•as account of antiquities in Scotlanii. Feh. Th',- 



must, therefore, have been in all probability a pub-- 

 lic national worl;, allotted for some very important 

 purpose. But Vvhat use these buildings were appro- 

 priated to is difficult now to say with certainty. 



There was a building called Arthur'' s Oven which 

 stood upon the banks of the Carron, near Stirling,' 

 tliat was demoli/lied not long ago. A drawing of it 

 is preserved in Sibbald's " Scotia illustrata ;" from 

 which it appears, that in its general form, and several 

 other particulars, it much resembled the buildings- 

 of this clafs ; and if it fhould be admitted as one of 

 them, it would be an exception to the foregoing rule, 

 and tend to invalidate the reasoning I have employed. 

 But although in some particulars it did resemble' 

 these buildings, in other respects it was extremely'' 

 different. Its size is the first observable particular' 

 in which it differed from them, as there is hardly one 

 of them which has not been a great deal larger than' 

 it was. These buildings are always composed of rough 

 stones,- without any mark of a tool. It consisted 

 entirely of hewn stones, squared and fhaped by tools, 

 so as exactly to fit the place where they were to be in- 

 serted. The walls of Arthur's Oven were thin, with- 

 out any appearance of a stair within them. In ftiort, 

 it bore evident marks of Roman art and architec-- 

 ture, and resembled Virgil's tomb near Naples, more 

 than it did the structures we now treat of ; on whiclr- 

 account it has always been, with seeming justice, . 

 supposed a small temple, erected by the Romans wlien 

 they occupied that station, and very different from 

 the ruder, but more magnificent structures of these 

 northern nations. 



