CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS FAMILY. 159 



LETTER XLII. 



FKOM SAMUEL BARKER TO G. W. 



Lyndon, Nov. 1, 1785. 



Dear Sir, 

 My best acknowledgements are due for the very friendly 

 treatment I received at Selborne, and the agreeable time I 

 passed there. You know, I presume, how large a party we 

 form'd at Fyfield. I stay'd there near a fortnight, and left 

 it on Monday sennight. From Fyfield my uncle H. and my- 

 self paid a visit to the venerable remains at Abury. The ap- 

 parent effects of time and weather, and the rude figure of the 

 stones, called one's ideas back to the remotest antiquity, and 

 to those primitive days when, as we read, the patriarchs used 

 to set up great stones in commemoration of any remarkable 

 event. 



Silbury hill is a wonderful performance. A hill whose per- 

 pendicular height is 170 feet, the diameter of its base 500, and 

 of its top 100 (for such, according to Dr. Stukely, are its di- 

 mensions), is not the work of man in a state of barbarism, of 

 man the hunter nor man the herdsman, but of men collected 

 into towns and directed by governors. Surely such remains 

 prove that kingdoms have been erected and arts cultivated in 

 our island of which we have little suspicion. As I stood on 

 this wonderful tumulus I felt myself inclined to hope I had 

 seen a performance as extraordinary as the Egyptian pyra- 

 mids ; but on examining the accounts of their magnitude, I 

 find the works of our Druidical ancestors will bear no com- 

 parison with those of the Egyptian monarchs. 



How much we walked at Fyfield, how much we laughed, 

 and how we play'd trios in five parts, I imagine you have 

 heard ; so that I have only to tell you of my western expe- 

 dition on my return. To keep up my character of e.rplorator, 

 it was incumbent on me not to travel a road with which I was 



