May 12. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



369 



•' Delta " of Blackwood's Magazine ; and another 

 by an American reviewer of Manzoni's works, 

 either in the North American Review or Christian 

 Examiner (I am sadly negligent in making notes.) 

 The latter is remarkable (amidst a fine appreci- 

 ation of the poet generally) for one of the most 

 outrageous blunders ever perpetrated by a trans- 

 lator. He mistook Manzoni's verb "dispero" 

 for "dispari : " and accordingly, instead of making 

 Napoleon's soul despair, he tells us that it " fled 

 away and disappeared!" — a most ludicrous image, 

 reminding one of another less illustrious poem 

 on a ghost that 



" Vanish'd in a flash of fire. 

 Which made the people all admire ? " 



Neither Wrangham's nor Delta's translation 

 (though full of poetical merit) retained the au- 

 thor's metre or rhyme ; and their versions may be 

 compared in that respect to good engravings of a 

 fine painting, in which the original is reproduced 

 on a different scale and without colour. It was this 

 chiefly that emboldened me (without hope of 

 rivalling those translations in other respects) to 

 attempt to preserve the original metre and rhyme 

 of the ode in the version alluded to. (See Dear- 

 derHs Miscellany (now defunct), vol. xi. p. 756.) 



I have seeH some good wnpublished English 

 versions ; one of much merit by the late George 

 Taylor, Esq. (father of the author of Philip Van 

 Artevelde), done at the special request of a rela- 

 tive of the undersigned ; another (perhaps the 

 most satisfactory of any altogether) in a printed 

 collection of poems by a deceased lady, who de- 

 sired that they should not be published (the 

 greater the loss to the public!). 



It is well known that Gothe turned the ode 

 into German, a most uncongenial language for it, 

 sounding rude and homely after it, if not harsh 

 and rugged, especially as Gotbe's stanza, though 

 metrical, is without rhyme, and, if one may 

 venture to find any fault with a poet so bepraised 

 of late, eminently prosaical. M. H. R. 



STONEHENGE. 



(Tol. xi., pp. 126. 228.) 



The stones of which this structure is composed, 

 and which are called sarsen by Sir R. C. Hoare 

 and otlier antiquaries, and by geological writers 

 grey-wethers or Druid-sandstones, are found dis- 

 persed over all the chalk country, but abound 

 most in Wiltshire and Berks. They are un- 

 doubtedly the relics of some of the tertiary strata 

 of which the chalk has been denuded by aqueous 

 agency ; whether of a gradual and quiet, or of a 

 violent and catastrophic mode of operation, has 

 not yet been determined — perhaps of both. 

 There may have been amongst them some blocks 



of a granite character ; and if it be true that the 

 stones of the inner circle at Stonehenge are of 

 granite, it is not necessary to suppose that they 

 have been transported from Cornwall. The pro- 

 bability is, that they were found along with the 

 sarsen-stones, and are of the character of boulders, 

 transported from their native sites by more ancient 

 diluvial forces, or by the agency of icebergs, like 

 the granite blocks of Russia, Livonia, and the 

 countries south of the Baltic Sea. The beaches of 

 our southern coast afford specimens of the like 

 nature, and of a variety of rocks foreign to this* 

 part of our island, and whose presence is only to 

 be accounted for in this way. The " sarsen " are 

 for the most part sandstone concretions, very pro- 

 bably originally impacted In the looser parts of 

 their native beds, as we see limestone and horn- 

 stone concretions impacted in the sands below the 

 chalk. But many ai'e also formed of a conglo- 

 merate of flints, originally imbedded in chalk, but 

 washed out of their " matrix " and united by a 

 siliceous cement. Specimens of all sorts abound 

 much in the Vale of Pewsey, where they have 

 been collected from the surface, and form fences, 

 boundary-marks, the walls of pigsties, and so 

 forth ; and thousands no doubt have been broken 

 up here, and on the chalk districts, for building, 

 and for road materials. The phenomenon of the 

 existence of loose portions of the most durable 

 materials of lost strata. Is to be observed on all 

 the recognised denudations of geologists. Common 

 gravel is of this description. But in like manner 

 as the grey-wethers or sarsens of the chalk remain 

 on its surface to attest the former existence of 

 superior strata, in like manner flints (the most 

 durable parts of the chalk formation) are found 

 on the clays and sands below the chalk. The 

 iron-stone of the "lower green-sand," and the 

 tough limestone concretions of the same, are found 

 on the surface of the weald-clay, or on the other 

 clays where that one is absent. — To return to the 

 Wiltshire and Berkshire hills. The stones for the 

 great Temple of Abury were easily collected from 

 the neighbouring hills ; but, judging from the 

 present state of Salisbury Plains, it must be sup- 

 posed that the materials of Stonehenge were 

 sought for on the INIarlborough Downs, or in the 

 valley above mentioned, and transported down the 

 course of the Avon. Still it is not unlikely that 

 even the largest of these stones might have been 

 found near at hand, for doubtless many such were 

 dispersed about at that time, which have since 

 been used up, like the blocks at Pewsey, for 

 economical purposes. 



I will conclude these remarks with a Query. 

 Can anybody tell whence the name of sarsen, and 

 is it specific and traditional only ? M. (2} 



