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n\\^ S 



A REVIEWER REVIEWED. 



5N the last October number of the British Quarterly Review, 

 I ^ among the articles announced was one under the captivating 

 title of "Piehistoric England," and great must have been the 

 disappointment of many who hoped to find in it a paper written 

 with the ability and candour of a Sir John Lubbock, or a 

 Mr. Boyd Dawkins. The writer has taken for pegs upon which to 

 hang his article Stukeley's "Abury," and Mr. Lockhart Ross' 

 "Druidical Temples at Abury," and as he makes frequent allusions 

 to Wiltshire antiquities, it will be necessary to take notice of his 

 statements and theories. 



He is evidently but very imperfectly acquainted with the liter- 

 ature of either Abury or Stonehenge, and he seems also to be but 

 very imperfectly acquainted with the places themselves. We 

 cannot prevent a crazy writer from broaching as grand discoveries 

 any absurdities which his brains may have secreted, but we have a 

 right to expect from all propounders of new theories, that they 

 shall at least have mastered all the data which can be procured 

 either by local examination, or by a study of the works of others. 

 This has not been done by our reviewer ; and the consequence 

 is that his article is full of inaccuracies in matters-of-fact, and 

 that it is written in the self-satisfied and pretentious style 

 which is generally to be found in company with ignorance and 

 in-exactness. 



We proceed to comment on some of his statements and opinions. 



" Two ancient sites of towns and of fortresses, yet imposing to 

 the eye of even the most careless wayfarer, by the number and the 

 size of the great transported blocks of fine gritstone that strew 

 the ground, have so utterly lost even the echo of their names, as 

 to be known only as the ' Grey Wethers ' (from the resemblance 



