314 Ahury. 



the monuments, which. I have here recounted were Temples. Now 

 my presumption is, That the Druids being the most eminent Priests 

 [or Order of Priests] among the Britaines, 'tis odds, but that these 

 ancient monuments [sc. Aubury, Stonehenge, Kerrig y Druidd &c.] 

 were Temples of the Priests of the most eminent Order, viz., Druids, 

 and it is strongly to be presumed, that Aubury, Stoneheng, «&:c., 

 are as ancient as these times. 



"This inquiry, I must confess, is a gropeing in the dark: but 

 although I have not brought it into a cleer light, yet I can afl&rm 

 that I have brought it from an utter darkness to a thin mist, and 

 have gonne farther in this essay than any one before me. 



" These antiquities are so exceedingly old that no bookes doe 

 reach them, sc. that there is no way to retrive them but by com- 

 parative antiquitie, which I have writt upon the spott from the 

 monuments themselves, — ' Historia quoque modo scrijita, bona est;' 

 and though this be writt, as I rode a gallop, yet the novelty of it, 

 and the faithfulness of the delivery, may make some amends for the 

 vmcoEi'ectness of the style. 



" The first draught was worn out with time and handling, and 

 now, methinks, after many years lying dormant, I come abroad, 

 like the ghost of one of those Druids. 



"I beg the reader's pardon for running this preface into a storie, 

 and wish him as much pleasure in reading them, as I met in seeing 

 them. Vale. 



"John Aubkey." 

 AUBURY. 

 " Aubury is four miles west from Marleborough in Wiltshire, 

 and is peradventure the most eminent and entire monument of this 

 kind in the Isle of Great Britaigne. (I take this old ill-shapened 

 monument to be' the greatest, most considerable, and the least 

 ruinated of any of this kind in our British Isle.) It is very strange 

 that so eminent an Antiquitie should lye so long unregarded by our 



Chorographers : Mr only names it. 



" It is environed with an extraordinary great vallum [or Ram- 

 part] as great, and as high as that at Winchester, [w''' is the greatest 

 Bulwark that I have seen] : within which is a Grafie of a depth and 



