By William Long, Esq. 17 



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et A-nglice Stonehenges. Post haec periit rex veneno apud Wyn- 

 toniam, anno xliiii regni sui. Sepultus est in csemeterio quod ipse 

 praeparaverat, scilicet, infra choream Gigantum. 



Mortuo Aurelio coronatus est Uther frater ejus. Tempore tamen 

 Aurelii regis per artem Merlini de Hibernia ducti sunt lapides illse 

 (sic) magnse quae nunc apud le Stonhenge sitae sunt. In Hibernia vo- 

 catae fuerunt Gigantum Choreae. Merlinus autem cum primo regi de 

 lapidibus tetigerat rex solutus est in risum, dicens an lapides Britan- 

 niae tanti valoris essent et tanti pulchritudinis sicut Hiberniae ? Cui 

 respondit Merlinus: Ne moveas rex vanum risum^ quia haec 

 absque vanitate profero. Mysticae sunt lapides illae et ad diversa 

 medicamina salubres; nam olim gigantes illos asportaverunt ex 

 ultimis finibus Africaej et posuerunt in Hiberniam dum ibi habitarent; 

 erat autem haec causa : cum aliquis illorum infirmabatur vel vul- 

 nerabatur, statim infra lapides confecerunt balneum de herbis et de 

 lotione lapidum quia tanti fuerunt medicaminis quod, lapidibus 

 lotis et aqua potata vel in balneum missa, aegroti vel vulnerati 

 statim sanitatem reficiunt. Non enim est ibi lapis qui medicamento 

 careat, steterunt autem in monte Killarno. De lapidibus satis 

 est. 



Andrew Borde, of Phisicke Doctor, who called himself Andreas 

 Perforatus, and whom others called Merry Andrew, " in his fyrst 

 Boke of the Introduction of knowledge^' (1542), reckons among 

 the wonders of England, " the hot waters of Bath,^' and tells us that 

 " in winter the poore people doth go into the water to kepe Ihemself 

 warm, and to get them a heate ; " the salt-springs " of the whych 

 waters salt is made;" — the " Stonege" on Salisbury Plain, "certayne 

 great stones so placed that no gemetricion can set them as they do 

 hang;" "fossil wood, there is wood which doth turne into stone;" 

 and the royal touch, which " doth make men whole of a syckness 

 called the Kynge's evyll." See Eetrospective Review, vol. i., 

 1853, N.S. 



John Hardyng was an investigator of our national antiquities and 

 history, and at length clothed his researches in rhyme, which he 

 dedicated under that form to King Edward the Fourth, and with 

 the title of " The Chronicle of England unto the reigne of King 



VOL. XVI. — NO. XLVI. C 



