6 



the remains of a small inner circle, and the large outer circle covered with earth 

 and gi-eensward, and fragrant with purple thyme and other wild flowers, upon 

 which the audience were seated. These were the facts, and all he could do was 

 but to endeavour to explain them from other monuments of the kind which he 

 had visited. The ground plan, for example, seemed to be a miniature of that 

 of Stonehenge, which, however, had no central cromlech. He thought it v^a 

 probable that the curcle had been double, a passage being thus left all round, 

 although only one of the inner ring of stones was left standing. The circular 

 form was to his mind conclusive evidence of British work. The Briton's mind 

 seems to have been full of the circle : the circle of the heavens, the circle of 

 the sun, the circle of the moon, the cu-cle of the seasons, seem to have sug- 

 gested the idea, which the Briton carried out in his camps, his dweUings, his 

 temples, his burial places. Just as the Roman founded all his works on the 

 right line and always used the square or the oblong, a square and a half. In 

 this case, he thought the cromlech was buUt first. Some great Silurian chief 

 was brought thither with rude pomp and ceremony ; his body was placed on 

 the ground, covered perhaps with a little earth ; the body of his favourite 

 horse was laid at his feet, and his weapons by his side, and the huge Uech or 

 covering stone was brought up an inclined plane upon roUers, and so placed by 

 the strong arms of a nation as a memorial of their lost chief to future ages. 

 All this would be done, as the old British phrase has it, " in the face of the 

 sun and in the eye of light," and amid a band of white-robed Druids and 

 bards, whUe the armed throng formed a reverent circle around. Then, too, 

 at night, if we might follow some interpreters of the bards, the hollow place 

 beneath the cromlech might be used in the initiation of neophytes. Lonely 

 watching in the house of death has always been supposed to confer wisdom, 

 and especially prescience, upon the watcher, who regarded it as the house of 

 life to his spirit. Here he communed with the invisible world, and from 

 hence he issued after his vigils (lilce the laiight of mediaeval times) pledged to a 

 new life. Perhaps he ought to apologise for detaining the audience so long 

 with these theories and conjectures, but he had told them that he had little of 

 information to give them ; and they would all agree with him that when one 

 has really little to say it sometimes takes a great many words to say it 

 (applause). 



The Rev. Jajies Davies expressed the obligations of the meeting to Mr. 

 Edmunds for his most interesting address, and added that if that was an in- 

 stance of a person having little to say they all felt that Mr. Edmunds had 

 said it extremely well (applause). 



Mr. Lloyd also expressed the interest which he had felt in the address. 



Mr. J. E. Smith said that some writers looked upon Arthur as the sun, 

 and the legends regarding him as myths of the sun-worship. " Ar " was said 

 to be a word meaning light. 



Mr. Edmunds doubted the coiTectness of that theory. He knew the word 

 ar as meaning land, and lux and cognate words as meaning hght, in the Celtic 



