218 



(pp. 14 and 20 J 



©1^1%^ ROM Dr. Pliilemon Holland's translation of Camden''s 

 |j^ "Britannia/^ 1610, p. 253 :— 



" Our countrie-men recken this for one of our wonders and 

 miracles. And much they marvaile from whence such huge stones 

 were brought, considering that in all those quarters bordering there- 

 ujion, there is hardly to be found any common stone at all for build- 

 ding; as also by what meanes they were set up. For mine own 

 part, about these points I am not curiously to argue and dispute, 

 but rather to lament with much griefe that the authors of so notable 

 a monument are thus buried in oblivion. Yet some there are, that 

 thinke them to be no naturall stones heawen out of the rocke, but 

 artificially made of pure sand, and by some glewie and unctuous 

 matter knit and incorporate together, like as those ancient trophees 

 or monuments of victorie which I have scene in Yorkshire. And 

 what marvaile ? Read we not I pray you in Plinie, that the sand 

 or dust of Puteoli being covered over with water, becometh forthwith 

 a very stone : that the cesternes in Rome of sand digged out of the 

 ground, and the strongest kind of lime wroiight together grow so 

 hard, that they seeme stones indeed ? and that statues and images 

 of marble chippings and small grit grow together so compact and 

 firme, that they are deemed eutier and solide marble. The common 

 saying is that Ambrosius Aurelianus, or his brother Uther did reare 

 them up by the art of Merline tkat great mathematician, in memorie 

 of those Britons who by the treachery of Saxons were there slaine 

 at a parley. Whereupon Alexander Necham, a poet of no great 

 antiquitie, in a poeticall fit, but with no speciall grace and favour of 

 Apollo, having his instructions out Gefirey^s British, historie, come 

 out of these verses : — 



