130 



Vestiges of the Earliest Inhabitants of Wiltshire. 



against Hannibal, which were quite untrue and indeed belied by 

 facts. 



But to return to the Druids : they thought it unlawful to wor- 

 ship under roofs : hence their open temples: and when they wished 

 to avoid distraction, interruption and intrusion, they chose the 

 deepest recesses of the sacred woods; groves of oak 1 more especially, 

 which even the Hebrew patriarchs seem to have venerated ; 2 and 

 whence they obtained the notorious mistletoe, severed from the 

 parent tree with such ceremony, and so honoured in their worship. 

 The British Druids moreover were notoriously learned : 3 they were 

 proficients in astronomy ; 4 masters in eloquence ; able instructors 

 of youth ; had a considerable knowledge of physic ; 5 and that they 

 had no little acquaintance with the mechanical arts, the erection of 

 those colossal stones, so noble from their proportions, at Stonehenge 

 and Avebury, amply demonstrate. 9 



1 The Greeks had their sacred oaks at Dodona [Herod : lib: ii., cap. 55], and 

 " Sacra Jovi quercus " was a common maxim. Carte's History of England, p. 42. 



Lingard's History of England, vol. i., p. 16. 

 Sharon Turner's History of England, vol. i., p. 73. 

 Camden's Britannia, p. 14. 



2 Genesis xxxv. 4, 8. Joshua xxiv. 26. Compare Ezekiel vi. 13. Hosea 

 v., 13. 



3 In connection with the advanced state of learning in ancient Britain, it may 

 amuse the inhabitants of Wiltshire to read the following monkish legend recorded 

 by John Rous, the Warwick antiquary. " Our Chronicles say that some very 

 learned men came from Greece to Britain with king Brutus, and made choice of 

 a place, which from them is still called " Greeklade" (Cricklade) where they 

 dwelt, and established an University. Among these learned Greeks there were 

 some who excelled in the knowledge of medicine ; who took up their residence, 

 and fixed their physical school at a very healthy place, not far distant, which 

 from them is called " Lechlacle." Afterwards these schools were removed to 

 Oxford, as more commodious and pleasant." [Camden's Britannia, p. 241.] 



4 Compare the Astral religion, the study of the heavenly bodies, and the 

 astronomical knowledge of the early Chaldsean nation, as pointed out in Rawlin- 

 son's Ancient Monarchies, vol. i., p. 139, 201. 



5 Henry's History of Great Britain, vol. ii., p. 2. 

 6 How these vast masses of stone were transported and erected, and how the 

 cross-stones were placed in the positions where we now find them, are questions 

 which have caused no small amount of speculation and controversy : though 

 much light sems to have been thrown upon the subject by the Assyrian dis- 

 coveries of Mr. Layard, especially the famous bas reliefs at Koyunjik, representing 



