organs of generation, which the scripture modestly calls emerods, hæmorrhoidals. Moreover a terrible pestilence killed many, and a plague of mice at harvest-time came upon them, and devoured all the fruit of their ground. In order to make an atonement, they sent away the ark again, with golden figures of the emerods and mice, a present accompanying of costly jewels, as a consecrated λουτρον, or satisfaction to the God of the Jews. Here, by the way, we should be blind if we did not see the origin of the phallus among the heathen.

Therefore to apply this. In regard to the seeming difficulty we at first took notice of, paying such a regard to an animal which the ancestors of mankind had so much reason to detest. Did the devil injure us under the form of a serpent? The like figure is the properest of any to symbolize the remedy, the antidote against the poison whereby the devil wrought man’s fall. Therefore, naturally, the same is to symbolize the Messiah then promised, who is to work man’s redemption. And St. Athanasius, Tom. II. quæst. 20. scruples not to make a comparison between the union of the serpent and the devil, in the fatal temptation; to the union of the divine and human nature in our blessed Saviour. The venomous serpent is his human nature, sinful, infected by the devil’s treachery; he was made sin for us, tho’ not contaminated himself. Tho’ not venomous, he cures the venom of our nature. I observe that the rabbies, tho’ they saw sufficiently, how necessarily the Mosaic serpent was applicable to the Messiah, yet they were somewhat fearful therein, and of speaking their mind upon it, for fear of doing ill, in comparing him to an accursed animal. But our Saviour himself was not fearful in comparing himself to it, and the rather on that account, took it for a very express type of his crucifixion, and of his being accursed for our sakes, Deut. xxi. 25. John iii. 14. Galat. iii. 13, i. e. devoted as a sacrifice, an expiation, that we being freed from the curse of sin, might obtain the blessing of God. So our Christian writers explain the type between our Saviour and the brazen serpent in the wilderness. Bede in particular, on John iii. And here we see the nature of types, where a man that undergoes the curse and punishment of the law, becomes in reality a type of the Messiah. A serpent which pictures out the evil principle, the like, 2 Cor. v. 21. Assuredly Moses, by the holy Spirit, meant it to regard 61Christ’s crucifixion. A fit emblem of his divinity, thro’ that remarkable quality of their throwing off old age with their skin, and returning to youth again. For so the ancients thought:

A fit emblem of his resurrection from the dead, and of returning to an immortal life.

No wonder then, from such reasons as these, and others as obvious, the ancients concluded this to be the most divine of all animals, and thought it the aptest symbol of the Νους ἑτερος, the other, or second mind of Plato, whom they affirmed to be the creator of the world. I know not whether this notion of theirs did not farther contribute to it; they thought these animals brought forth by the mouth. They have too no limbs, or members for action, but exert their mighty power by the mouth only; whence Horus Apollo says, “a serpent is the symbol of the mouth.” This well represents the omnific WORD, which Suidas speaks of from Trismegistus, all perfect, fruitful, the workman, creator of the world.

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ZOroaster Magus, in Euseb. p. e. II. 7. Plato, Porphyry, and others of the old philosophers, define God to be every where and no where, who fills all space, and is contain’d in none; “from whom came all things that are, and which are not yet; eternal, immutable, omnipresent, incomprehensible, immaterial, without parts, beginning or end.” If we put this definition into a geometrical figure, in order to form a symbol, we62 cannot possibly do it better than by describing the circle. A circle then in hieroglyphics means, divine; but particularly, as it is the most perfect and comprehensive of all geometrical figures, they design’d it for the symbol of the first and supreme being; whose resemblance we cannot find, whose center is every where, and circumference no where. It well pictur’d out, as Abenephi the Arabian and others assert, the divine nature of God.

Therefore this figure of the serpent and circle in their doctrine, aptly means the divine creator, or the creator descended from the supreme. For tho’ the deity was author of all things, yet more immediately this SON or WORD of the supreme was the architect of the universe.

And this we find exactly consonant to the scripture doctrine. So that it seems very evident to me, the most important of divine truths admitted in the christian church, were imparted to the first race of mankind, the patriarchal church, which two are in reality but the same.

We learn repeatedly from Sanchoniathon, Porphyry, and other ancient authors quoted by Eusebius in the præparatio evangelica, that the first sages of the world had just and true notions of the nature of the deity, conformable to those of the Christians: That, in their hieroglyphic way of writing, they design’d the deity and the mysterious nature thereof, by the sacred figure of the circle, snake, and wings. Of these, the circle meant the fountain of all being, the invisible supreme, who had no name. The serpent symboliz’d the son, or first divine emanation from the supreme. This they called by the name of Ptha, which is deriv’d from the hebrew, meaning the WORD. The wings symboliz’d that divine person or emanation from the former, commonly called anima mundi, but the Egyptians called him KNEPH, which in hebrew signifies winged.

Thus the old authors that speak of these things are to be understood, though they are confus’d, not rightly apprehending the bottom of the matter. And this hieroglyphic figure, in the whole, was call’d Knephtha.

But this knowledge of the nature of the deity, the most valuable depositum which could be communicated to mortals, was first perverted into idolatry; therefore God almighty forbore revealing himself further on that head, in an explicit manner, ’till the fulness of time arriv’d, the Christian dispensation. But those people who preserv’d themselves from idolatry, among which I reckon our Druids, retain’d that knowledge thereof which had already been imparted, of which this sacred figure of the alate and serpentiferous circle was, as it were, a seal; which they stamp’d upon these most lasting monuments, their temples. And I doubt not but they somewhat improv’d the notions they had thereof, by reasoning, in the manner I shall speak of Chap. XV.

Abury is not the only temple in Britain form’d on this design of the circle and serpent. I saw another at Shap in Westmorland, when I travell’d thro’ the place, anno 1725, with Mr. Roger Gale. But I had no opportunity of examining into it.

There is another, as I take it, at Classerness, a village in the island of Lewis, between Scotland and Ireland. I took a drawing of it from Mr. Lwydd’s travels; but he was a very bad designer, and having no knowledge of the purport, makes the representation still worse. The circle to which it belongs is 20 cubits in diameter. There is a central obelisc. A part of the snake remains going from it, which he calls an avenue. He did not discern the curve of it, no more than that of Kennet avenue, which he likewise has drawn in the same collection, as a straight line. It seems to 63me that the circle was double, or two concentric. I shall print it in the succeeding volume.

No doubt but there are more in the britannic isles. I propose in this chapter to deliver my notions concerning them in the more eastern parts of the world, of which are many traces in ancient writing; avoiding prolixity as much as possible.

The practice of building these serpentine temples was us’d by the patriarchs, perhaps near the beginning of the world. I have some proof of their being ancienter than the flood; but shall not at present insist on it. The first person I shall take notice of on this account is Phut, a brother of Canaan, son of Cham. Phut was a person of much greater eminence in antiquity, than vulgarly thought. But would we know anything of the particular memoirs of this man, or of any other his relations and coevals, we have nothing left us for it but heathen story.

Tho’ the Phœnicians, and our Druids, as well as the Egyptians too, had the earliest use of alphabet writing, yet none of these nations have transmitted to us any memoirs of themselves. And for what little knowledge we have of them, besides their monuments, we are altogether indebted to the Greeks, that receiv’d these arts from them. They happily improv’d art and science, sculpture and writing, so as to hand down to us most of the ancient history we know, beside the bible. Still this misfortune attended them, that they improv’d the symbolical method of writing, which they learn’d from the Phœnicians and Egyptians, to that monstrous pitch, as to produce what we call by the general name of mythology. It was but very late that they came to write true history: so that the whole of the ancient history of the nations they write of, is invelop’d in this perplexing mythology.

Yet we should be highly to blame, if we absolutely neglected it. ’Tis all we can have of prophane antiquity. ’Tis more commendable for us to study to extricate it from its symbolic mystery, and find out the open truth. Those that have succeeded best therein, find much agreement between it and the scripture history, as far as they are concurrent.

’Tis from this mythology, chiefly, that I can pretend to discourse any further, concerning these great works I have been describing. I shall endeavour to do it with all the brevity and perspicuity possible, as becomes such sort of discourses. Yet I despair not of finding out a good deal of true history. I shall not answer for all. And a great deal of candour is necessary in the reader, if he would have either pleasure or instruction in it. Yea, says a predecessor in these kind of inquiries, Dr. Dickenson, Delph. Phœnic. “if we look over the greek mythology with proper sagacity, we shall easily discover many footsteps of true religion.”

“A fable is an artificial discourse, consisting of the marvellous, and a philosopher, in some sort, is a lover of such,” says the great philosopher, Metaphys. I. 2.

There are vast treasures of ancient knowledge in mythology, especially of history both sacred and civil. ’Tis all that we have left of heathen history of the most ancient times, and ’tis worth our while to shake off the rubbish, and pick out the useful part. The learned labours of Bochart, Selden, Marsham, Huetius, Gale, Cumberland, Banier, and many more, shew us its utility. And we must pardon them if, in some things, they have gone beyond the golden medium, we ourselves will be content to err somewhat with those great names.

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Phut, son of Cham, was a person of eminence, tho’ not taken notice of so much as he deserves. I think it much to our purpose to recite some part of his history. He is the Apollo mention’d by Sanchoniathon, son of Cronus, who is Cham, as is demonstrated beyond doubt by bishop Cumberland, in his posthumous works; he is said to have been born in Peræa, i. e. the country towards the Euphrates: his third son; as likewise deliver’d by Moses. From the word Phut, he was called Python, by a little transposition natural in pronouncing a difficult name; and, by a like transposition, Typhon.

Apollo Pythius was the son of Ammon, that is Cham, says Lucius Ampelius, in libro memoriali. Plutarch de Isid. & Osir. writes, that Typhon was brother to Osiris, who was undoubtedly Misraim, son of Cham. The like by Diodorus Siculus.

To facilitate the understanding of antiquity, I here present the reader with a genealogical table of the great personages we are going to treat of. I could produce the evidences that prove each particular descent, in a strictly heraldical way, but it would now take up too much of our time.

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Phut was the first most celebrated navigator of antiquity, built a fleet of ships, began to carry colonies into the countries on the Mediterranean sea. Strabo in IX. tells us the history of him from Ephorus, a very ancient historian. He says Phut or Apollo travell’d the earth, and came to the rude inhabitants of Parnassus. His business was to bring men to civility and manners, to use corn for their food.

Pindar writes of him,

——He travell’d o’er earth and sea, setting watch-towers on hill-tops, among the nations, consecrating temples, and building groves.

Lycophron mentions Typhon’s watch-towers in Arimis, which probably is the Peræa of Sanchoniathon, the east part of Syria, where Homer says the ευνη, or bed of Typhon was, in a field abounding with oaks. ’Tis not unusual for Apollo to be represented in the character of a military captain. Hygin. fab. 140. And he really was a leader of a vast colony of his people into Egypt, then possess’d by his elder brother Misraim. Of this more hereafter. Of him speaks Seneca in Medea,

Again,

Jerem. xlvi. 9. the Libyans of Africa are in the original Phut. The Lydians there are the people or posterity of Lud, Thoth, his brother.

Apollodorus I. 4. writes, that Elios, our Phut, married Rhode daughter of Neptune, who was really Tarshish son of Javan, son of Japhet. From her he denominated the celebrated island, where, to his honour, was erected by posterity, the most stupendous statue in brass that ever was in the world, in any metal or other matter; being seventy cubits in height, whence all great statues have been call’d Colosses. The Argonauts in Apollonius I. sacrifice to Apollo the patron of navigation; in Artemidorus, Oniro II. 35. call’d Apollo Delphinius; that author says it means long voyages. Pausanias in Bœoticis gives him the same sirname. Hence, I apprehend, the dolphin, his cognizance, was plac’d in the heavens.

In face, he was like to Augustus. I have several Rhodian coins in silver and brass, of different sizes, in all which he is pictur’d. Nor need we be scrupulous in thinking them a good resemblance. For the Telchines, inhabitants of Rhodes, are said to be the first makers of images. And we may at this time of day, have the satisfaction of seeing an infinite number of representations of him, in the coins, busts, and images of Augustus, particularly the famous statue of Apollo in the Vatican garden at Rome, made from the emperor’s face. Therefore we may well admit of it for the heroical effigies of Phut.

Bochart thinks, he fixt his habitation first at Delos, and his family, and thence the fable of his being born there. I have an ancient brass coin, with the heroical effigies of his mother Latona. Her head in the adverse ΙΕΡΑ ϹΥΝΚΛΕΙΤΟϹ, reverse, the goddess sitting, a hasta pura held oblique in her right hand. ΛΗΤΩΤΡΙΠΟΛΕΙΤΩΝ.

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In this island of Delos he had a most magnificent temple, built to him in after ages, when idolatry began. The noble remains of it are to be seen there still. For his great fame and exploits, posterity consecrated him, calling him the son of Jupiter, meaning Jupiter Ammon, or more properly of Saturn.

But in no place was Phut more famous than in Phocis. He planted the country about the mountain Parnassus, where he built, as I apprehend, a great serpentine temple, like ours of Abury, at the bottom of that mountain, by the city of Delphos. This I gather from the Greek reports of the serpent Python of an immense bulk, bred of the slime left on the earth, by the general deluge, which Apollo here overcame; and instituted annual games call’d Pythia, plainly from his own name. These were the first and most ancient games we hear of in Greece.

Change the places, Abury for Parnassus, and we have both the natural, as well as chronological history of the place; a vast temple in form of a serpent, made out of stones left on the surface of the earth after the deluge: not only so but the very name too. The name of Parnassus was originally Larnassus, says Stephanus Byzantinus. The letter L is not a radical in this word, as the learned Dickenson observes in Delphi phœnic. therefore the word is Harnassus, Har is a headland or promontory of a hill, and nahas a serpent, which is no other than our Hakpen of Abury. Whence we conclude, the snaky temple extended its huge length along the bottom of Parnassus, and laid its head upon a promontory of it, just as ours at Abury, on Overton-hill. Whence Ovid not merely poetically, describes it;

This was the original patriarchal temple dedicated to the true God, where oracles were originally given by Themis says Apollodorus I. 4. Which name I take to be a corruption made in after times from the Jewish Thummim, for a divine and true oracle; which Dickenson asserts to have been at this place, page 104. in time turn’d into an idolatrous one. Many built one after another, as the former ones were sack’d and destroy’d.

The report of the mountain having been call’d Larnassus, is another argument of the high antiquity of this first serpentine temple here built by Phut, and throws us up to the patriarchal church, and to the times immediately after the great deluge. Stephanus of Byzantium before quoted, says it: and the interpreter of Apollonius, and Ovid makes Apollo’s engagement with Python to be immediately after the flood. They pretend the name Larnassus comes from Larnax, the ark of Deucalion landing here, agreeable to the Greek method of drawing all antiquity to themselves.

The central obeliscal stone in some of the circular works here, which was the Kebla, as in the southern temple of Abury, was afterward, in idolatrous times, worshipped at Delphos for the statue of Apollo, as Clemens Alexandrinus writes, Strom. I. ’till art and Grecian delicacy improv’d and produc’d elegant images, like that aforemention’d of the vatican, and innumerable more, still remaining.

In Vaillant’s colony coins vol. I. page 242. is an elegant coin struck at Cæsarea, to the emperor Antoninus Pius. On the reverse, Apollo standing, leans on a tripod, holds in his right hand a snake extended. The learned author is at a loss to explain it, therefore I may be allowed to give my opinion, that it relates to our present subject.

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It was the method of the ancient planters of colonies, to begin their work with building temples, I mean our patriarchal temples, for there were then no other. And they instituted festival and religious games, which contributed very much to polish and civilize mankind, and make them have a due notion and practice of religion, without which it is impossible for any date to subsist. Of this Strabo writes very sensibly in IX. treating on this very place. The Pæanick or Pythian are the most ancient games we have any account of. Strabo writes very largely concerning them.

These great festivals were at the four solar ingresses into the cardinal signs, which were the times of publick sacrificing, as I suppose, from the creation of the world. The Pythian festival was celebrated on the sixth day of the Athenian month Thargelion, Delphick Busius. ’Tis between April and May.

But we learn, from the scholiast of Pindar, prolegom. ad Pythia, that Apollo instituted the Pythia on the seventh day after he had overcome the serpent Python; and that at Delphos they sung a hymn called Pæan to Apollo every seventh day. The Athenians did the like, every seventh day of the moon, whence Hesiod’s

Because, says he, Apollo was born on that day.

The learned Gale observes from this, in his court of the Gentiles, p. 150. that it means the sabbath as the patriarchal custom, before the Jewish institution. Usher before him, of the same opinion, in his discourse on the sabbath. Porphyry in his book concerning the Jews, quoted by Eusebius pr. ev. I. 9. tells us, the Phœnicians consecrated one day in seven as holy; he says indeed, it was in honour of their principal deity Saturn, as they call’d him, and Israel. We are not to regard his reason, any more than Hesiod’s aforementioned, but his testimony of a matter of fact, has its just weight. He means to prove a custom older than Judaism.

I take all this to be an illustrious proof of the patriarchal observation of the sabbath, before the Mosaick dispensation. Their sabbath was intirely like our Christian, the greatest festival of all, and deservedly the most to be regarded, as being religion properly, or practical religion.

We cannot easily determine on what day the patriarchal sabbath was kept, Hesiod’s reason being the birth day of Apollo, pleads for Sunday; Porphyry’s for saturday, consequent to which thus Martial XII. 63.

But both shew evidently the antiquity of the hebdomadal division of time, and the planetary names of the week days, and the primæval sabbatical rest. Pausanias in atticis writes, at Megara was a statue of Apollo carrying the Docimæ or tithe, another patriarchal usage.

The work of Phut’s building an enormous serpentine temple, was call’d killing or overcoming the huge serpent Python, properly son of the earth.

69Publick sacrifices, games, hymns, a sabbatical observance being there celebrated; we have just reason to think all the like were observ’d by our Druids at Abury, especially considering they were of Phœnician original.

To conclude this chapter, this labour of Phut’s is told in many places. Some say it was in Mysia, in Phrygia others, again in Cilicia, in Pithecusa, in Bœotia; Strabo xiii. writes, that it was in Syria; and there seems to have been a serpentine temple on the river Orontes of Antioch, for it was call’d originally Typhon and Οφιτης, as Strabo writes, xvi. and Eustathius in Iliad, p. 262. Basil. and in Dionysium. The story is of Typhon a huge serpent slain there by a thunderbolt from Jupiter, near a sacred cave called Nymphæum.

The meaning of all this, seems to be, that Phut in person, or his people built them in all these places. Ææas a son of Phut’s, built the serpentine temple at Colchis.

Perseus was a son of Demaroon, born in Egypt, Euseb. p. e. II. 1. he was coæval with Phut, and bore in his shield the sacred hierogram, and he probably built of these Dracontia. From this the poets made their fable of Medusa’s head, and that it turn’d men into snakes. Hesiod in the description of Hercules’s shield, thus paints him in English.

“As he went, his adamantine shield sounded, and tinkled with a loud noise. In a circle two dragons were suspended, lifting up their heads.” Johannes Malala makes Perseus institutor of the Magi, who were the patriarchal priests of the east. He calls the river of Antioch abovementioned Dracon.

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NOT much later in time than Phut, lived that other celebrated hero of antiquity, the Egyptian, Phœnician, Tyrian Hercules; whom I take to be a principal planter of Britain. He was of Phœnician extract, born in Egypt and king there, founder of Tyre, and the most famous navigator: the first that pass’d thro’ the Mediterranean, and ventur’d into the great Ocean. I have wrote his history copiously, from which I must recite some deductions only, useful to our present purpose.

Hercules call’d Melcartus, was son of Demaroon, as Sanchoniathon the Phœnician writer informs us. Demaroon was intituled Zeus, whence the Greeks made Hercules the son of Jupiter. Demaroon according to our Phœnician author, was son of Dagon or Siton son of Ouranus (who in truth is Noah) and begat after the flood, but it was not his business to mention the flood. Hercules then may reasonably be suppos’d to live to the same age as Noah’s other great grandsons; if we say grandsons, it alters not the case. We need not be concerned at the seeming great distance between Hercules in the genealogy and Apher: for from Sanchoniathon we may prove that Melchisedec was Arphaxad. He conversed with Abraham.

Josephus in his first book against Apion has preserv’d a valuable and venerable piece of antiquity, call’d Manethon, the Egyptians’ Dynasties. This has given the learned much entertainment. I have considered it too with attention, in what I have wrote concerning the Mosaick chronology. I shall here recite some conclusions from it, for my present purpose.

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The dynasty of the pastor kings is what we are chiefly concern’d in, which belongs to the most early ages after the flood. Sir John Marsham has set them too low. Bishop Usher and Cumberland are much nearer the truth, as I apprehend, and from whom I differ very little. The last of this dynasty of pastors is Assis, Archles, our Egyptian Hercules. They were Canaanites that followed Misraim into Egypt, and at first liv’d very peaceably, but in time the two families quarrel’d, and wag’d terrible wars together, for 200 years. The Misraimites possess’d the upper regions of the Nile, Canaanites the lower or marshy part upon the Mediterranean sea, call’d Delta. Hence the former call’d ’em Titans, i. e. dirty, fenmen, bog-trotters, as we say contemptuously, of a people who are their real descendants. The Misraimites call’d themselves the Elohim, or Gods, descendants of Ilus or Cham, and that liv’d, as it were, in a heavenly region, toward Egyptian Ethiopia, where Homer makes the gods to hold their festivals. So the Greeks call’d such as liv’d in the high countries, Athamanes, heavenly. Mount Olympus was heaven, the habitation of the gods. This was the way of talking in the heroical times.

The Canaanites, on the other hand, call’d themselves Hycsi, or royal pastors. And the stories of the battles between these two people are the oldest stories we have among the poets, when they ring about the wars between the gods and the Titans.

In the chronology of this pastor dynasty, I differ a little from the great authors aforementioned. The chief reason why, is this. They take the numbers in Josephus’s catalogue, as in the present copies; but I hold ’em erroneous, and to be corrected from Africanus, Eusebius, and Syncellus, who copied from Josephus in earlier times. Josephus’s present numbers are somewhat too short: for tho’ Africanus, Eusebius, and Syncellus differ from one another, as well as from Josephus, (such is the misfortune of negligence in transcription) yet they all agree to heighten the numbers. And Josephus himself, twice in the same books, makes the sum total to be 393 years, which is more than his particulars, by which Marsham, Usher, and Cumberland go. But take that sum total 393, and set it at the exodus, and count upwards: I apprehend then we have it in its right situation.

By this means, the head of the pastor dynasty in Egypt, which commenced with Salatis, must be placed anno mundi 1860 instead of 1920, as Usher and Cumberland have it: and during the reign of Menes, Misraim, Osiris, according to their own chronology. This, I am confident, is near the truth. And thus that dynasty is to be plac’d in the list of time.

Manethon’s dynasties of pastor kings in lower Egypt.
Salatis began to reign A. P. J. 2570. A.M.	1860
Beon	1879
Apachnas	1923
Apophis	1959
Janias Staan                              A.P.J.	2020
Assis, Archles, Melcartus          2781	2071

By this means we have an opening scene of the greatest matters of antiquity, that relate to the world in general, as well as particularly to the island of Great Britain; of which I must give some account.

In the year of the world 2083, the great patriarch Abraham came out72 of Chaldea into the land of Canaan. This is in the 13th year of the reign of our Melcarthus in lower Egypt. About 2087, not 2084 (as Usher sets it) Abraham, by famine constrained, goes down to Egypt, that is, into lower Egypt. So that our Melcarthus is the real Pharaoh mention’d Gen. xii. who would have taken Sarah, Abraham’s wife, ’till he learn’d the truth. Usher, at the year 2084, calls him Apophis; but ’tis an error of the pen, it means Janias, predecessor to Assis, whom he sets as regent from anno mundi 2081. Castor the chronographer, in Syncellus, writes, “that Abraham was well learn’d in the knowledge of astronomy, and the other sciences of the Chaldeans.” Berosus, author of the Chaldean history, gave him the character of “a just and great man, expert in astronomy.” Josephus adds, “that Hecateus had such a value for his memory, that he wrote his history.” Nicholas of Damascus an historian, and Trogus, make him a king. Alexander Polyhistor relates from Eupolomus, “that Abraham exceeded all men in wisdom; that astronomy was founded by him among the Chaldeans; that he came into Phœnicia, and taught the Phœnicians astronomy; that he being constrain’d by famine, went into Egypt, lived in Eliopolis among the priests, and taught them astronomy; yet he did not pretend to be the inventor of the art, but had it deliver’d to him by succession from Enoch.” Artapanus likewise, the historian, mention’d by Eusebius præp. evang. IX. 4. he speaks of “Abraham going to the king of Egypt, and teaching him astronomy, and that after twenty years he return’d into Syria.” Melo, another old heathen author, speaks much of Abraham’s wisdom. These writers, as wholly disinterested, sufficiently shew that Egypt hence learn’d astronomy, and Melcarthus their king in particular.

It seems, at this time, the major part of the world, thro’ ignorance or negligence, knew not the true length of a year, making it of 360 days only. But Abraham taught the Egyptians better; for now we may understand that remark in Syncellus, that under Assis or Hercules, the last of the pastor kings, the 5 additional days were placed in their year. And then a solar year of 365 days first began among the Egyptians. ’Tis somewhat odd, that the Egyptians should call these 5 additional days by the word Nesi, which signifies a snake. I suppose they meant by it sacred days, holy days. They were placed at the end of the year, and reckon’d birth-days of the gods, I suppose from some fore-notices they had of the birth of Messiah at that time of the year; for I find all antiquity had such notice. But Syncellus does not tell us the whole of the truth: Abraham taught Assis likewise the intercalation of the quarter-day, and the leap-day every fourth year. For, according to what I have been able to see concerning this matter, the Mosaic or patriarchal year was solar, and strictly Julian. But when the world was o’erwhelm’d with idolatry, providence judg’d proper to alter the year too, in order to dislocate their heathenish and superstitious festivals. Therefore to Moses God communicated the form of the lunæ-solar year, which the Jews use to this day. But toward the advent of Messiah, providence took care to restore the ancient patriarchal year, in the Julian form.

Hence we may account for what Herodotus tells us of the Thebans, a people in upper Egypt, who intercalate the quarter-day every fourth year: from the earliest times, no doubt from the time of Hercules.

Let us mention this remark. In the sacred account of Abraham’s sojourning here in Egypt, we meet with no distaste of the Egyptians to shepherds, which in his grandson Jacob’s time was an abomination to them. 73This shews that the pastor kings now reign’d here, with whom Abraham convers’d; and it shews the reason of that abomination, when they were expell’d; it confirms this history of Manethon’s dynasty, and illustrates the scriptures. Jacob’s family being Canaanites and shepherds, were taken to be of those that held the Egyptians in so long a war. They were pretended to be spies by Joseph, Gen. xlii. 9.

Further, we have another very important piece of history from Abraham’s being in Egypt, which the learned are not aware of; for hence ’tis more than presumption, that the Egyptians learn’d the use of letters or alphabet-writing. If we seek into the accounts transmitted to us by letters, concerning their own origin, Philo the Jew expressly attributes the invention thereof to Abraham. Whence Plato in Philebo and in Phædro, contends for their first appearance in Egypt, discover’d by Theut, “who, whether he be a god, or a man, is doubtful,” says he; meaning, the use of them must be a divine communication. Syncellus writes, “the opinion of some is, that Abraham brought letters out of Chaldea, and taught them to the Phœnicians, and they taught them to the Greeks.” Diodorus V. writes, “the Syrians invented letters, and the Phœnicians learn’d the great secret from them.” Eusebius, pr. ev. X. confirms this, but asserts, “that by the Syrians are meant the Assyrians (as was often the case in old accounts) or the Hebrews more particularly.” It was, in truth, the ancestors of Abraham. And this I believe is the real truth. God first imparted this knowledge to the patriarchal family, for preserving the sacred records of his church; and Abraham now taught their use to Assis, the Hercules, son of Nilus Jupiter, who wrote in the Phrygian letters, says Cicero.

All this is exceedingly confirm’d by the explication which Mr. Toland gives us concerning Hercules Ogmius, in his history of the Druids. Lucian says, ’tis a word of their own language, by which the Celts call Hercules. And the word has hitherto been inexplicable. He relates the picture of him (in Hercule Gallico) which he saw in Gaul, which was explain’d to him by a Druid. He was pictured as clad with a lion’s skin, a club in his right hand, a bent bow in his left, a quiver hanging o’er his shoulders. As for his form, he was an old man, bald before, wrinkled, and in colour like a sun-burnt sailor. A multitude of people were represented as drawn after him by golden chains from their ears, center’d in his tongue. The Druid told Lucian, that Ogmius accomplish’d his great atchievements by his eloquence, and reduc’d the people of this western world, from rude and barbarous to a state of civility.

A memorial of this knowledge which Hercules had of letters, we find in Hephæstion V. where he writes, “Hercules gave the name of Alpha to the first letter, in honour to the river Alpheus, when victor at the olympic games.” My late learned friend, Mr. Keysler, in his Antiq. septentrional. guessed well that Ogmius means literatus, a man of letters, as we commonly say; more properly spoken of Hercules than of others. But Mr. Toland shews evidently, that Ogum is a word in the Irish language, importing the secret of alphabet writing; the literarum secreta, as Tacitus calls it, de mor. germ. So that Hercules Ogmius fully imports the learned Hercules, and especially one that was master of alphabet writing; without which learning is but a vague and uncertain thing. This our Hercules learn’d of Abraham in the east, and this he brought with our Druids into the extremest west, in this very early age of the world, as we have all the reason imaginable to believe. That they had letters, we have Cæsar’s express testimony,74 and they were the same as the greek letters, because the very same. They had them from the same fountain as the Grecians, tho’ somewhat earlier; for I take our Hercules to be a little prior in time to Cadmus, who carry’d letters into Greece.

Hercules therefore was learned and eloquent, a great astronomer, and philosopher. A fragment of Palæphatus in the Alexandrian chronicle, calls him the Tyrian philosopher, who found out the purple dye: Suidas in the word Hercules, the like. And long before, Heraclitus in Allegoriis Homericis, says, he was a wise man, a great philosopher, και σοφιας ουρανιου Μυστης, one initiated into the wisdom from above; we may call him a professor of divinity.

Thus he appears a worthy scholar of the great Abraham, and from him the Druids learn’d the groundwork of learning, religion, and philosophy, which they were so famous for ever after. But my purpose is to be very short on this head at present: nevertheless I must remark that our Assis was not only acquainted with Abraham in Egypt, but likewise in the land of Canaan or Phœnicia; for he quitted Egypt by compact with Tethmosis A.M. 2120, carrying away with him 240000 men, which enabled him to transport colonies all over the Mediterranean and the ocean. And he must dwell several years in Canaan before his projects of that kind were ripe. But Abraham dy’d A.M. 2183, so that there was abundantly time enough for the two great men to renew their acquaintance, and there is much reason to think they actually did so.

Therefore as it was the patriarchal custom to raise temples wherever they came; so of our hero Hercules, whether thro’ his own pious disposition,or in imitation of Abraham: we hear of his raising pillars too, which means our temples. And thence he obtain’d the name in antiquity, of Hercules Saxanus.

Thus the learned Lud. Vives on St. Augustin C. D. viii. 9. “The philosophy of the Egyptians is very ancient, but for the most part deriv’d from the Chaldeans, especially from Abraham, tho’ they, as Diodorus writes, refer it to Isis, Osiris, Vulcan, Mercury, and Hercules.” Further from Joseph’s administration, the Egyptian learning commenc’d, for which they became so celebrated. He not only instructed the priests in religion and philosophy, but settled their colleges and possessions, as we read in Gen. xlvii. 22, 26. so that if Moses was learned in the wisdom of the Egyptians, he deriv’d it only thro’ them from his own ancestors. Which note may be useful to give us a true notion of this matter, which some learned men exalt too high. And this at the same time shews idolatry commenc’d in Egypt, after his time. They consecrated Joseph into the genius or intelligence of their first monarch Osiris, Serapis, &c. with the bushel on his head. But what I chiefly insist upon at present, is of Hercules making these serpentine temples, which in his history is call’d overcoming serpents and the like. And hence the fable of his squeezing two serpents to death in his cradle; and the Tyrian coins struck to his honour, some whereof I have exhibited.

Of his building our Druid temples in general, of these great stones, the two coins of Gordian in Stonehenge page 50, are a further evidence. The Ambrosiæ Petræ are a work of this sort, when he began or assisted in building the city Tyre. And I gather he was a great builder of serpentine temples in particular, such as we have been describing, call’d Dracontia. What he did of this sort in Britain I have no foundation for discovering; but in ancient history still left us, there are sufficient traces that shew he did it, in the more eastern parts of the world.

For instance, at Acon or Ptolemais as call’d afterward, a city on the Phœnician shore: it regain’d its first name and now is call’d St. John of Acres, from a famous church there. The first city was probably built by our Hercules, at least he made one of these temples there, as I gather from the name of the place, coins and reports relating thereto. The Greeks call it Ακη, and according to their custom, give it a Greek original, from ακεισθαι, because says the Etymologicum magnum, Hercules was there heal’d of the bite of a serpent. Stephanus of Byzance the same, in the word Ptolemais; in the word Ake, he says, that Claudius Julius in his vol. I. of the Phœnician history, writes, “that it had its name from Hercules, who was order’d by the oracle to go eastward, ’till he came to a river, and found the herb Colocasia, which would cure his wound. He came to the river Belus, which here runs into the sea, and there found the herb.” Salmasius in his Plinian exercitations, affirms, the herb is Dracunculus; it grows in our gardens, called Dragons, from its likeness to a snake’s head and tongue; and being spotted like a snake.

All this I can understand no otherwise, than that Hercules made a serpentine temple on the side of this river, where the city Acon was afterward built, and which took its name from this temple, as our Hakpen at Abury;76 for עכן Acan in the Chaldee, signifies a serpent, as we observed before. Josephus informs us, by the river Belus was the sepulchre of Memnon; which probably was made here in regard to the temple.

When we come into Greece, we hear of Hercules overcoming the Lernean snake, which Heraclides Ponticus writes had 50 heads. We may very well understand this of 50 stones, which compos’d the head, as our temple on Overton-hill of 58. Hephæstion II. recites from Alexander the Myndian, that this Hydra was turn’d into stone. Thus hints and reports are drop’d, which preserve the real truth invelop’d in fable; as was the Greek method in all matters of antiquity.

This snake was of a very unusual bulk, and lay near a great water, call’d the Lernean-lake, by a large plane-tree, and the spring Anymone. Further ’tis said, in overcoming this animal (by which they mean the labour he bestow’d in accomplishing the work) he us’d the help of Iolaus the waggoner. Such help must be highly useful to him, to bring the stones. But I observe from the name Iolaus his waggoner and companion, and Hylas another great friend of his, and Iole his mistress, that the ancient druidical festival is couch’d under that name, call’d Yule, which I shall speak largely upon in its proper place. In the mean time (we are told) the snake was assisted against him, by a very great crab. This will appear strange, ’till we are directed to its meaning by this consideration. As the serpent means the Dracontian temple, so the crab was a symbol like in figure and meaning to the globus alatus or winged circle, which was the ancient picture of the anima mundi, or divine spirit. Thus does mythology, when rightly consider’d, help us in these ancient enquiries. We may say of the work as Statius does of the temple of Hercules Surrentinus,

There are like vestiges of other Dracontian temples founded by Hercules in Spain, Africa, and elsewhere.

“Hercules,” says bishop Cumberland, “was a very learned prince, bred or conversant in the Phœnician universities, whereof Debir was one, Josh. xv. 15. 49. call’d for its eminence, Kirjath-sepher, the city of books; and Kirjath-sanna, the city of learning.” The bishop thinks he retreated from Egypt about the time of Abraham’s death. But, from what chronological evidence I gave before, it must be a good while before it. And I do not doubt but he with pleasure renew’d his acquaintance with his old friend Abraham, in the land of Canaan.

There seems to be a very pregnant proof of this, in that Hercules had a son call’d Isaac, to whom one would imagine Abraham was sponsor at his baptism, or perhaps his son Isaac; for baptism was one part of the patriarchal religion. And they had susceptors, sponsors, or what we call god-fathers at the font, as we have. Of this Isaac son of Hercules, Plutarch informs us, de Isid. & Osir. remembred by the Phrygians, for he was planted in Phrygia by his father Hercules. Hence it became a common name there, and Æsacus son of king Priam is but the same name, as my learned friend Mr. Baxter thinks, in his glossar. Antiq. Rom. If this consideration be joined to what I wrote in Stonehenge about Phryxus, or Apher, grandson of Abraham, having a concern in planting, and even naming of Britain, it 77may afford us another hint about our Phrygian extract, which the old Britons are so fond of. And we can expect no other than these kind of hints, in matters of such extreme antiquity. And further, as he was concern’d in settling colonies in Spain, we may attribute to him the claim which the Gallæci there had, to a Trojan descent, of which Justin informs us.

This Apher is the Africus mention’d by Mela, I. 9. He calls him an Arabian king, who being driven out by the Assyrians, went into Africa. ’Tis very remarkable, that his name, when interpreted, signifies Tyn; as the great Bochart makes the name of Britain, come from Bratanac, the land of tyn; equivalent to the greek word κασσιτερος, whence Cassiterides in latin. This expulsion seems to be hinted at in Gen. xiv. 6. in the days of Abraham. Now a reader not much acquainted with these kind of inquiries, will be apt to smile at pretending to a similitude between Apher and Britain. So in making the Wiltshire word sarsens deriv’d from the same word as the name of the city of Tyre; tho’ ’tis an undeniable fact, and easily perceiv’d by the learned.

The evidences of Hercules planting Britain, are of the like nature, which I shall very briefly recapitulate. Apollodorus in II. after the story of Hercules, Antæus and Geryon, two kings in Afric and Spain, mentions his conquering Alebion and Dercynus sons of Neptune, in the same mythologic strain as the others, because they attempted to drive away his oxen. He makes it to be in Libya, others in Ligya or Liguria, others in Gaul. The variety of places is of no consequence in these very old stories. I regard only the personal names of Albion and Bergion, as more commonly call’d, sons of Neptune. If this be really so, sons of Tarshish, son of Javan: for Tarshish was the true Neptune of the heathen; and he was one of the sons to whom the heathen generally attribute the plantation of islands, as well as Moses, Gen. x. 5. But Albion and Bergion are notoriously most ancient names of Britain and Ireland. Mela, II. 5. mentions Hercules fighting Albion and Bergion. So Tzetzes in chiliad. and Tzetzes the interpreter of Lycophron.

Tacitus says expressly Hercules was in Germany, in that part lying upon the ocean especially. Ammianus Marcellinus, in his XV. 9. tells us from Timagenes, an ancient historian, “that the Dorienses following the more ancient Hercules, inhabited the western countries bordering on the ocean.” By mount Carmel was a city Dora spoken of by Josephus, and by Stephanus of Byzantium, quoting Hecatæus, and many more old authors. See the famous fragment of Stephanus. Claudius Julius, in his III. of the Phœnician history, writes, “next to Cæsarea is Dora, inhabited by Phœnicians on account of the great quantity of the purple fish there found.” Now Hercules being confessedly the inventor of this Tyrian dye, ’tis probable the companions of his, mention’d by Ammianus, were of this city.

If Hercules peopled the ocean, coasts of Gaul, Spain and Germany, we may well imagine he would do the like in Britain. Pliny’s testimony is express, that Melcarthus (corruptly Midacritus) first brought tyn from the Cassiterid islands, which can be no other than Britain.

The poets and mythologists, when speaking of the Titans, agree they went all into the west, which seems to be meant of Hercules and his people settling in Britain. Our Thule, or northern island, seems to have been named by our Hercules, as a demonstration of his being there, from an island of the same name in the Persian gulph. Of which Bochart.

The like is to be inferr’d from such stories as that related by Parthenius78 Nicæus, “that Hercules travelling, after his expedition against Geryon, pass’d thro’ the country of the Celts, and was entertain’d by Britannus. His daughter Celtine fell in love with him, on whom he begat a son call’d Celtus; from him afterwards the people of the Celts received their denomination.”

We took notice before, that these shepherds who quitted Egypt under the conduct of our Hercules, call’d themselves Hycsi, as Manethon informs us in Josephus & Eusebius in chronol. The word imports royal shepherds, valiant, freemen, heroes. Now we find the remains of this very name in the south-western part of our island, in Worcestershire, even to the Roman times, and still further, even to the time of venerable Bede. They were called Huiccii, to which Orduices and Vigornienses is synonymous. And all three words mean the same thing, as the great Baxter shews in his glossary, Antiq. Britan. voce Orduices, Iceni, Huiccii, &c. And by all accounts our old Britons lov’d that same free, shepherd’s life, which the old Canaanites did about Abraham’s time, as describ’d in scripture. Bishop Cumberland is elaborate upon it.

I take the Irish, and ancient highland Scots, to be the remains of the original Phœnician colony. My learned friend, Dr. Pocock, when he was in Ireland, observ’d a surprizing conformity between the present Irish and the Egyptians, and that in very many instances.

These considerations, added to what I said in Stonehenge, are enough to persuade us, that our Hercules had a considerable hand in peopling Britain.

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NONE more famous in Grecian history than Cadmus, who brought them the use of those letters that convey’d their history to us, and preserv’d the little knowledge we can chiefly have of profane antiquity. He was son of Agenor, by which word the Greeks chose to pronounce the difficult one of Canaan. Alexander Polyhistor cites out of Eupolemus; “from Saturn (who is Cham) came Belus and Canaan, and Canaan begat the father of the Phœnicians, or Phœnix. Eusebius, pr. ev. 9 has it too. Again, Eusebius, pr. ev. 1. quotes from Sanchoniathon, Cna, (Canaan,) who was styled among the Phœnicians ΧΗΝΑ.” So in Stephanas of Byzantium, Phœnicia is called ΧΗΝΑ, and the Phœnicians ΧΗΝΑΙ, which is Canaanites. ΧΗΝΑ, Cna, is Agenor.

Cadmus lived in the time of, or very little after Hercules. Tho’ the Parian marble is an invaluable monument, yet ’tis not an infallible one. If the learned Bentley finds it erring about Stesichorus, we must not depend on its æra of Cadmus, who lived a thousand years before that stone was made. Nor is the authority of Eusebius’s chronology in this particular, greater. Bochart holds him older than the builder of Tyre; there perhaps he heightens his date a little too much.

To have a proper notion of the history of this great man, bishop Cumberland shews us, that the Horites or Hivites, sons of Canaan, i. e. the colony or people of Cadmus son of Agenor, or Canaan, went out of the land of Canaan about the same time that Misraim or Osiris, son of Cham, went to plant Egypt. They went likewise into Egypt. They lived quietly80 there for some time, but war arising between the Misraimites and the pastors, they retir’d back again, probably a little before the expulsion of the pastors. Some went to the north of Canaan, about mount Hermon under Libanus; some remain’d in the more southern parts, more particularly call’d Horites, or Avim, or Hivites.

In Gen. xv. 18. when God made his great covenant with Abraham, he tells him, he will give him the land of the Kenites, and Kenizzites, and Kadmonites, and Hittites, and Perizzites, and Rephaims, Amorites, &c. By Kadmonites he means the people of Cadmus son of Canaan. But afterward, in all those places where these nations are recited, they are called Hivites; Cadmus was likewise call’d Hyas, Hivæus: Hyas or Cadmus, one or both, being honorary names, or names of consecration, as was the mode of that time. The same is to be said of Melchizedec, Abimelech, Pharaoh, and many more. About this time there was likewise Hyas a son of Atlas.

The name of Hermon is probably deriv’d from his wife Hermione, as a compliment to her. And of this mountain is that saying in Psalm cxxxiii. 3. The psalmist draws an elegant comparison of the holy unction of Aaron running from his head to his beard, and so down his garments, “like as the dew of Hermon which falls on the hill of Sion.” A difficulty that gave St. Augustin a great deal of trouble; but must needs be an absurd reading, and ought to be corrected Sirion for Sion. Sirion is a lower part of the high ground at the bottom of mount Hermon, as that lies under the elated crest of Libanus. Psal. xxix. 6. “Libanon also, and Sirion, like a young unicorn.” A mountain not a little remarkable, since we read, Deut. iii. 9. “which Hermon the Sidonians call Sirion, and the Amorites call it Shenir;” Hermon and Sirion being parts of mount Libanon.

Since we are upon criticism, the reader will excuse me in mentioning another of like nature, and not foreign to our purpose. These Horites, Hivites, Avim or Cadmonites, as called from Cadmus, Gen. xv. 19. or Canaanites, as called from his father Canaan, extending themselves upon the Phœnician shore, became traders or merchants in the most eminent degree of all ancient people in the world, and traded as far as Britain; so that the name of Canaanite and merchant became equivalent. Isaiah xxiii. 8. “Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, saith the prophet, the crowning city; whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth.”

Hence we observe, 1. The prophet calls it the crowning city, for they sent a golden crown to Alexander the great as a present.

2. The word traffickers, mercatores, is Canaanites in the original. And the like in Jerem. x. 17. “Gather up thy wares out of the land, O inhabiter of the fortress.” ’Tis Canahe in the original.

3. This naturally leads me to mention a noble prophecy, overlook’d thro’ a too literal translation in our bible, Zech. xiv. 21. “Yea, every pot in Jerusalem, and in Judah, shall be holiness unto the LORD of hosts: and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them, and seethe therein. And in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts.” It ought to be translated merchant, as in the vulgate latin and chaldee. For ’tis a prophecy concerning the days of the Messiah; and regards that famous act of his life, when he drove the traders out of the temple.

The Kadmonites got the name of Hivites, as I apprehend, from their ce81lebrity in building temples of the serpentine form. At first they were consecrated to true religion; but too soon all these, and other patriarchal temples in the land of Canaan were polluted to idolatrous purposes; and probably from them the worship of snakes became famous. Now the word Avim, Hevæus in the Syriac, signifies a snake. And from this custom of the Phœnicians making serpentine temples, the notion might arise of the Phœnicians worshipping serpents, as Eusebius observes, pr. ev. I. And from this the Greeks made their fables of Cadmus overcoming a great snake, sowing its teeth, and armed men sprouting up, &c.

On this account it is, that they who represent this exploit of his, describe it as done by a stone of a very extraordinary bulk, Ovid. Met. III. v. 59.

The bulk of the serpent is equally extravagant,

This is but a poetical description of the circle and the avenues at Abury.

You have this same action of the heroes represented in some Tyrian coins: Cadmus is throwing a stone at a serpent. That of Gordian III. in Vaillant’s colony coins, vol. II. p. 217. Another of Gallienus, p. 350. The author quotes Nonnus’s Dionysiacs IV. reciting the history of his breaking a snake’s head with a stone. And he thinks those other Tyrian coins belong to this same history, as that p. 136, where a snake is represented as roll’d about a great stone.

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It was from the city of Sareptha that Europa was carry’d off; ’tis in the country of Sidon; and I apprehend, from the name of it, here was originally a serpentine temple. Sareptha is the serpent Ptha. I have an ancient coin of this city, in brass. A palm-tree on one side, a leopard’s face on the other, which refers to the wine here famous: of which the learned Reland in Palestina.

Conon, in his narration 37, gives us the origin of the greek fable of Cadmus’s men, the Phœnicians, springing out of the ground armed, for before then helmets and shields were unknown. Hence they were call’d Spartæ.

That these armed men sprung out of the ground upon sowing the serpent’s teeth, means our Hivites making a religious procession along the avenue of their serpentine temples on the great festival days, when they sacrific’d. We see a like procession of armed men, carv’d upon the temple of Persepolis in Le Brun’s prints. And Ovid calles a Bœotian, one of Cadmus’s people, Hyantius, III. v. 147. Strabo vii. writes, they took that name from their king Hyas, which is the same as Hivite. Pliny iv. 7. observes the Bœotians were so call’d anciently.

In the next book Met. iv. ver. 560. we have an account of Melicerta our Melcarthus and his mother deify’d: and of the Sidonian women their companions, some turn’d into stones, others into birds, for grieving at their fate. This seems to mean their building temples after some of the modes we have been describing, and that which is to follow Chap. XVI. near the sepulchres of heroes and founders of states; as was the custom of old: what we observed by Silbury-hill and Abury. For these temples were prophylactick, and a sacred protection to the ashes of the defunct. So we read in Virgil by Anchises’s tomb, Æneid V.

Immediately after Ovid’s account of Melicerta, the poet speaks of Cadmus and his wife turn’d into serpents: which I understand of the like serpentine temple made by their sepulchre. Suidas writes, on Epaminondas’s tomb was a shield and a snake carv’d, to shew he was of Spartan race. We may very well imagine the circle and snake, the cognizance of Cadmus.

After Cadmus’s decease, his people built a city called Butua; and near it is a place call’d Cylices, where Cadmus and Hermione were turn’d into serpents: and two stone snakes are there set up by the Phœnicians, to their honour: Bochart page 502, where many authors are quoted to prove these particulars. He says, the word Cylices in Phœnician, means tumulos, our barrows. It was a place full of sepulchral tumuli, as Stonehenge and Abury: cups revers’d, regarding the form of them. Nonnus in Dionys. writes, that there are two great stones or rocks there, which clap together with a great noise, whence auguries are taken. Tzetzes chiliad. iv. hist. 139, mentions the same thing. I take this to be a main ambre, of which I spoke largely in Stonehenge. Herodot. V. 61. says the Cadmeians being admitted citizens of Athens, built temples there, which had nothing common with the Greek temples; particularly they had a temple of Ceres Achæa and mystical rites. Achæa, I suppose, means a serpentine temple, from the oriental name.

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We read just now, that the Sidonian women, the mourners for Melcarthus and his mother, were turn’d some into stones, others into birds.

I should suppose the internal meaning of this to be, the making an alate temple, of which we are further to speak in chap. xvi.

Antoninus Liberalis in his XXXI. tells a very old story of the first inhabitants of Italy before Hercules’s time; a place among the Messapians called the sacred stones: where the nymphs Epimelides had a fane set round with trees, which trees were formerly men. This must be understood as the former.

Thus we see how the ancient Greeks involv’d every thing in fable, but still all fable has some historical foundation, and that we must endeavour to find, by applying things so properly together, as to strike out the latent truth.

The learned Dr. Bogan in his letter prefix’d to Delphi phœniciss. from Æschylus and others, Ικετ. ά. shews, that men were often call’d snakes by the ancients, in an allegorical way; and as to the report of Cadmus and his wife, of the Sidonian women and others, turn’d into snakes, or stones, or birds, or trees, in the sense we are explaining them; ’tis no more than what we daily see and hear at this time, in these very Druid temples of our own island, which we are speaking of. The people who live at Chippin-Norton and all the country round our first described temple of Rowldrich; affirm most constantly and as surely believe it, that the stones composing this work are a king, his nobles and commons turn’d into stones. They quote an ancient proverb for it, concerning that tall stone, call’d the king stone.

And as Mr. Roger Gale wrote once to me from the place: “’tis the creed of all that country, and whoever dares to contradict it, is looked upon as the most audacious free-thinker.”

The very same report remains, at the Druid temple of Stanton-Drew, in Somersetshire, which I shall describe in my next volume. This noble monument is vulgarly call’d the Weddings; and they say,’tis a company who assisted at a nuptial solemnity, thus petrify’d. In an orchard near the church, is a cove consisting of three stones, like that of the northern circle in Abury, or that of Longstones: this they call the parson, the bride, and bridegroom. Other circles are said to be the company dancing: and a separate parcel of stones standing a little from the rest, are call’d the fidlers, or the band of musick.

So that vast circle of stones in Cumberland which was a Druid temple, is call’d long Meg and her daughters, and verily believed to have been human, turn’d into stones.

Thus we see an exact uniformity between the fables of the antient Greeks, and our present people. The former found these kind of patriarchal temples built by their first heroes and planters; admiring the vastness of the works, they affix’d these marvellous stories to them, and retain them as firmly, as our vulgar do the like now. And this is the nature of the ancient mythology; but by finding the end of the clue, we draw it out into useful truths.

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These Cadmonites, Avim, Hittites, Hivites, Spartans, Lacedemonians, (who are all one and the same people,) retain’d a distinct remembrance of their relation to the Jews, even to the days of the Maccabees, as we read 1. Maccab. xii. and in Josephus Ant. xii. 5. Undoubtedly they reckoned themselves of kin to Abraham, if not descended from him; thus I understand it. Joshua mentions chap. xi. the Hivites in the land of Mizpeh under mount Hermon by Libanus. He says further, in the 19th verse, the Gibeonites were a portion of that same people. The Avim or Horites about mount Seir where Esau dwelt, were the same people who were expell’d by the Caphthorim, as Moses mentions: on which bishop Cumberland has wrote largely.

We read of the great intercourse there was between Esau’s family and these people; for Esau married four of his wives from them, Gen. xxvi. 34. xxxvi. 2. no doubt but they married into his family again. Hence it is that Strabo x. writes, that Cadmus had Arabians in his company. And in xvi. that the inhabitants of Syria (he means properly Phœnicia) are originally deriv’d from the neighbourhood of the Persian gulf.

I doubt not but that there are now upon the face of the earth, many of these serpentine temples remaining in Europe, Asia and Africa. For instance, Strabo xvi. from Posidonius relates, that in a field call’d Macra by Damascus, was a dead serpent, the length of an acre, so thick that two horsemen could not see each other across him, his mouth so large as a horseman might enter into it; each scale was as big as a shield.

We may hence see the origin of idolatry, soon after these heroes we have recited; and it seems to have begun first in Phœnicia, which Eusebius always puts before Egypt, when speaking of the matter. Demaroon was Jupiter the supreme, Phut they deify’d into his son, Canaan they made the third divine person. But wherever idolatry began, whether in the call of Asia, or the west, it flew too soon into other countries, and they made a Jupiter, a Son, and a Mercury or Neptune who are the same, of their own; ’till with every hero and benefactor to mankind they fill’d the heaven of the heathens.

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I  HAVE given the reader an account of three eminent builders of these Dracontia, or serpentine temples, in the earliest times after the flood, and in the more eastern parts of the world; as well as described one of those works in our island. There are many more such builders and buildings, which will be easily found out by those that are conversant in ancient learning. This figure of the circle and snake, on which they are founded, had obtained a very venerable regard, in being expressive of the most eminent and illustrious act of the deity, the multiplication of his own nature, as the Zoroastrians and Platonists speak; and in being a symbol of that divine person who was the consequence of it.

We shall not wonder that the Druids had a perception of this great truth, when we consider that it was known, as far as necessary, to all the philosophic and religious sects of antiquity, as shewn at large by several learned writers. My opinion is, that it was communicated to mankind, originally, by God himself. ’Tis the highest point of wisdom which the human mind can arrive at, to understand somewhat of the nature of the deity; and the studious, the pious, and thinking part of the world, would not fail to improve this knowledge by reflexion and ratiocination.

Tho’ my business is to speak more fully of the religion of the Druids in the next volume, yet I judge it very pertinent to the present subject to anticipate that intention, so as to shew how far they might advance toward that knowledge, by the dint of reason; to further the works, wherein they have, in the largest characters that ever were made, consign’d their notions of this sort, remaining to this day, such as we have been describing; and which may induce us to have the same sentiment concerning them as Pere Marten in his Religion des Gaulois, tho’ he knew nothing of our antiquities; but thus he writes, “that the Druids worship’d the true God, and that their ideas of religion were truly grand, sublime, magnificent.”

We may therefore very justly affirm of them, that in their serious contemplations in this place, concerning the nature of the deity, which, as Cæsar tells us, was one part of their inquiries, they would thus reason in their own minds.

A contemplative person, viewing and considering the world around him, is ravish’d with the harmony and beauty, the fitnesses of things in it, the uses and connexion of all its parts, and the infinite agreement shining throughout the whole. He must belye all his senses to doubt, that it was compos’d by a being of infinite power, wisdom and goodness, which we call God. But among all the most glorious attributes of divinity, goodness is preeminent. For this beautiful fabric of the world displays thro’ every86 atom of it, such an amazing scene of the goodness and beneficence of its author; that it appears to such contemplative minds, that his infinite power and wisdom were but as the two hands, employ’d by the goodness of the sovereign architect.

Goodness was the beginning, the middle, the end of the creation. To explain, to prove, or illustrate this topic, would be an affront to the common understanding of mankind. The sum of what we can know of him is, that he is good, essentially good. We are not more assured of the existence of the first being, than that he is good, the good, goodness itself, in eminence. He is God, because he is good; which is the meaning of the word in english, and in many other languages. This, in God almighty, is the attribute of attributes, the perfection of his all-perfect nature. He made and maintains those creatures which he multiply’d to an infinite degree, the objects of his care and beneficence; those great characters of supreme love, that render him deservedly adorable.

All possible perfections, both moral and natural, must needs be inherent in this first and supreme being, because from him alone they can flow. This is in one comprehensive word, what we call good. But good unexercis’d, unemploy’d, incommunicate, is no good, and implies a contradiction, when affirmed of the all-good being. Therefore it undeniably follows, there never was a time, never can be, when God was useless, and did not communicate of his goodness.

But there was a time before creation, before this beautiful fabric of the world was made, before even chaos itself, or the production of the rude matter, of which the world was made. And this time must be affirmed, not only as to material creation, but to that of angels and spiritual beings. Reckon we never so many ages, or myriads of ages, for the commencement of creation, yet it certainly began, and there was a time before that beginning. For, by the definition, creation is bringing that into being which was not before. There must have been a time before it.

Here then occurs the difficulty, of filling up that infinite gap before creation. Consider the supreme first being sitting in the center of an universal solitude, environ’d with the abyss of infinite nothing, a chasm of immense vacuity! what words can paint the greatness of the solecism? what mind does not start at the horror of such an absurdity? and especially supposing this state subsisted from infinite ages.

’Tis in vain to pretend, that a being of all perfections can be happy in himself, in the consciousness of those perfections, whilst he does no good to any thing; in the reflexive idea of his possessing all excellency, whilst he exerts no tittle of any one. This is the picture of a being quite dissonant to that of the All-good. And as the Druids would, without difficulty, judge, that there must needs be one, only, self-originated first being, the origin of all things: so they would see the necessity of admitting one or more eternal beings, or emanations from that first being, in a manner quite distinct from creation.

That there ever was one eternal, self-existent, unoriginated being, is the very first and most necessary truth, which the human mind can possibly, by contemplation and ratiocination, obtain. Still by considering the matter intimately, they would find it impossible to conceive, that there should ever be a time, when there was but one being in the universe, which we call the first and self-originated being, possessing in himself all possible perfections, and remaining for endless myriads of ages, torpid, unactive, solitary,87 useless. This is a notion so abhorrent to reason, so contrary to the nature of goodness, so absolutely absurd, that we may as well imagine this great being altogether absent, and that there was no being at all.

This all the philosophers were sensible of, for good unexercis’d, that always lay dormant, never was put into act, is no goodness; it may as well be supposed absent, and even that there was no God. To imagine that God could be asleep all this while, shocks the mind, therefore it casts about, to remedy this great paradox.

Now it cannot be said of any part of creation, or of the whole, that God always did good to any created being or beings; for these are not, cannot be commensurate in time with his own being. Count backward never so long for the beginning of things, still there was a time prior to this beginning of things; for eternal creation is an equal absurdity with an eternal absence of any being: where no part is necessary, to affirm the whole is a necessarily and self-existing being, is a mere portent of reason.

So we see, in every light, an absolute necessity of admitting a being or beings coeval with the supreme and self-originated being, distinct from any creation, and which must needs flow from the first being, the cause of all existence. For two self-originated beings is as much an absurdity as any of the preceding.

But, as ’tis impossible that the act of creation should be coeval with the first being, what other act of goodness can be? For that being which is essentially good, must ever have been actively and actually so. To answer this great question, we must thus expostulate, as the prophet Isaiah does in the person of God, in his last chapter, when summing up the business of his prophetical office: “Shall I bring to the birth, and not beget, saith Jehovah: shall I cause to bring forth, and be myself barren, saith thy God?” He is there speaking of the birth of the son of God in human form; but we may apply it in a more eminent degree, to the son of God in his divine nature; and as the Druids may well be suppos’d to have done. The highest act of goodness which is possible, even for the supreme being, is the production of his like, the act of filiation, the begetting of his son, Prov. viii. 22. “The LORD begat me from eternity, before his works of old;” (so it ought to be read) ver. 30. “then I was by him, as one brought up with him (amoun in the original) and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him.”

This is the internal divine fecundity of the fruitful cause of all things. Creation is external fecundity. The Druids would naturally apply the term generation, to this act of producing this person, or divine emanation from the supreme, which we are oblig’d to admit of: and to affirm him coeval with the supreme. The difficulty of priority in time, between father and son, would easily be remov’d, by considering the difference between divine and human generation, the production of necessary and contingent beings.

If an artist produces an admirable and curious piece of mechanism, he is said to make it; if he produces a person or being altogether like himself, he is rightly said to generate that person; he begets a son, ’tis an act of filiation. So the like we must affirm of the supreme being generating another being, with whom only he could communicate of his goodness from all eternity, and without any beginning; or, in scripture language, in whom he always had complacency. This is what Plato means, “by love being ancienter than all the gods; that the kingdom of love is prior to the88 kingdom of necessity.” And this son must be a self-existent, all-perfect being, equally as the father, self-origination only excepted, which the necessary relation or oeconomy between them forbids. If he is a son, he is like himself; if he is like himself, he is God; if he is God, an eternity of existence is one necessary part of his divine nature and perfection.

If the son be of the same substance and nature as the father, an eternity of being is one part of his nature; therefore no time can be assign’d for this divine geniture, and it must be what we call eternal. Or perhaps we may express it as well by saying, it was before eternity; or that he is coeval with the almighty father. In this same sense Proclus de patriarch. uses the word προαιώνιος, præeternus. For tho’ ’tis impossible that creation, whether of material or immaterial beings, should be coeval with God; yet, if the son be of the same nature with the father, which must be granted, then ’tis impossible to be otherwise, than that the son of God should be coeval with the father.

If goodness be, as it were, the essence of God, then he can have no happiness but in the exercise of that goodness. We must not say, as many are apt to do, that he was always and infinitely happy, in reflecting upon his own being and infinite perfections, in the idea of himself. This is no exercise of goodness, unless we allow this idea of himself which he produces, to be a being without him, or distinct from himself; and that is granting what we contend for. A true and exact idea of himself is the logos of the ancients, the first-born of the first cause. And this is the meaning of what the eastern and all other philosophers assert, “that it was necessary for unity to make an evolution of itself, and multiply; it was necessary for good to communicate itself. There could be no time before then, for then he would be an imperfect unity, and may as well be termed a cypher, which of itself can never produce any thing.” Agreeable to this doctrine, Philo in II. de monarchiis, writes, “the logos is the express image of God, and by whom all the whole world was made.” It would be senseless to think here, he meant only the wisdom of the supreme, the reason, the cunning of God, a quality, not a personality.

What difficulty here is in the thing, arises merely from the weakness of our conceptions, and in being conversant only with ordinary generation. A son of ours is of the same nature as his father. His father was begat in time, therefore the son the like. Not so in divine generation. But as the father is from eternity, so is the son. This only difference there is, or rather distinction; the father is self-existent, and unoriginate; the son is of the father.

Further, we must remove, in this kind of reasoning, all the imperfection of different sexes, as well as time, which is in human generations; and all such gross ideas incompatible with the most pure and perfect divine nature. The whole of this our reasoning further confirms, that the son is necessarily existing. It was necessary for God to be actively good always, and begetting his son was the greatest act of divine goodness, and the first, necessarily. But the word first is absurd, betraying our own imperfection of speech and ideas, when we treat of these matters; for there could be no first, where no beginning. And the very names of father and son are but relative and oeconomical; so far useful, that we may be able to entertain some tolerable notion in these things, so far above our understanding.

But tho’ it be infinitely above our understanding, yet we reach so far, as to see the necessity of it. And we can no otherwise cure that immense vacuum,89 that greatest of all absurdities, the indolence and uselesness of the supreme being, before creation. And all this the Druids might, and I may venture to say, did arrive at, by ratiocination. And we can have no difficulty of admitting it, if we do but suppose, there were obscure notions of such being the nature of the deity, handed down from the beginning of the world. Whence in Chronicon Alexandrinum, Malala, and other authors, we read, for instance, “in those times (the most early) among the Egyptians reigned, of the family of Misraim, Sesosiris, that is, the branch or offspring of Osiris, a man highly venerable for wisdom, who taught, there were three greatest energies or persons in the deity, which were but one.” This man was Lud, or Thoth, son of Misraim or Osiris, and for this reason, when idolatry began, he was consecrated by the name of Hermes, meaning one of those divine energies, which we call the Holy Spirit.

This is a short and easy account of that knowledge which the ancients had of the nature of the deity, deduc’d from reason in a contemplative mind, and which certainly was known to all the world from the beginning, and rightly call’d a mystery. For our reason is strong enough to see the necessity of admitting this doctrine, but not to see the manner. The how of an eternal generation is only to be understood by the deity itself.

The Druids would pursue this notion from like reasoning a little further, in this manner. Tho’ from all that has been said, there is a necessity of admitting an eternal generation, yet the person so generated, all-perfect God, does not multiply the deity itself, tho’ he is a person distinct from his father. For addition or subtraction is argument of imperfection, a thing not to be affirmed of the nature of the deity. They would therefore say, that tho’ these two, the father and the son, are different divine personalities, yet they cannot be called two Gods, or two godheads; for this would be discerping the deity or godhead, which is equally absurd and wicked.

That mankind did formerly reason in this wise, is too notorious to need my going about formally to prove it. ’Tis not to be controverted; very many authors have done it substantially. And when there was such a notion in the world, our Druids, who had the highest fame for theological studies, would cultivate it in some such manner as I have deliver’d, by the mere strength of natural reason. Whether they would think in this manner ex priori, I cannot say; but that they did so think, we can need no weightier an argument than the operose work of Abury before us; for nought else could induce men to make such a stamp, such a picture of their own notion, as this stupendous production of labour and art.

As our western philosophers made a huge picture of this their idea, in a work of three miles’ extent, and, as it were, shaded by the interposition of divers hills; so the more eastern sages who were not so shy of writing, yet, chose to express it in many obscure and enigmatic ways. Pythagoras, for instance, affirmed, the original of all things was from unity and an infinite duality. Plutarc. de plac. philos. Plato makes three divine authors of all things, the first or supreme he calls king, the good. Beside him, he names the cause, descended from the former; and between them he names dux, the leader, or at other times he calls him the mind. Just in the same manner, the Egyptians called them father, mind, power. Therefore Plato, in his VIth epistle, writing to Hermias and his friends, to enter into a most solemn oath, directs it to be made before “God the leader or prince of all things, both that are, and that shall be; and before the Lord, the father of that leader or prince; and of the cause: all whom, says he,90 we shall know manifestly, if we philosophize rightly, as far as the powers of good men will carry us.” And in Timæus he makes MIND to be the son of GOOD, and to be the more immediate architect of the world. And in Epinomis he writes, “the most divine LOGOS or WORD made the world,” the like as Philo wrote; which is expressly a christian verity.

’Tis not to be wonder’d at, that the ancients wrap’d up this doctrine in an abstruse and symbolic way of speaking, of writing, and in hieroglyphic characters and works, as we have seen. It was communicated to them in the same manner; they did not, could not comprehend it any more than we, but they held it as a precious depositum of sacred wisdom.

We may therefore make this deduction from what has been said, that the christian doctrine of distinct personalities in the deity, is so far from being contrary to reason, as some would have it, or above human reason as others, that ’tis evidently deducible therefrom, at least highly agreeable thereto, when seriously propos’d to our reason. And when most undoubtedly the ancients had such a notion, even from the creation, those minds that were of a contemplative turn, would embrace it and cultivate it, as being the most exalted knowledge we are capable of. Of such a turn were our Druids, as all accounts agree.

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WHEN I wrote my Itinerary, I travelled a good deal of the Hermen-street road, and the Foss road, having Mr. Samuel Buck in my company. At that time I engag’d him to take in hand the work, which he has so laudably pursued, and sav’d the remembrance of innumerable92 antiquities in our island, by that collection of elegant prints which he has publish’d. When we were on the banks of the Humber, the name of Barrow invited my curiosity, and it was fully answer’d, by finding that most noble antiquity there of the old Druids, upon the marsh, call’d Humbers castle.

A rivulet rises near the town of Barrow, and when it falls off the high ground, and enters on the level marshes on the Humber shore, it turns a mill. Just there, upon the edge of the marsh, upon a gentle eminence, nearly overflow’d by high spring-tides, and between the salt and fresh water, is the work we are to speak of, made of great banks of earth thrown up, in an odd manner, which gives it the denomination of castle. I observ’d all about it, and in the adjacent marshes, many long tumuli of different sizes, but all of a particular shape, such as I had never seen elsewhere, being form’d like a bed. I immediately set to work in digging into several of them, and we found burnt bones, ashes, bits of urns, and such kind of matters, all extremely rotten and decay’d; and the very same appearances as I had so often seen, in digging the barrows about Stonehenge and Abury.

This satisfied me that the work must belong to the most ancient inhabitants of the island, notwithstanding its unusual form. And when I attentively consider’d those banks, and made a plan of them, I was very agreeably surpriz’d in discovering the purport and meaning, which was to represent the circulus alatus or winged circle, an ancient hieroglyphic well known to those more particularly conversant with Egyptian monuments; and what they rightly call the symbol of the anima mundi, or spirit pervading the universe; in truth, the divine spirit.

I had no hesitation in adjudging this to be a temple of our Druids. All reasons imaginable concurr’d. Tho’ instead of stones, they have made this work with mounds of earth; I suppose for want of stones, lying on the surface of the ground. It makes the third kind of the Druid temples which I proposed to describe. The vertical line of it is north-east and south-west, the upper part being directly north-east; and the barrows generally conform to this line, being either upon it, or at right angles with it; the head of the barrow sometimes one way, sometimes the other.

The circle was 120 cubits in diameter. The wings 100 cubits broad, 150 long; but the eastern wing was more extended than the other. For the design of it is somewhat in perspective, as ’tis sometimes seen on Egyptian antiquities.

This very extraordinary work, which I could not sufficiently admire, has very often entertain’d my thoughts. We see an uniformity in human nature throughout all ages. We build our churches, especially cathedrals, in a cross, the symbol or cognizance of Christianity; the first builders of churches did it in the symbol of the deity, which was pictur’d out with great judgment, and that (most likely) from the beginning of the world.

The circle and wings was the picture of the deity, which the old Egyptian hierophants call’d CNEPH. As there were three varieties in this figure, so they had more names than one for it, I mean the whole figure, the circle, serpent, and wings. And sometimes they used one word, sometimes another, and sometimes conjoin’d them. Eusebius in pr. ev. III. 3. writes, “that the Egyptians painted God, whom they call’d Kneph, like a man in a blue garment, holding a circle and serpent (not scepter, for no such93 figure ever appears) and on his head, feathers or wings.” Now this very figure is seen on the portals of the Persian temple of Chilminar. Authors are not sufficiently accurate in these matters, for want of a more perfect knowledge of them. Cneph is properly the alate circle; yet sometimes they call the whole figure by that name. So a feather or two, or wings, are often plac’d on the heads of the Egyptian deities; but the picture above-mention’d at Chilminar has the wings, as more commonly, annexed to the circle.

Phtha was another name of one of these figures, which they sometimes join’d to the preceding, and made the word Cnephtha. Kircher erroneously calls it Hemptha; for before him Iamblichus err’d in calling Cneph, Emeph. Strabo calls Cneph, Cnuphis, and says his temple was at Syene, XVII. Undoubtedly a temple some way of this form. Athenagoras in Eroticis VI. calls him Κνεφαιος, Cnepheus; and says, “he can’t be seen by our eyes, nor comprehended by our mind.” Hesychius, and the etymologist Suidas, voce κνεφυς, interpret the word, obscure, hidden, not to be seen or understood. Iamblichus and Proclus the like, who make Amûn and Phtha the same, Prov. viii. 30. The truth is, the word Cneph comes from the hebrew ענף ganaph volare, to fly, קנף a wing, Psal. xviii. 11. He rode upon the cherubim, and did fly.

Phtha, in Suidas called φθάς, is deriv’d, on the authority of Kircher and Huetius, from the hebrew פתה the same as the greek word πειθω, to persuade, suada in latin. It regards more particularly the serpent, the emblem of eloquence, and the divine WORD. In Arabic it signifies the son. So that Cnephtha means the entire figure, the circle, snake and wings. The supreme had no name. They held him ineffable, as well as invisible. Whence they call’d the Jehovah of the jews an uncertain or unknown deity, or the deity without a name. Herodotus in Euterpe writes, “he heard from the priests of Dodona, that the ancient Pelasgians made their prayers and sacrifices to the deity without any name or sirname, for at that time they knew none.” Iamblichus’s interpretation of Phtha is very little different. He says, “It signifies him that performs all things in truth, and without lying.” The Egyptians called this Phtha Vulcan, and say, he was the son of the supreme God; whom Cicero makes the guardian god of Egypt, who was the author of all the philosophy of the Egyptians, according to Diogenes Laertius in proem. And this is that most ancient deity of the Egyptians who was particularly design’d by the serpent. And hence the fables of the greeks make Vulcan the only son of Juno, without the help of her husband. Again, they make Pallas produc’d out of Jupiter’s brain, who wore the Ægis or snaky breast-plate, which originally was no other than our great prophylactic hierogramma, the circle and snake, us’d by the most ancient warriors as a sacred preservative. Medusa’s head is the very same, a circle, wings, and snakes. But the delicate greeks new drest it, and made the circle into a beautiful face, more agreeable to their taste of things. And its turning men into stones means, at the bottom, nothing but the making our serpentine temples in that form by the first heroes, who bore this cognizance in their shields.

But to return to CNEPH, the deity to whom these winged temples are dedicate. It became the chief and more famous name. Whence Porphyry in Eusebius’s pr. ev. III. 11. calls this Cneph the creator, Plutarch, de Is. & Os. testifies, “the inhabitants in Thebais, or the remotest part of Egypt, worshipped only the eternal God Cneph, and paid nothing toward 94 the charge of idolatrous worship in the other parts of that kingdom.” Thus we see, those countries farthest separated from the busy part of the world, such as Thebais and Britain, retain’d the pure and ancient religion: which bishop Cumberland too asserts, Sanchon. p. 15. of Thebais, before Abraham’s time. Strabo says, “there was a temple of Cnuphis (as he writes it) at Syene, the farther part of Thebais:” which must be understood of one of our winged temples originally, tho’ probably afterwards built upon, cover’d, and become idolatrous. “Hence the Ethiopians, neighbours to those of Thebais, living still in the upper regions of Egypt,” says Strabo, “worship two gods, the one the immortal creator, the other mortal, who has no name, nor is easily to be apprehended.” Here we find they have a notion of the supreme and his son. Their opposite neighbours across the red sea, worshipped only two gods, τον Διον καὶ τον Διονυσον, Jovem & Jovem Nysæum, God, and the God of Nysa. This is what is meant by the two principles of Pythagoras, mention’d by Plutarch de plac. philos. unity and indefinite duality, the sacred Dyas of Plato. Whence Diodorus in his I. writes, “that the Egyptians declar’d there were two first eternal Gods.” These they express’d by the names of unity and duality. I do not believe that they found this out by their own understanding and reasoning, but had it from patriarchal tradition. And then their own reasoning would confirm it. For it is altogether agreeable to reason, arguing from the fecundity of the first cause. The Greeks turned Cneph into their Neptune, the sovereign of the waters, from what the hebrew legislator writes in the beginning of his cosmogony; “and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” The word Neptune comes from Cneph and דניא Dunia, orbis, circulus, the winged circle. And this probably will give us some light into the reason, why we find our winged temple of Barrow upon the banks of that noble æstuary, the Humber. I wonder’d indeed how it should come about, that the Druids should so studiously place this work under the verge of the high land, and upon the brink of the salt marsh; so that every high tide washes or overflows the skirts of it, whilst the freshwater brook runs close under it. At this time it must have presented them with the agreeable picture of the sacred hieroglyphic, hovering over both fresh and salt-water.

I observ’d a line, or little bank and ditch, cast up above our figure, which I judg’d to be done with an intent to keep off the inundation of the ocean at the times of sacrifice, which seems to have been perform’d within that inclos’d area, where I have set the figure of the compass in the engraven view. Likewise just without that line, eastward, I remarked three little square plots, which perhaps were habitations of the Druids who were keepers of the temple.

’Tis not from the purpose to take notice of one of the greatest fix’d stars of the heavens, at the bottom of the constellation call’d the ship, having the name of Canopus, which is no other than our word Cneph. This star had this name given it by the Egyptians, as appearing to them just above the edge of the southern horizon. And in their spheres, we may very well presume, they painted it as a winged circle, and because it always appear’d as hovering over the horizon or great ocean.

So that originally the ancients understood the spirit or soul of the universe,95 or more properly the divine spirit, by this figure which they call’d KNEPH, which the European nations call’d Neptune, sovereign of the waters. So often by the poets call’d Ενοσιχθων, Ενοσιγαιων, the shaker of the earth; for the waters in Moses means the Hyle, or moist matter of chaos whence the universe was made.

Two of the quarterly solemnities or general sacrifices of the Druids were on the two equinoxes, when are the highest tides. A curious observer being upon the spot, for some years together, at these times, might possibly make some notable discovery concerning the difference of the surface of the sea, since the current of 5 or 6000 years: for I persuade myself this temple was made by the very first inhabitants of the isle, and not long after the flood, on account of the interment here of some great hero, that advanc’d so far in peopling the country. And if our reasonings and testimonies hitherto be any whit agreeable to truth, we may point out the species of many of these most ancient temples built at the place of sepulture of heroes, spoken of in writings of those times. For instance, we infer a serpentine temple was made by the tumulus of Orpheus, from the fable of a serpent offering to devour his head, which serpent was turn’d into stone.

Again, we may reasonably suppose that an alate temple was built by the tomb of Memnon, said to be buried in Phrygia, who was turn’d into a bird on the funeral pile, at the request of his mother Aurora. We see some hints of it even from Ovid’s telling the story. This was done at the request of his mother Aurora, who petitions Jupiter for this favour to her son, for herself she desires none. Thus she begins:

He was turn’d into a bird, and a flock of the same birds, call’d Aves Memnoniæ, arose from the same funeral pile, which immediately divided into two companies, and fought till they destroy’d each other. And that a like flight of the same birds came on the same day every year from Ethiopia, went thrice round his monument, and then divided and fought in honour of their ancestor.

What can we understand by this, but an assembly of his people and descendants to celebrate his anniversary, as was the custom of antiquity toward great men. The story is entirely of a piece with that told of Cadmus, and must be interpreted in the same way.

In this sense we are treating of, are we to understand authors when they tell us, that Cadmus built a temple to Neptune in the island of Rhodes. This was not a cover’d temple with elegant pillars, nor an idolatrous one, which were matters of after-times; but one of our alate temples. Phut had built a Dracontium there before.

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Antoninus Liberalis XII. speaks of the lake Canopus, which I suppose had its name from a Cneph or alate temple near it, built by a hero, Cygnus, son of Phut, “who, the fable says, was turn’d into a bird there,” and Phylius his sepulchral monument was by it.

In this sense, Strabo II. speaks of Hercules being call’d Canopeus, from building such a temple. And we may now understand that hitherto abstruse Egyptian antiquity called Canopus, a vase which they us’d for preserving of water in their temples and in their families, with a cover to it. In order to insure the blessing of heaven to this most necessary element, they frequently consign’d it with the sacred prophylactic character of the Kneph or circulus alatus, which is the greek Neptune, the dominator aquarum. Many of these vases are still remaining in the cabinets of antiquarians. Such a one pictur’d in Kircher.

And, by the by, I may mention that some of these vases are adorn’d with a scarabeus with expanded wings, and this is entirely of the same meaning as the alate circle. But this is not a place to discourse larger on these matters.

I suspect Geneva and Geneffa have their names from such temples. As Gnaphalus a bird mention’d by Aristotle. Simias the Rhodian celebrates our Cneph, in his poem compos’d in the form of wings: as the author of motion and creation: hence the word Nebula, νεφέλη and perhaps Nebulo.

In the year 1725, the next year after I found out this Humber temple, and the last year of my travels, I found another of these alate temples, on Navestock-common in Essex, which seems to be of a later date than the other, and when perhaps the original doctrine concerning these theological speculations was somewhat forgotten; Because this temple is situate on a dry common, not near water; but the figure is the very same.

What is exceedingly remarkable as to this noble antiquity on Navestock-common, is, that the name should remain to this time, and which confirms all that we said before concerning them, as to their name and meaning: for Navestock must have been so call’d from some old and remarkable tree, probably an oak, upon or by the CNEPH, or winged temple; Navestock. Our English word Knave, which had no ill meaning at first, signifies the same thing, alatus, impiger; the latin word Gnavus the very same: and Knap a Teutonick word the like: all from the hebrew original.

I doubt not, but there are more such temples in the Britannick isles, called Knaves-castles or the like. One I remember to have seen, on a great heathy common, by the Roman Watling-street in Staffordshire. And Mr. Toland takes notice of a winged temple of our Druids in the Hebrid or Hyperborean islands, Shetland. Abaris a Druid of this country, fir’d with a desire of knowledge, travell’d into Greece where philosophy flourish’d; after that to Pythagoras in Italy, and became his favourite disciple. Pythagoras imparted to him his best notions in philosophy, which perhaps, in the enigmatick way of those times, they call the shewing to him his golden thigh. Abaris on the other hand, presented to Pythagoras Apollo’s arrow, which he brought out of his own country, where it had been deposited in a winged temple. They tell you further, that Abaris rode on this arrow in the air to Greece. This undoubtedly would proceed from the notion they entertain’d of the Druids practising magick.

I cannot help thinking, after what I have said in Stonehenge, concerning the magnetick needle, that this arrow of Apollo’s which Abaris made use of in his journey from Shetland to Greece, was an instrument of this sort,97 which the Hyperborean sage gave to Pythagoras. And the Druids possessing such a secret as this, would reciprocally create, and favour that notion of their practising magick. Calling it Apollo’s arrow seems to throw the possession of it up to Phut the most famous navigator, we before treated of: nay it seems that we may trace it still higher, even to Noah himself. Sanchoniathon the Phœnician writer tells us, among other remarkable things concerning Ouranus, who is certainly Noah, “that he devised Bætulia, or contriv’d stones that mov’d as having life.”

Besides the interpretation, we may very naturally affix to this account, of anointed stones or main ambres: we may well judge that the knowledge of the magnet is here understood; which at first they placed in a little boat, in a vessel of water, and then it would move itself, ’till directed to the quarters of the heavens. Atheneus Deipnosoph. affirms, that Hercules borrow’d his golden cup wherewith he sail’d over the ocean, of Nereus. Nereus is Japhet eldest son of Noah, and the golden cup was a compass box in all probability.

Among the ancient constellations pictur’d on the celestial globe, is an arrow; said by Eratosthenes the most ancient writer we have on the Catasterisms, (as called,) to be the arrow of Apollo, which was laid up in the winged temple among the Hyperboreans. Diodorus Siculus from Hecateus and other older writers, shews, the Hyperborean island was in the ocean, and beyond Gaul, to the north, under the bear; where the people liv’d a most simple and happy life. Orpheus places them near the Cronian sea; a word purely Irish, as Mr. Toland shews, Croin signifying frozen. He shews further and that very largely, that the Hebrid islands, Skie, Lewis, Harries, Shetland, are the true Hyperborean islands of the ancients. Among them therefore was the winged temple; whether made of mounds of earth, like those two on the Humber, and on Navestock-common; or made of stones like other Druid temples.

There are other Druid temples in those islands, made of stones, I shall give a print of one, in my next volume. Further there is a famous one in Cornwall call’d vulgarly the Hurlers, which I take to have been one of our alate temples, made of stones set upright.

The learned Bayer in his fine designs of the celestial constellations, represents the arrow of Apollo beforemention’d, as a magnetick needle; and he took his designs chiefly from a very ancient book of drawings. I observe likewise that the isle of Skie, in the language of the natives, is call’d Scianach, which signifies winged. And in that probably, was the winged temple we speak of; which gave name to the isle.

We mention’d before that Phut married Rhode, whence the isle of Rhodes had its name. Rod in the Psalms and the Prophets signifies a snake. Nay Pliny in vii. and 56, of his natural history asserts, that Rhodes was originally call’d Ophiusa, a word equivalent. Most likely they built a serpentine temple there, which gave the name. So the isle of Tenos, which Bochart shews, means a serpent in the oriental language, was call’d Hydrusa and Ophiusa. The isle of Cyprus was call’d Ophiodia by Nicœnetus. So Hydra an isle just before Carthage, which was first built by Cadmus. Ophiades insulæ on the Arabian coast of the Red-sea. Pausanias mentions a place called Opheos Cephale, the serpent’s head; the same as our Hakpen on Overton-hill in Abury.

In the isle of Chios is a famous mountain higher than the rest, called Pelineus, which had undoubtedly one of our great Dracontian temples.98 The learned Bochart I. 9. shews its name signifies the prodigious serpent: a story of the sort is annex’d to it. Nay this famous temple gave name to the whole island, for he shews that ’tis a Syrian word חויא Chivia a serpent, so that Chios isle is the serpent’s isle: the word is the same as Hivite: probably Cadmus or some of his people built it. Hesychius and Phavorinus mentions Jupiter Pelineus, the name of the deity worshiped.

Virgil in Æneid II. describes the two serpents that destroy’d Laocoon coming from the isle of Tenedos.

I described the barrows about Humbers castle, to be like beds. They are all long barrows, of very different lengths, higher at the head than the feet, (if we may so express it) and with a cavity the whole length of them, drawn off at the feet, to the turf: So that they represent the impression of a person that has lain on a very soft, downy couch. One which I dug into near the temple was 60 cubits long: the other two near it 40 each, plate xxxix. The sight of them necessarily intruded into my mind, the ευνη or couch of Typhon or Phut, which Homer says, was in Arimis. ’Tis natural for us to imagine, he means exactly such a tumulus of the hero, as these we are speaking of.

Phut was a great arch druid or patriarchal high-priest, as being the head of his family. And according to my notion of the matter, these long barrows all belong to some of the higher order of the Druids. Eustathius interprets Homer’s word by that of ταφος, tomb. Stephanus the scholiast on Hesiod’s Theogon, makes Arima a mountain in Cilicia or Lydia, where is Tiphon’s κοιτη. V. Oppian. Alexand. ver. 599. Lucan ver. 191. Apollon. II. Strabo XVI. Mela I. 13. Pausanias in Atticis tells us of Hippolita the Amazons’ tumulus, that ’twas made in shape of an Amazonian pelta or shield; perhaps somewhat like our tumulus.

In the beginning of the idolatrous times, they likewise consecrated Hermes the Egyptian into Mercury, but the Egyptians took Mercury in a different light from the Canaanites: they made him the god of divine wisdom, the Canaanites who were immers’d in trade and traffick, made him the god of profit and gain; and that in the person of their ancestor Canaan. Nevertheless they knew the holy spirit prior to idolatry: for many think that Mercury was no mortal man, S. Augustin, C. D. viii. 26. and Orpheus in his hymn to him, pronounces him to be of the race of Dionysus, by whom Jehovah is understood.

I suppose Canaan when he died, had an alate temple built about his place of sepulture, which in after times occasion’d posterity to deify him under the name of Mercury. Again I suppose the like done over the tumulus of the patriarch TARSIS; which gave a handle in idolatrous times, to consecrate him into the Neptune of the heathen; who in effect is the same as Mercury, saving that being done by people of a different genius and disposition, they divided one god into two.

Thus we have sail’d thro’ a wide ocean of antiquities, and that not without a compass. We set old things transmitted to us in writing, in parallelism with these we may now see at home, in such a manner, as I think evidently shews them to be the same.

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I shall conclude, with 1. what we may very well imagine to have been the ratiocination of the Druids among one another, in their theological contemplations, concerning this last kind of their works, these winged temples. Of such sort would be their speculations thereon, in their serious scrutiny into the nature of the deity.

We observ’d, the Druids in their theological studies must, with the other eastern sages, find out two ways of the supreme being exerting his almighty power, multiplying himself, as the Zoroastrians, the Pythagoreans and the Platonists call it, or divine geniture: and creation. The first necessary, therefore done before time; the second arbitrary, therefore done in time. Nevertheless this second was fit and proper to be done, therefore necessarily to be perform’d. For whatever becomes the allperfect being, we may pronounce necessary with him.

The Druids would advance still further in their contemplations this way, and conclude, that it became the supreme, and was therefore necessary, for him to exert his power in all possible ways and modes of acting; that he was not content in producing a single divine person or emanation from himself, from the infinite fund of his own fecundity; that he was pleas’d to proceed to that other mode of acting, which we call divine procession; or a third divine person to proceed from the first and second. This person the ancients had knowledge of, and styled him anima mundi, “that spirit of the LORD which filleth the world,” Wisdom i. 7. and made him a distinct person from God, or the supreme: but, more immediately, he was the author of life to all living things. And this he disseminated throughout the whole macrocosm. I need only quote Virgil, for many more, in his fine poem, Georg. IV.

This divine mind, or anima mundi, the ancients pictur’d out by the circle and wings, meaning the holy spirit in symbolical language, or the spirit proceeding from the fountain of divinity. And we see it innumerable times on Egyptian, and other ancient monuments. Plutarch, in his platonic questions, asks, “Why should Plato in his Phædro say, the nature of a wing, which mounts heavy things upward, is chiefly participant of those that are about the body of the deity?”

But thus the Druids would reason. There are three modes of divine origin and existence, quite different from creation: they are these: the self-existent, unoriginated first cause; divine generation; and divine procession: all equal in nature, self-origination excepted, and equally necessarily existent. When the supreme produces his likeness, it must be divine filiation; or the son of God is produc’d. Divine procession must be from them two: but it cannot possibly be filiation: for besides that, in these acts of the divinity, we must separate all ideas like that of human production, it would be absurd to call this generation; because, as it is done prior to all notion of time, or eternity itself; it is making the son to be son and 100 father in the same act. Therefore there remains no other word for this, than procession from the father and son.

Whether these abstract and metaphysical notions would occur to a mind wholly unacquainted with any doctrine of this sort, may be matter of doubt; but when propos’d to a serious and contemplative genius, they would be embraced and improved, as agreeable to reason; and as an advance towards the most sublime and most useful knowledge of all others, that of the nature of the deity.

2. The very learned Schedius, in his treatise de mor. germ. XXIV. speaking of the Druids, confirms exceedingly all that we have said on this head. He writes, “that they seek studiously for an oak-tree, large and handsome, growing up with two principal arms, in form of a cross, beside the main stem upright. If the two horizontal arms are not sufficiently adapted to the figure, they fasten a cross-beam to it. This tree they consecrate in this manner. Upon the right branch they cut in the bark, in fair characters, the word HESUS: upon the middle or upright stem, the word TARAMIS: upon the left branch BELENUS: over this, above the going off of the arms, they cut the name of God, THAU: under all the same repeated, THAU.”

We cannot possibly understand otherwise, than that by this they intended to show the unity in the divine nature; for every word signifies God emphatically, and in their general acceptation, Thau especially. The other three words have each particularly a more restrained sense, regarding the oeconomy of the deity or godhead. And this is Schedius his opinion.

This tree, so inscribed, they make their kebla in the grove, cathedral, or summer-church, toward which they direct their faces in the offices of religion, as to the ambre stone or the cove in the above described temples of Abury. Like as the Christians to any symbol or picture over the altar. And hence the writers got a notion of their worshipping trees; and of these names belonging to so many gods: which serves the poets to descant upon. But if we examine them to their origin, they are easily to be reduc’d to orthodoxy.

The word Hesus means the supreme God in the celtic language, as ESAR among the Hetruscans. Sueton. in Aug. It was pronounced Eisar, as the germans pronounce Cæsar, Keisar. It comes from the hebrew ה Ei, and סר Lord, שר Prince. ה is emphatically the name of the divinity, as השם το ονομα, the NAME Jehovah, Levit. xxiv. 11. 16. Hence ה or EI, inscribed over the door of the temple at Delphos, of which Plutarch has wrote. It was the way of the babylonish monarchs to assume divine names, as Esar-adon, signifying no less than God the Lord. Esi is God, says Hesychius. In the arabic it signifies the Creator, says Dickenson delph. phœnic. But these authors do not go to the bottom, for it comes from AS or AT, signifying God the father. Ἄτα or Ἄττα, with the Greeks is pater. The Armenians call it Αδς, the Egyptians Ὠτ, those of Sarmatia and Slavonia Ος: says the learned Baxter, v. Ascania, gloss. ant. Rom. where he has much of ancient learning upon it. This is the Atys of the Phrygians.

Belenus is the Baal in scripture, us’d originally to be spoken of the true God Jehovah, ’till adopted into idolatry. Belus of the Assyrians. If we examine the word to the bottom, it means God the son. Βηλ, in the babylonic language is the son, Βηλτις the daughter. He is the Apollo of the Latins.

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Tharamis is the same as Tat, Thoth of the Egyptians, Thor of the northern nations, call’d more particularly the spirit: lord of the air, from the wings being symbolical of him; and hence made the thunderer, from the Phœnician and celtick Tarem. He was sometimes call’d Theutates, the Mercury of the Latins, who was particularly worshipped by the Germans, says Tacitus de mor. germ. Cæsar the same, VI. bell. gall. Hence the Greeks dress’d their Mercury with a winged cap, and winged heels, which was no other than the circulus alatus we have been speaking of. He bears a staff in his hand, with a globe on the end of it with wings and snakes. The Phœnicians call’d him Taautus. Sanchoniathon, Varro IV. de ling. lat.

So in the temple of Belus or the sun, at Edessa in Mesopotamia, in idolatrous times, by his statue was another of Ezizus, who is our Hesus, and another of Mercury, whom they call Monimus. Julian, in his hymn to the sun, mentions the same. And so generally the true theology communicated to mankind from the beginning, was perverted into polytheism and idolatry.

3. So by the tree came death, by the tree came life, which the Druids seem to have had some knowledge of. Ruffinus II. 29. affirms the cross among the Egyptians was an hieroglyphic importing the life that is to come. Sozomen the same, hist. eccl. VII. 15. and Suidas. Isidore tells, “it was the method of the muster-masters in the roman army, in giving in the lists of the soldiers, to mark with a cross the name of the man that was alive; with a Θ him that was dead.”

The ancient inhabitants of America honour’d the form of the cross. So the conjurers in Lapland use it. Which intimate this hieroglyphic to be most ancient, probably antediluvian.

But concerning the knowledge of the cross which the Druids had, and of their religion more at large, I shall discourse fully in the next volume, which will conclude what I have to say concerning them and their works.

4. From what has been delivered in the speculative part of this treatise, the springs of idolatry appear sufficiently. For the race of heroes that built these patriarchal temples in the eastern part of the world especially, and propagated true religion, were some ages after deify’d by their idolatrous posterity; and had names of consecration taken from the divine attributes, and the just notions delivered to them concerning the nature of the deity.

5. If then we reflect on the foregoing description of the work of Abury, whether we consider the figure it is built upon, the antiquity or the grandeur of it, we must needs admire it, as deservedly to be rank’d among the greatest wonders on the face of the earth. The ancients indeed did make huge temples of immense pillars in colonnades, like a small forest; or vast concaves of cupolas to represent the heavens; they made gigantick colosses to figure out their gods; but to our British Druids was reserv’d the honour of a more extensive idea, and of executing it. They have made plains and hills, valleys, springs and rivers contribute to form a temple of three miles in length. They have stamp’d a whole country with the impress of this sacred character, and that of the most permanent nature. The golden temple of Solomon is vanish’d, the proud structure of the Babylonian Belus, the temple of Diana at Ephesus, that of Vulcan in Egypt, that of the Capitoline Jupiter are perish’d and obliterated, whilst Abury, I dare say, older than any of them, within a very few years ago, in the beginning of this century, was intire; and even now, there are sufficient traces left, whereby to learn a perfect notion of the whole. Since I frequented the place, I fear it has suffer’d: but at that time, there was scarce a single stone in the original 102 ground-plot wanting, but I could trace it to the person then living who demolish’d it, and to what use and where.

This I verily believe to have been a truly patriarchal temple, as the rest likewise, which we have here described; and where the worship of the true God was perform’d. And I conclude with what Epiphanius writes, speaking of the old religion from the beginning of the world. Non erat judaismus aut secta quæpiam alia: sed ut ita dicam, ea quæ nunc in præsenti sancta Dei catholica ecclesia obtinet, fides erat; quæ cum ab initio extiterit, postea rursum est manifestata. He affirms Adam and all the patriarchs from him to Abraham, were no other than christians; and this is the doctrine of the apostle of the Gentiles, 1 Cor. ix. 21.

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• The dignity of the study of antiquities, Page 1, 46
• Religion the principal purpose of life, 6, 7, 55, 85, 100
• The patriarchal and Christian religion the same, 4, 6, 62, 68, 89, 102
• Publick religion began with Adam’s grandson, Enos, 2, 6
• Exercis’d in a publick place call’d a temple, 3, 7, 25
• A temple was an open circle of stones, 4, 8
• Groves planted as cathedrals, summer-temples, 4, 5
• Groves and temples equivocal, ibid.
• The Druid temples were patriarchal, 4, 5, 102
• Heathen remains of patriarchal temples, 5, 8, 33, 52, 83
• Our patriarchal round temples often dedicated to the sun, 9, 67
• Likewise to dead heroes who built them, 13, 84, 95, 98, 101
• Publick religion was on a stated day, the sabbath, 6, 36, 68
• Heathen remains of the sabbath, 68
• The ordinary service of publick religion was call’d invoking, 3, 4, 6
• Heathen remains of invoking, 4, 6
• This implies an expected mediator, Messiah, 3, 6
• Jehovah was the Messiah who appear’d visibly, 3, 6
• Knowledge of the nature of the deity, the highest wisdom, 7, 85, 90
• From that knowledge idolatry first began, 62, 84, 89, 101
• Sacrificing was the extraordinary service of religion, 4, 38
• At the four solar ingresses, 68
• Temples were form’d on figures of the symbol of the deity, 8, 9, 92
• Whence thought prophylactic, to guard the ashes of the dead, 41, 52, 82, 95
• When desecrated to idolatry, the Mosaic tabernacle was order’d; square and cover’d, 3, 5, 8, 14, 24, 62, 72

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• Three kinds of Druid or patriarchal temples, from the threefold symbol of the deity. First, the circle, 9
• The circle, the symbol of the Supreme, 54, 61
• The Supreme, as invisible, had no picture, no name, 3, 50, 62, 98
• Called As, Atys, Hesus, by the Druids, 100
• Rowldrich temple described, as an example of the first kind, 10
• The requisites of a Druid temple drawn up, 10, 13

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• The Second kind of temple, the circle and snake, Dracontium, 9, 54
• ABURY, a serpentine temple of the second kind, described, 14
• Another at Shap in Northumberland, 62
• Another at Classerness, ibid.
• iiOf the symbol of the snake, 49, 54, 56, 92
• It means the divine Son, 55, 60, 61, 62, 93, 94
• The Druids’ great regard to it, 56
• The natural history of the serpent, 50, 57
• Origin of serpent worship, 59
• Of symbols in general, 55
• It was the ancient form of writing, 56
• The divine Son call’d Phtha, νους ἑτερος, mind, creator, wisdom, word, Logos, 50, 61, 62, 88
• He was Jehovah, the Mediator, who appeared visibly, 3
• He was called the NAME, 3, 6, 100
• Called Belenus by the Druids, 100
• Of the kebla or central obelisc in our temples, called ambre, 5, 23, 24, 67, 100
• Became idols, 5, 67
• The petra ambrosia of the heathen, 24, 75, 82
• Of the cove, or ansæ, 5, 23, 100
• Kist vaen, 13
• Indicative of the divine presence, 24
• The Hakpen, or snake’s head, 15, 31, 32
• Heathen remains of such, 33, 84, 97
• The snake’s tail, 36, 37, 52

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• The whole symbol of the deity was a circle, snake, and wings; call’d Cnephtha, 9, 29, 54, 62, 92, 93
• Heathen remain of this in Medusa’s head, 69, 93
• The Third sort of Druid temple form’d like the circle and wings, alate temples, 9, 76, 83, 92
• This figure call’d Cneph, means the divine spirit, or anima mundi, 62, 92, 93
• An alate temple of the Druids on the banks of the Humber, described, 92
• An alate temple on Navestock-common, 96
• Another in Cornwall, 97
• Another in the isle of Scianach, ibid.
• Hence the Mercury of the heathen, 84, 98, 101
• The same as Neptune, 84, 94, 98
• Same as Taranus, Thoth, 101
• Same as Hermes, 98
• Same as Canaan, ibid.
• An alate temple over the tomb of Canaan, ibid.
• By the lake Canopus, 96
• In the isle Chios, 98
• In the isle of Cyprus, 97
• At the tomb of Hermes or Lud, 98
• At the tomb of Memnon, 95
• Over the tomb of Neptune or Tarsis, 98
• In the isle of Rhodes, 95, 97
• In the isle of Tenos, 97
• The crab likewise a symbol of the anima mundi, 76

iii

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• Serpentine temples, Dracontia, built by the ancients, 9, 61
• By Phut or Typhon, son of Cham, 61, 63
• The history of Phut, 64
• His effigies, 66
• The patriarchal and heathen genealogy, 65
• The heroical effigies of Phut’s mother, 66

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• Dracontia built by the Tyrian Hercules, 70, 75, 76
• He was a great navigator, and had the use of the compass, 97
• His history and time fixed, 53, 71
• He planted Britain, 53, 77, 78
• He was king in Egypt when Abraham went thither, 72
• He learn’d religion and other things from Abraham, 74, 76
• He built temples wherever he came, thence call’d Saxanus, 74
• He brought the use of alphabet-writing hither, 73
• He had a son call’d Isaac, 76
• Apher, grandson of Abraham, a companion of Hercules in planting Britain, 70, 77
• Of Albion and Bergion, 77

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• Dracontia built by Cadmus, 34, 80
• History of Cadmus son of Canaan, 79
• The Cadmonites related to the Jews, 84
• Serpentine temples at Acon, 75
• At Colchis, 69
• By Damascus, 84
• By the tomb of Orpheus, 95
• By the river Orontes, 69
• At Parnassus, 67
• In the isle of Rhodes, 95
• At Sarephtha, 82
• At Tyre, 75

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• The Druid measure, cubit, stadium, 11, 19, 31
• A demonstration of the Druid works prior to roman times, 26, 43, 45
• A Druid celt or hatchet found at Abury, 27
• Another at Stonehenge, 41
• The time of founding Abury conjectured, 52
• The founder’s tumulus, Silbury-hill, 41
• A conjecture concerning his name, 42
• A conjecture concerning the time of his death, 44
• The founder of Abury’s bridle dug up, 42

iv

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• Antediluvian bones, 17, 35
• The formation of sarsens, 16
• British beads, urns, &c. dug up, 44, 45
• Heathen barrows like ours, 42, 44, 46, 52, 66, 98
• Conjecture concerning the age of Abury, from the wear of the weather, 17, 38
• From the Variation of the magnetic needle, 51, 52
• Of the use of the loadstone of old, 51, 96
• Seems to have been known to Noah, to Japhet, to Phut, to Hercules, 97
• A magnetic needle among the constellations, ibid.

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• The origin of alphabet-writing, 56, 73
• The patriarchal genealogy, 65
• Origin of Egyptian learning from Abraham and Joseph, 72, 74
• The reason of the Mosaic institution, 8, 62, 72
• Of mythology, the oldest heathen history, 13, 31, 33, 63, 76, 83
• Our present reports at the Druid temples the same mythology, 5, 13, 76, 83
• Why EI inscrib’d on the door at Delphos, 100
• Temples made on account of sepulchres, 13, 41
• Typhon’s couch, what it means, 66, 98
• The atlantic islands, where, 14
• Of Solomon’s temple, 38, 39
• The astonishing tumulus of Silbury, 41, 42, 43
• Of british chariots, 42
• Why antient temples regarded the east, 50, 51
• Origin of animal-worship, 55
• Origin of the Phallus, 60

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• The Roman road, Runway, Via Badonica, 26, 30, 32, 43
• A demonstration that ’tis later than our works, 26, 27, 43
• A demonstration that ’tis later than the Wansdike, 27
• King Divitiacus founder of Devizes, 27
• Cunetio Marlborough, 19, 26
• Verlucio Hedington, 27

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ETYMOLOGY.

• Abl, Hal, Healle, 19
• Au, Aux, Awy, ibid
• As, Ata, Atys, 100
• Atlas, 9
• Apher, 77
• Avim, Hevæus, 81, 98
• Athamanes, 71
• Belenus, Baal, Bel, Belus, 100
• Bratanac, 77
• vBeth, 5
• Canopus, 94, 96
• Cnephtha, 93
• Cronius, 97
• Cneph, 92
• Cromlechen, 49
• Dionysus, 11, 98
• Efi, 100
• Esar-haddon, ibid.
• Elohim, 71
• Elagabalus, 24
• Gilgal, 11
• Genessa, Geneva, Gnaphalus, Gnavus, 96
• Gable, Gaveloc, 9, 24, 29
• Hesus, 100
• Har, 67
• Hakpen, 16, 31, 32, 75, 76
• Hycsi, 71, 78
• Javelin, 9, 24, 25
• Kibla, ibid.
• Kist-vaen, 12, 49
• Knave, Knap, 96
• Kneph, 62
• Magus, 38, 55, 69
• Neptune, 94
• Nebula, Nebulo, 96
• Nahas, 67
• Nesi, 72
• Ogmius, 73
• Parnassus, Larnassus, 67
• Ptha, 62, 93
• Rhwl drwyg, 11, 12
• Rhode, Rod, 97
• Sarsens, 16, 48
• Sarephtha, 82
• Scianach, 97
• Taramis, Thoth, 101
• Themis, 67
• Titans, 71
• Tempe, Temple, 7, 25
• Knowledge of the nature of the deity, the most valuable, 7, 85, 90, 100
• Of divine geniture, a metaphysical discourse, 49, 50, 85, 99
• Of divine procession, 100
• This doctrine is discoverable by reason, 85, 99, 100
• The Druids came from Phœnicia, 38, 42, 51, 73, 78
• The Druids were not idolaters, preface, 24, 51, 85
• They were a great and learned people, 38, 49, 76
• viThey were disciples of Abraham, 5, 35, 73, 74, 76, 85
• Of the patriarchal religion, 11, 37, 51, 55, 62, 69, 85, 102
• They observ’d the sabbath, 6, 35
• A proof that the patriarchs observ’d the sabbath, 68
• Tithe paid by the patriarchs, 68
• Baptism and sponsors in the patriarchal religion, 76
• The Druids built our temples of stones untouch’d of tool, 20, 21, 39
• Groves not their only temples, 5
• They bore a celt on a staff ordinarily, 27
• Abaris a hyperborean Druid, 96
• Chyndonax a gallic arch-druid, 49
• They believ’d a future state, and resurrection of the body, 13, 40, 41, 46, 82
• They knew Messiah was to be born at the end of the year, 72
• The yule festival then, 76
• They knew the mysterious nature of the deity, 6, 7, 9, 90
• As the patriarchs, the ancient priests and philosophers, 4, 6, 9, 85, 89, 94, 100
• They believ’d the unity of the divine nature, 100
• All this deducible from reason, 6, 85, 100
• They had knowledge of the cross, 101
• They knew alphabet-writing, 56
• Notions of the magic of the Druids, 21, 38, 69
• Druid houses, 12, 27, 47, 48, 94
• Druid celt or hatchet, 27
• Sharp flints, 33