ALEXANDER GORDON, THE ANTIQUARY. 23 



with liis antiquarian friend on many knotty points of interpreta- 

 tion and deduction. A learned scholar and antiquary then resident 

 there as Fellow of his College, Thomas Hearne, — himself one of the 

 most voluminous of writers, whose works, in all their editions, extend 

 to about one hundred volumes, — has recorded the fact in his diary 

 with this comment on his brother antiquary : " This Dr. Stukeley 

 is a mighty conceited man, and it is observed by all I have talked 

 with that what he does hath no manner of likeness to the originals. 

 He goes all by fancy. In short, as he addicts himself to fancy alto- 

 gether, what he does must have no regard among judicious and truly 

 ingenuous men." A more recent biographer, in the " Penny Cyclo- 

 psedia," sums up his character in this fashion : "No antiquarian ever 

 had so lively, not to say licentious, a fancy as Stukeley. The idea 

 of the obscure, remote past, inflamed him like a passion. Most even 

 of his descriptions are rather visions than sober relations of what 

 would be perceived by an ordinary eye ; and never, before or since, 

 were such broad continuous webs of speculation woven out of little 

 more than moonshine." Such was the author of the " Account of a 

 Roman Temple, Arthur's Oon," in the estimation of critical and dis- 

 criminating judges. But the old proverb holds good, that "a man 

 is known by his friends ;" and the estimate of Gordon stands in 

 amusing contrast to svich inappreciative verdicts. After pronouncing 

 that " Dr. Gale's and Burton's Itineraries will be famous whilst 

 letters are in the world ;" he adds, " nor, I hope, will the labours and 

 industry of my worthy friend Doctor Stukeley be ever forgot, who 

 has favoured the public with so many notable discoveries in antiquity 

 and other branches of valuable erudition." 



As to Arthui-'s Oon, the first notice of it occurs in the Historia 

 Britonum of Nennius. In form it coincided with the bee-hive houses 

 of Scotland's and Ireland's primitive Christian era, and its masonry was 

 not greatly different from that of the Scottish round towers, popularly 

 ascribed to the Picts. Whether it was a sacellum or a mausoleum, 

 a templum termini, or what else, no two antiquaries were agreed. 

 But in this, at least, the pair of enthusiasts concurred, that it was 

 " not unlike the famous Pantheon at Rome, before the noble portico 

 was added to it by Marcus Aurelius :" only Gordon must needs note 

 that the Pantheon is of mei-e brick, " whereas Arthur's Oon is made 

 of regular courses of hewn stone." This imhappily proved its ruin. 

 In 1743, Sir Michael Bruce, the barbarian on whose lands it stood,, 



