By William Long, Esq. 139 



from the beginning of time, fill the mind with grand conceptions, 

 far beyond the efforts of art and cultivation. Impressed by such 

 views of nature, our ancestors worshipped the god of nature, in these 

 boundless scenes, which gave them the highest conceptions of eternity. 

 . . . All the plain, at least that part of it near Stonehenge, 

 is one vast cemetery. Everywhere, as we passed, we saw tumuli or 

 barrows, as they are called, rising on each hand. These little mounds 

 of earth are more curiously and elegantly shaped than any of the 

 kind I remember elsewhere to have seen. Ihey commonly rise in 

 the form of bells, and each of them hath a neat trench fashioned 

 round its base ; though in their forms, and in the ornamental circles . 

 at their bases, some appear to be of more distinguished workmanship. 

 They are of various sizes, sometimes of thirty, sometimes of forty, 

 or fifty yards in diameter. From many places we counted above an 

 hundred of them at once; sometimes as if huddled together without 

 any design ; in other places rising in a kind or order. By the rays 

 of a setting sun, the distant barrows are most conspicuously seen. 

 Every little summit being tipped with a splendid light, while the 

 plain is in shadow, is at that time easily distinguished. Most of 

 them are placed on the more elevated parts of the plain, and gen- 

 erally in sight of the great temple. That they are mansions of the 

 dead is undoubted ; many of them having been opened, and found 

 to cover the bones both of men and beasts ; the latter of which were 

 probably sacrificed at the funeral. We suppose also that some of 

 them contained the promiscuous ashes of a multitude, as Virgil 

 describes them : — 



' ConfusiB ingentem csedis acervum, 

 Nee Dumero, nee honore cremant. Tune undique vasti 

 Certatim crebris coUucent ignibus agri. 

 Tertia lux gelidam caelo dimoverat umbram ; 

 Maerentes altum cinerera, et confusa ruebant 

 Ossa focis ; tepidoque unerabant aggere terrse.' 



Indeed this mode of burial, as the most honourable, seems to have 

 been dictated by the voice of nature. We meet with it in Homer ; 

 we meet with it in Herodotus. The vestiges of it are found on the 

 vast plains of Tartary; and even among the savages of Guinea. 

 " Though Salisbury Plain in Druid times was probably a very 



