Recent Books, Pamphlets, Articles, fye., on Wiltshire Hatters. 203 



the site of the Swanborough Hundred court, and Foxley Corner that of the 

 court of the Hundred of Stodfolde. The Rev. A. P. Morres gives a long and 

 interesting note on the large Sea Eagle lately seen at Salisbury, from which 

 it appears that this specimen, or another of the same species, was seen by 

 Mr. Bennett Stanford on Jan. 22nd, at " Great Ridge," on the Fonthill 

 estate, whilst Mr. Morres supposes that the Salisbury bird was also the one 

 seen later on in Devonshire. The Wiltshire extracts from the Gentleman's 

 Magazine are continued — Mr. Kite begins an account of John Stafford, 

 Archbishop of Canterbury — and the first part of an account of the Child 

 family and their connection with Heddington also appears, illustrated by a 

 reduced reproduction of Stukeley's view of the place. 



' iStoiielieuge and its Earthworks." In a 4to pamphlet of 11 pp., dated 

 April, 1897, Mr. Edgar Barclay, the author of the work bearing the above 

 title, published in 1895, prints a series of replies to the criticisms passed on 

 his theories and conclusions, under the somewhat enigmatic motto " Veritas 

 Tempora Filia." He argues that his theory that the cursus was the camping 

 ground of the strangers who came to take part in the Stonehenge solemnities 

 is more plausible than any other. So far, however, as one can see the only 

 arguments that he adduces in its favour are, that there are only two barrows 

 within the cursus, that it is near the River Avon, and that the fortified 

 positions of Durrington Walls and Vespasian's Camp command the path from 

 the cursus to the water, and would, therefore, serve to keep the crowds of 

 strangers, whom he pictures as camping in the cursus, in order. Again, he 

 argues that his theory that the erection of Stonehenge was the work of a 

 " brief transitional period " in the time of Agricola, is supported by the 

 analogy of the trilithons with similar erections in Tripoli, some of which 

 have Roman ruins connected with them, because " southern ideas and 

 innovations in temple building could only have spread northwards with the 

 advance of Roman dominion." If this is so it seems to follow that all 

 dolmens, circles, and other megalithic remains must also belong to the 

 Roman age, inasmuch as they exist both in the North and South — in 

 Northern Africa and Syria, as well as in France, Britain, and Denmark. 

 He relies also on the " presence of foreign stones " as " telling of foreign 

 assistance," and says " without assistance these same tribesmen could never 

 have obtained the foreign blue stones ; are we to presume that the rude 

 Celtic shepherds and herdsmen of Salisbury Plain had ships at their 

 command ? " Here again, as in his book, he ignores the geological evidence 

 lately adduced on the highest authority that all the "foreign" stones may 

 very well have come from Devonshire, and never crossed the sea at all. 

 Moreover, on page 7 he himself speaks of the existence of a regular coasting 

 trade in pre-Roman times between Cornwall and the Isle of Thauet. As to 

 the Durrington interment with a flint "spear head," &c, under a sarsen 

 stone, which one of his critics appears to have brought forward as evidence 

 of the Neolithic date of Stonehenge, Mr. Barclay is at much pains to argue 

 that this interment itself must have been of the same dato as the Romano- 

 British Durrington settlement, close to which it was found. There seems, 

 however, no reason why it should not have belonged to a far earlier age, but 



