By William Long, Esq., M.A. 361 



By this ttey meant to picture out, as well as they could, the 

 nature of the di-\4nity. The circle meant the supreme fountain 

 of all being, the father ; the serpent, that diviae emanation from 

 him which was called the son ; the wings imputed that other 

 divine emanation from them which was called the spirit, the 

 anima mundi." '"The serpent,' says Maximus of Tyre, (Dissert. 

 38,) ' was the great symbol of the deity to most nations, and as 

 such was worshipped by the Indians.' The temples of old made in 

 the form of a serpent, were called, for that reason, Dracontia."^ 



The Rev. William Cooke, Vicar of Enford, in Wilts, in 'An 

 enquiry into the Patriarchal and Druidical Religion, Temples, &c., 

 wherein the Primaeval Institution and Universality of the Christian 

 scheme is manifested, &c.,' (2nd edition, 1755,) endeavours to 

 prove that Abury " was really a temple sacred to the ever-blessed 

 and undivided Trinity " ! This book is little more than a brief 

 epitome of Stukeley's. Mr. Cooke appears to have been the first to 

 suggest the derivation of the word 'Abury' from ' Cabiri.' In 

 this strange etymology he was followed by Higgins, ("Celtic 

 Druids," 1827,) Bowles and Duke.^ 



Mr. Edward King, in his 'Munimenta Antiqua,' considers "that 

 the great stone pillar in the centre of the southernmost double circle 

 seems to intimate that the area there enclosed was designed for 

 holding great councils, and for inaugurations; whilst the cromlech 

 and great altar, in the centre of the northern double circle, indi- 

 cates that enclosure to have been designed for sacrifices. And the 

 great circle of an hundred stones, and the vast ditch and rampart 

 surrounding the whole vast area, in which both these solemn places 



' Stukeley's Abury, pp. 54, 55. Mr. P. Crocker, who surveyed Abury for Sir 

 R. Hoare, in 1812, considered the Dracontian theory a probable one; although 

 he could not say " that all the distances between the stones, the diameters of 

 the circles, and the precise measurements, as given by Stukeley, were exact, or 

 that they were constructed with geometrical precision," See Eritton's ' Beauties 

 of Wilts,' iii. p. 284. 



^ Sir R. Iloare noticed this derivation, and supported it by a quotation from 

 the learned Parkhurst; "that the Phwnicians or Canaanitcs worshipped their 

 God, the heavens, under this name, is highly probable, from the plain remains 



of a Phojnician temple at Abury in Wiltshire, which still retains the name." 



' Ancient Wiltshire,' ii, p. G'-i, note. 



