OF REMOTE AGES. 327 
and, often fell into the strangest errors regarding 
those which they had not seen; and as I had 
visited many of every description, and in both 
countries, I thought I might be able to point out 
some considerations which have escaped previous 
observers, and to put in a succinct form the sum 
of our knowledge, or rather of our ignorance, 
regarding these extraordinary structures. 
But even if I can impart no great novelty of 
information or of conjecture, yet the subject can 
not fail to afford, to myself at least, much plea- 
sure. For these strange and picturesque fortifi- 
cations have always been objects of the deepest 
interest and curiosity. Their enormous massive- 
ness—the wild and remote situations in which 
they generally stand—the dim and misty antiquity 
of their aspect—the impenetrable obscurity which 
veils their history—and the conviction, that they 
were erected by the remote forefathers of a race 
whom we are accustomed to call, par excellence, 
the ancients, have all combined to give a beauty 
to their grandeur, a brightness to their desolation, 
and an interest to the least tidings respecting 
them, which the later and lovelier structures of 
Greece and Rome could never command. 
