880 



Avebury. — The Beckhampton Avenue. 



ever this may have been, there certainly the stone stands, implying 

 by its actual position a distinct curve in the part of the avenue as 

 it left Avebury. 



And now with respect to the second test adduced by Mr. Jackson; 

 i.e., the delineations, given by Aubrey and Stukeley respectively, of 

 the vallum, or earthwork, surrounding the temple. On this point 

 I admit that the engraving of Stukeley is too symmetrical ; this 

 however may possibly have been the fault of the engraver, for I 

 must here state that, however fanciful may have been some of his 

 theories, this inaccuracy is the one solitary instance of the slightest | 

 deviation from scrupulous accuracy which I have ever detected in 

 the plans or descriptions of Stukeley ; Mr. Long, in his admirable 

 compendium, " Abury Illustrated," accurately describes this earth- 

 work as " not quite circular ; " but let anyone compare the two 

 plans of Aubrey and Stukeley with that given by Mr. Long — which 

 is, I think, singularly accurate — and he will see that the vallum of 

 Aubrey deviates from that of Mr. Long much more in its irregularity 

 than Stukeley's does in regularity. 



Thus much respecting the two test instances noticed by Mr. 

 Jackson. I will now notice two others in addition. 



Aubrey, in his " Survey," draws the southern circle or temple as 

 just one-half the diameter of that of the northern temple, whereas 

 Stukeley makes them of equal diameter. 



Now happily we have remaining a segment of each of these 

 circles or temples (five stones of the southern and four of the 

 northern) , sufficient to enable us to judge of the utter inaccuracy of 

 this part of Aubrey's plan ; in which, over and above this grave 

 blunder, he has dotted down the stones in the most " higgledy 

 piggledy" manner and with the most utter disregard of their 

 relative distances, whereas Stukeley has placed them all in their 

 exact actual positions. 



And then, as a final test, both Aubrey and Stukeley have given 

 an engraving of the Church ; and here I venture to say that whilst 

 that of Aubrey would be almost equally appropriate as the drawing of 

 any other Church in Wiltshire, that of Stukeley, considering the small 

 scale, is given with an accuracy that is really marvellous, an accuracy 



