of the Great Trilithon at Stonehenge. 277 



approached it, walk away from Stonehenge, where, when he arrived, 

 he for the first time saw the marks, newly cut, as he believed, by 

 the very men who had just left the spot. This evidence, circum- 

 stantial though it be, appeared conclusive enough. 



Direct testimony was however soon after obtained in the person 

 of an eye-witness of the proceeding. Joseph Spreadbury, a hedger 

 and ditcher on the same farm, of the age of about 45 years, 

 remembers as a little boy being at Stonehenge, having been sent 

 there with his father's breakfast or dinner, and actually seeing 

 these marks cut in the stone, by a man who appeared to be a 

 mechanic ; he having a hand-basket with him, from which he took 

 the chisels with which he cut the marks ; soon after doing which 

 he walked off in the direction of Salisbury. He does not remem- 

 ber there being another man with him, but says he may have been 

 joined by a companion soon after leaving the stones. Spreadbury's 

 evidence shows that the marks were cut some years later 

 than supposed by Mr. Zillwood the schoolmaster, and by Pike 

 the shepherd, and probably not earlier than the year 1827 or 

 1828. 



Such is all the history which can now be obtained of the markings 

 by which the curious and the learned were in danger of being led 

 astray. What can have been the motives which could have induced 

 any man to take the labour of cutting a complex mark of this 

 kind on so hard a stone as silicious-grit, cannot easily be deter- 

 mined. It may have been only that common but reprehensible 

 vanity, which every day leads people to deface monuments of all 

 6orts, by leaving on them a record of their visit. Whether, in 

 this instance, there was any more deep laid scheme to mislead 

 and deceive, can only be conjectured. 



Every reader of the novels of Scott can hardly fail to have been 

 reminded by my narrative, of the stone which Monkbarns dug up ; 

 and on which he found, as he thought, " the figure of a sacrificing 

 vessel and the letters A. D. L. L.," which he translated Agricola 

 Dicavit Libens Litbens. Who does not remember the passage where 

 Edie Ochiltree bursting rudely on the Antiquary, undeceived him 



