X: STONEHENGE AND THE STARS* 



AMONGST the works of Thomas Hearne 

 and in the volume consecrated to Lang- 

 toft's Chronicle there is hidden away a 

 quaint and amusing pamphlet entitled, A Fool's 

 Bolt soon shot at Stonage, which is there ascribed 

 to an anonymous author who is believed to have 

 actually been one John Gibbons, who was a Pur- 

 suivant at Arms (1629-1718). This entertaining 

 discourse commences with a tale of 



" a wander witt of Wiltshire, rambling to Rome 

 to gaze at Antiquities, & there skrewing himself 

 into the company of Antiquaries, they entreated 

 him to illustrate unto them that famous Monument 

 in his country called STONAGE. His Answer 

 was that he had never seen, scarce ever heard of, 

 it. Whereupon, they kicked him out of doors, & 

 bad him goe home, & see STONAGE ; and I wish 

 all such ^Esopical Cocks as slight these admired 

 Stones & other our domestic Monuments (by 

 which they might be admonished, to eschew some 

 evil, or doe some good) & scrape for barley Cornes 

 of vanity out of foreigne dunghills, might be 

 handled, or rather footed, as he was." 



* Stonehenge and other British Stone Monuments, astronomically 

 considered. By Sir Norman Lockyer. Macmillan and Co. 1906. 



Recent Excavations of Stonehenge. By William Gowland. 

 Archcelogia, vol. Iviii, p. 37. 



A Bibliography of Stonehenge and Avebury. By W. Jerome 

 Harrison. Wilts Arch, and Nat. Hist. Maga*int t vol. xxii. 



