138 



Part W. 



mlblm^ "f tain anb tlje cStoneljenge §aiToio0, 



sO the lover of our opea downs it is refreshing to read of 



Salisbuiy Plain before it had been encroached upon, as 



now, by the plough. The Rev. William Gilpin, in his "Observations 



on the Western Parts of England, relative especially to Picturesque 



Beauty,'" dedicated to Speaker Addington, 1798, says: "The plain' 



on which Stonehenge stands, is in the same style of greatness as the 



temple that adorns it. It extends many miles in all directions, in 



some not less than fifty. An eye unversed in these objects is filled 



with astonishment in viewing waste after waste rising out of each 



new horizon. 



' Such appears the spacious plain 

 Of Sarum, spread like Ocean's boundless round, 

 Where solitary Stonehenge, grey with moss, 

 Ruin of ages, nods.' 



" The ground is spread, indeed, as the poet observes, like the ocean; 

 but it is like the ocean after a storm, it is continually heaving in 

 large swells. Through all this vast district, scarce a cottage or even 

 a bush appears. If you approach within two or three miles of the 

 edge of the plain, you see, like the mariner within soundings, land 

 at a distance, houses, trees, and villages ; but all around is waste. 

 Regions, like this, which have come down to us rude and untouched, 



' Stukeley was not insensible to the charms of " this delightful plain, 



'Jurat arva videre 

 Non rastris, hominum non uUi obnoxia curae.' — Virgil. 



Nought can be sweeter than the air that moves o're this hard and dry chalky 

 soil. Every step you take upon the smooth carpet, (literally) your nose is 

 saluted with the most fragrant smell of serpillum and apiuni, which with the 

 short grass continually cropt by the flocks of sheep, composes the softest and 

 most verdant turf, extremely easy to walk on, and which rises, as with a 

 spring, under one's feet." (p. 9.) 



