42 Stonehenge and its Barrows. 



chronology, reckons 19 years for a medium of a King's reign. So 

 that in that space there were ahout 19 Kings in this country. And 

 there seems to be about that number of royal barrows (in my way 

 of conjecturing) about the place. I observe this time we have 

 assigned for the building of Stonehenge, is not long after Cambyses' 

 invasion of Egypt. When he committed such horrid outrages 

 there, and made such dismal bavock, with the priests and inhabitants 

 in general, they fled the country to all parts of the world. Some 

 went as far as the East Indies, and there taught many of the 

 ancient Egyptian customs; as is taken notice of by the learned. 

 It is not to be doubted that some of them fled as far westward, into 

 the island of Britain, and introduced some of their learning, arts 

 and religion, among the Druids ; and perhaps had a hand in this 

 very work of Stonehenge : the only one that I know of, where the 

 stones are chizeFd. All other works of theirs are of rude stones, 

 untouch'd of tool, exactly after the patriarchal and Jewish mode j 

 therefore older. This was at a time when the PhaBuician trade was 

 at height, the readier a conveyance to Britain : it was before the 

 second temple at Jerusalem was built : before the Grecians had any 

 history." 



The celebrated engraver, George Vertue, (1684 — 1756,) appears 

 to have paid considerable attention to Stonehenge, and says in his 

 Diary : " After having seen these stones, and taken draughts of 

 them, and more than once reviewed them, read mostly all that has 

 been published concerning them, and if I may venture to advance 

 my conjecture in an affair so distant to my understanding and pro- 

 fession. — In my opinion I think they were erected by the first 

 heathen Saxons, whom our historians generally allow to have come 

 into England soon, or immediately after, the Roman legions were 

 called away. The people conquered and overcame the Britons, and 

 made the kingdom subject to their power. Ks Salisbury plain is so 

 extensive, large, and likely then the seat of war between those 

 Saxons and Britons, and this place so nearly the great central part 

 of England, they^ the Saxons, might therefore choose to erect a 

 monument of such strength and power, by the bauds of an army, 

 that could not easily be moved nor defaced. Such a monument 



