Chap. V. A N T I E N T M E T A P H Y S I C S. 157 



{een in Denmark and Germany. I defire to know wliere are the 

 arms now, that, with To little help of machinery as they mud have 

 had in thofe days, could have railed, and fet upon end, ilich a 

 number of prodigious ftones; and put others upon the top of them, 

 likewife of very great fize ? Such works are faid, by the peafants 

 in Germany, to be the works of Giants ; and I think, tlicy muil 

 fiave been Giants, compared with us. And, indeed, the men, who 

 eredted Stonehenge, could not, I imagine, be of fize inferior to that 

 man whofe body was found in a quarry near to Salifbury, within a 

 mile of which Stonehenge ftands. The body of that man was four- 

 teen feet ten inches. The fa£l: is attefled by an eye-witnefs, one 

 Elyote, who writes^ I believe, the firft Hnglifh-Latin Di(flionary that 

 ever was publiflied. It is printed in London in 1542, in folio, and 

 has, under the word Gigas, the paflage which is quoted at the bot- 

 tom of the page f . 



If 



* * About thirty years pafied, and fornewhat more, I nayfelfe beynge with my 



* father fyr Rycharde Elyote, at a Monafterye of regular Chanons, called Juy 



* churche, two myles from the citic of Sarifburye, beholde the bones of a de- le 



* man founde deep in the grounde, where they dygged ftone, which beinge joyned 



* togyther, was in length xiiii. foote and ten ynches, there beynge raette ; whereof 



* one of the teethe my father hadde whych was of the quantytie of a greatte 



* walnutte. This have I wrytten, bycaufe fomme menne wy!le belcve nothynge 



* that is out of the compafle of theyr owne knowlege, and yet fom of them prefume 



* to have knowledge above any other, contempnynge all men but them felfes or 



* fuche as they favour.' — It is for the reafon mentioned by this author, that I have 

 given fo many examples of greater fize of men than is to be feen in our days, 

 to which I could add feveral other concerning bodies that have been found in this 

 our Ifland, particularly one mentioned by Hector Boece, in his Dcjcript'ion of Scot' 

 la?id, prefixed to his Scotch Hiftory, where he tells us, that, in a ctrtain church, 

 which he names, in the {hire of Murray, the bones of a man of much the fame fize 

 as thofe of the man mentioned by Elyote, viz. fourteen feet, were preferred. One of 

 thefe bones Boece himfelf faw, and has particularly defcribed. 



