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cumftance, by saying, that ancient traditions, immemorially preferved on the spot, affert their dedication to the Sun and Moon. Thus we read in that Hiftory: "Eaft of Drumcruy, in the isle of Orran, is a circular temple, the diameter of whofe area is thirty paces; and in the south of the fame village another, in the centre of which ftill remains the altar, confifting of a thin broad ftone, supported by three others. In the greatest island of the Orkneys, commonly called Mainland, are likewife two temples near Lockstenis, one of which is by ancient tradition believed to have been dedicated to the Sun and the other to the Moon; they are each of them surrounded by a trench, like that about Stonehenge; many of the stones are above twenty or twentyfour feet high, five broad, and one or two thick, Near the leffer temple, ftand two ftones of the fame bignefs with the reft, through the middle of one of which is a hole, which ferved to faften victims or the wicker coloffus, in which crowds of perfons were burnt alive. At Bifcaw-woon, near St. Burien's, in Cornwall, is a circular temple, confifting of nineteen ftones, diftant from each other twelve feet, having another in the centre much higher than the reft." The fame writer

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defcribes

defcribes a remarkable Druid temple ftill remaining entire at Harries, one of the Weftern iflands of Scotland, and the most wefterly of them all, which exhibits, in its plan, both aftronomical science and ftrong remains of that phyfical worship to which the ancients were fo grofsly addicted, as it seems to have been erected to the Sun and the Elements, and in it, he informs us, Apollo, the deity of Claffernifs, was adored. The body of this temple confifts of twelve obelisks, or columns, placed circularly, about feven feet high, two broad, and fix diftant from one another, with one thirteen feet high in the centre, shaped like the rudder of a fhip, doubtless the gnomon. It has likewife four wings, ftretching out from its fides, confisting of four columns each, pointing directly eaft, fouth, weft, and north, to reprefent either the four elements, or the four cardinal points, as the twelve pillars doubtlefs were intended to denote the twelve figns of the Zodiac. The avenue, which is north, confifts of two rows of columns, of the fame fize, and is erected at the fame diftances as the former: the breadth of the avenue is eight feet, and the ftones compofing each fide nineteen in number, a ftrong additional proof of their acquaintance

with the ancient Indian cycle of nineteen years.*

STONEHENGE, A STUPENDOUS SOLAR TEM,

PLE: THE CIRCLE INDICATES HIS DISK;
AND THE NUMBER OF STONES FORMING
IT BEING SIXTY, THE GREAT SEXAGE-
NARY CYCLE OF THE ASIATIC ASTRO-
NOMERS,

pre

BUT, of all the circular temples of the Druids, as STONEHENGE is the moft confiderable, a defcription of it, from the moft ancient and the most modern writer on that fubject, waving all intermediate ones, is here fented to the reader, I take it for granted, that the paffage cited by Diodorus, from Hecatæus, and before alluded to by Mr. Knight, is this identical temple of Stonehenge, or CHOIR GAUR, its ancient British name, meaning, according to Stukeley, the great cathedral, or grand choir; and furely no national church could ever better deserve that distinguished appellation.

• Hiftory of the Druids, vol. i. p. 90.

Diodorus

Diodorus relates that there is an island to the north, or under the Bear, beyond the Celtæ, meaning Gaul, little inferior in magnitude to Sicily, in which the Hyperborean race, as the Greeks denominated all thofe nations that were fituated north of the Streights of Hercules, adored Apollo, as the supreme divinity. That in it was a magnificent confecrated grove with a circular temple, to which the priests of the island frequently reforted with their harps to chaunt the praises of Apollo, who, for the space of nineteen years, (the famous aftronomical cycle of the Druids) used to come and converfe with them, and what is more remarkable, they could (as if, fays Rowland, they had the use of telescopes, and I believe they had) fhew the moon very near them, and discover therein mountains and heaps of caverns.* He defcribes the island as a fruitful and pleasant island, and relates that most of the inhabitants of it were priests and fongfters. He adds, that they had a language of their own; and that fome Greeks had been in it, and presented valuable gifts to their temple, with Greek infcriptions on them, and that one Abaris came from them to

*Diod. Sic. lib. ii. p. 130.

Greece,

Greece, and contracted friendship with the Delians. He concludes with faying, that, over their facred town and temple, there prefided a fort of men called Boreadæ, (fo denominated by the Grecians of that day,) who were their priefts and rulers.

Such is the account given near two thoufand years ago of this celebrated temple, for it could mean no other, by Diodorus, the Sicilian, from a writer ftill prior in time. I fhall now, for the benefit of thofe of my readers who may not be poffeffed of Stukeley and other expenfive writers on the fubject, infert the most recent, and, I believe, the most accurate, account of this grand but ruinous. fabric extant; it is by Mr. Gough, in the new edition of Camden's Britannia.

"STONEHENGE ftands in the middle of a fine flat area, near the fummit of a hill, and is inclosed with a circular double bank and ditch, near thirty feet broad, the vallum inwards; after croffing which, we ascend thirty yards before we reach the work,

"The whole forms a circle of about one hundred and eight feet diameter, from out to out, confifting, when entire, of fixty ftones, thirty upright and thirty impofts; of which remain only twenty-four upright, feventeen

ftanding

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