26 Stonehenge and its Barrows, 



greater, and these for inferior officers) ; and one stone at a distanee 

 seems to stand sentinel for the rest. It seems equally impossible, 

 that they were bred here, or brought hither ; seeing (no navigable 

 water near) such voluminous bulks are unmanageable in cart or 

 waggon. As for the the tale of Merlin's conjuring them by magic 

 out of Ireland, and bringing them aloft in the skies (what, in 

 Charles's Wain?) it is too ridiculous to be confuted. This hath put 

 learned men on necessity to conceive them artificial stones, con- 

 solidated of sand. Stand they there, in defiance of wind and weather 

 (which hath discomposed the method of them) , which, if made of 

 any precious matter (a bait to tempt avarice), no doubt long since 

 had been indicted of superstition ; whereas, now they are protected 

 by their own weight and worthlessness." 



King James I. visited Stonehenge in 1620, and was so much in- 

 terested in it that he desired Inigo Jones, the celebrated architect, 

 " to produce out of his own practice in architecture, and experience 

 in antiquities abroad, what he could discover concerning this of 

 Stonehenge." 



The enquiring and somewhat sceptical spirit of the seventeenth 

 century would not be satisfied with the British myths ' about 



' Lady Verney well says in her paper on the " Old "Welsh Legends and Poetry" 

 in the "Contemporary Review," for February, 1876: *' The chief drawback to 

 the study of Welsh legend has been that, as a German author observes, ' most 

 old Cambrian writers have been utteily destitute of all capacity for historical 

 criticism.' In the pre-scientiic ages of literature they went even beyond the 

 limits of decent self-glorification in which all nations thought it patriotic to in- 

 dulge. ' Welsh was the language in which Adam made love to Eve.' * If 

 two children were shut up so that they never heard any language spoken what- 

 ever, they would be found to speak Welsh.' Their early histories are not 

 satisfied with Brut, who confronts us in all our early English accounts, but go 

 back to Annun of Troy, ' a second son,' * a hero,' who ' was the first king of 

 Cambria,' ' his identity with Eneas cannot be doubted.' . . . A.lthough the 

 Welsh pedigree is probably fabulous which mentions casually some time after 

 its opening, that ' about this time the creation of the world took place,' yet Noah 

 was only one of the long line of ancestry which headed the trees of families, 

 with any respect for themselves or their descent, while Arthur, Vortigern, and 

 Madoc were showered in arf ^jij<M»M." . . . " The antiquity of Welsh poetry 

 and legend has been, no doubt, greatly exaggerated, and if the time and trouble 

 spent in absurd speculations concerning the Druids, attempts to evolve all the 



