132 Stonehenge and its Barrows. 



it. They only governed it ; and in much the same way as England 

 now governed India. After the rebellion of A.D. 408 there was a 

 rush of the British princes to seize the throne. The suceessful com- 

 petitor was Vortigern^ who forced the family of the last Roman 

 king into Brittany^ and this fact he wished them to bear in mind, 

 as they would hear of one of that family, Aurelius, again. As to 

 the religious state of the country, matters had run into great ex- 

 travagance — in fact it was full of enthusiastic absurdities. He based 

 his belief that Stonehenge was a work of the fifth century on the 

 references contained in the writings of the bards and chroniclers 

 nearest to the time, and he observed that he could find no historical 

 data whatever corroborative of the statement that the structure was 

 in existence before the Romans came over to this country. True, 

 the compositions of these old British writers contained a good deal 

 that might be fabulous, but those fables, it should be remembered, 

 had come down to them from others. They also used the form of 

 metaphor and fable for telling what they did know. It was. our 

 ignorance of the key to these stories that made them seem incredible. 

 But though a man may write in a strange style, he may be telling 

 the truth. Bearing in mind, therefore, the political and religious 

 condition of the country at that time, they would doubtless be less 

 surprised at hearing him, with Mr. Herbert, assign the erection of 

 Stonehenge to the mysterious Merlin. Merlin (according to Mr. 

 Herbert) was not a mane's name, but an official name for the high- 

 priest of a sect called Ambrosians — a name which he considered to 

 have been adopted from large stones termed Petrce Amhrosice by the 

 Latins, Ambres by the British. There was no historical evidence 

 for assigning it to any other period than that which these old 

 British writers afforded. He believed that during the years 

 which followed the expulsion of the Romans, under the advice of 

 those fanatical Ambrosians, the king commenced a new ei'a in British 

 independence, by erecting a new sanctuary, which sanctuary was 

 no other than Stonehenge. There are, it is true, other British 

 accounts of the purpose for which Stonehenge was built; one of 

 them being that it was made by Vortigern^s successor, Aurelius, 

 in memory of certain British princes who were treacherously 



