Ill 
the joint labours of the wise men of the east for some two 
thousand years before the age we are considering. It is not, 
then, too bold a conjecture to suppose that the circles of 
stones interlacing each other, the central hearth, the triple 
unity, the eastern position, and so forth, should be embodied 
in what we call Druidical remains. I have in a former paper 
alluded to Stonehenge; I have since examined Avebury, 
which appears to be “ the largest and in most respects the 
most important of the class in this country."”* The three 
immense unhewn stones (one of which is now fallen), which 
probably commemorated the Druidical trinity, conjoin with a 
multitude of other particulars in denoting it a temple devoted 
to the worship we are considering, in the compass of which 
“half a million of people could stand,” or some 250,000 be 
seated. It is not adapted to the purposes of defence, and it 
would be as reasonable to suppose Westminster Abbey to 
have been erected for the purpose of interring the illustrious 
dead as the circuit of Avebury to have been formed simply 
as a British cemetery.f 
By the Pythagoreans the intervals between the heavenly 
bodies were supposed to be determined according to the laws 
of musical harmony, so that their grand organ was the music 
of the spheres. 
Shakespeare seems to have had some notion of this sort of 
worship, for which he may be excused as having been, as 
Fergusson says, “ brought up, as most Englishmen have • 
been, in the Druidical faith” ! He could dispense with pews 
and cushions. 
“ How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank ! 
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music 
Creep in our ears ; soft stillness, and the night, 
Become the touches of sweet harmony. 
* Fergusson, p. 61. 
t Mr. Fergusson says that, “ There is certainly no passage in any author, 
classical or mediaeval, which would lead us to suppose that our forefathers 
were addicted to the worship of a deity so unlikely to be a favourite in such 
a climate as ours !” I should have been ready to suppose that the very 
reverse conclusion would be drawn from the visit of the sun being only once 
in nineteen years. A deity who made himself so scarce would be more 
likely to be venerated than in climes where his rays were those of the far- 
darting Apollo. “ The moon walking in brightness,” was evidently a more 
attractive object in Arabia in the times of Job. Our author’s argument, 
derived from the absence of “the groves and oaks these sectaries (!) delighted 
in,” must be questionable to anyone who has trod with pleasure among the 
beautiful trees which adorn the now-picturesque village occupying the site 
of this temple — for such I venture to call it, although it is certainly too 
large to be covered in from the weather, which our modern worshipper 
thinks essential. 
