By William Long, Esq. 135 



of Britain by the Romans, for the country was then split into parties, 

 not only political but religious. Now the religion of the southern 

 portion of the county was mainly Christian, although he quite ad- 

 mitted with Mr. Jackson and Mr. Herbert that there was an attempt 

 to infuse into it the spirit of other nreeds. If however, a new 

 building was to be raised, and there had been anything like a mixture 

 of religions, there would most probably be the marks of two religions 

 upon that building. Now Stonehenge bore not the slightest mark 

 of Christianity, and this had always been, to his mind, a great ob- 

 jection to the theory of the late Mr. Algernon Herbert. Then again 

 the specimens of pottery which had been found in the neighbom-hood 

 were of the rudest description, and evidently belonged, not to the 

 Romans, but to the ancient Britons. Again, the country was, at 

 the time of Vortigern, ravaged by war, and it was not likely that such 

 a period would have been selected for the erection of such a mighty 

 monument as that of Stonehenge. The writings of the Welsh bards 

 simply went to show that the building was standing at that time — 

 indeed, Mr. Davies, the author of ' Celtic Researches,' who well un- 

 derstood the old Welsh poetry, said the opinion of the bards was 

 that Stonehenge had been standing from time immemorial. The 

 only authority for Mr. Herbert's theoiy was Geoffrey of INIonmouth. 

 He could not suppose that at the time when the countrj' was in- 

 vaded by the Picts and Scots, Vortigern could ever have sent a fleet 

 to Ireland to bring something like thirty stones to the Amesbury 

 Downs. The smaller stones were certainly not from the neighbour- 

 hood, and they anight have come from Ireland He 



himself was inclined to the belief that the outer circle of Stonehenge 

 was erected by Phoenician architects. They first settled at the 

 Land's End, in Cornwall, and having lead and iron mines, in 

 Wales, it was by no means improbable that they drew these stones 

 from different parts of the country as emblems of the places whence 

 they derived their wealth. He did not say it was so,, but there 

 was just as much reason for the supposition, as that Merlin brought 

 them from Ireland." 



The following are the conclusions to which one of our most 

 thoughtful and learned antiquaries, the Rev. John Earle, has come: 



