the Coasts of the Mediterranean Sea and part of the Indian Ocean, and settled colonies wherever the country produced any article of profitable commerce. On the Coasts of the Mediterranean, two of their earliest settlements, were Utica in Africa, and Tartessus or Gades in Spain, now called Cadiz. To the enterprising mariners and speculative merchants of this colony, Britain could not remain long unknown, and the tin of Cornwall, a metal produced in no other country known or accessible to these people, at that time, held out an irresistible temptation to establish a colony on the western extremity of Britain. From Britain the Ships of Tarshish conveyed this valuable article to the markets of Tyre and Sidon; or probably their voyage was shortened by making their settlement at Tartessus, the intermediate depot.

The abundance of these vestiges of Canaanitish idolatry, and the remains of the Phenician language in Cornwall, confirm the assertions of ancient historians, that the Phenicians carried on the tin trade with this country centuries before any other people participated in it. Mention is made of this metal, as being known in Palastine in the days of Moses, as in the following passage, "only the gold and the silver; the brass, the iron, the TIN, and the lead." Numbers xxxi. 22. From the metals thus enumerated tin must necessarily be one, for the word brass either means copper only or an alloy of copper; if the latter, it was an alloy of tin, for such was the ancient brass; therefore tin is not only noticed singly, but is also implied in the word brass: this carries the tin trade as far back as the fifteenth century before Christ. Homer, who flourished a thousand years before the Christian era, frequently mentions this metal; and the Grecians gave the name of Cassiterides, or the Islands of Tin, to the Scilly Isles. There can be no doubt with respect to the Phenician origin of most of the ancient erections of stone in Britain; but, with respect to Stonehenge; from its more artificial and architectural appearance, some have ascribed it to the Romans; and a late writer positively refers it to the fifth century. To this I

would reply; that, in the fifth century, the Christian religion had made considerable progress in Britain; near the close of the second century the great college at Bangor was founded; early in the third century the Christian religion was patronized by Constantine; and, in the fifth, Gildas founded his famous seminary ; it is very improbable then that such a magnificent Pagan structure should have been erected at this period. Besides, it has nothing Roman about it but the rude appearance of a colonnade: its character, notwithstanding this exception, is altogether British, it has its distant Pillar, or Kibla, a constant appendage to the British or Druidical temple. There is an instance of an intermediate stage, between the covered and the uncovered colonnade of these temples in that brought from Guernsey by General Conway, and set up in his park near Henley-on-Thames: this temple consists of the Pillar and the Cromlech alternately, whereas Stonehenge exhibits a continuity of Cromlechs in its outer circle, and of detached Cromlechs in the trilithons of the oval. For a specimen of the Guernsey temple, see No. 20.

The time in which Stonehenge and Abury were erected can only be approximated to by inference: the works of this kind that are the most simple may reasonably be referred to the most ancient settlers in Britain; of this description are those in Cornwall; but the more complicated are at such a distance from this primary settlement, that some ages must have elapsed before the increased population could have extended thus far into the country.

From the addition of the adytum, or inner temple, at Stonehenge and Abury, I am led to conclude that these structures were raised after the building of the temple at Jerusalem, in which such a host of Tyrian and Phenician workmen was employed; and that these recesses in the British temples had their origin in the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Hebrews. The learned Struckford, alluding to this

imitation of the Jews by their idolatrous neighbours, asserts, that there is no mention made of a covered temple by any respectable ancient writer, prior to the ereetion of the Tabernacle of the Israelites in the wilderness; if so, the imitation of this leading feature in the Jewish temple, is highly probable, since it was so well known to Hyram's builders.

In contemplating the lofty and weighty masses of Stonehenge, many people conclude that the ancient Britons possessed a knowledge of the mechanical powers, or the combination of them, superior to that of the moderns; this can only be the conclusion of those who are totally unacquainted with the present state of mechanical science in this and the neighbouring countries: the immense mass of granite brought over a swampy country to the city of Petersburgh, is a sufficient refutation of this opinion. About eight years ago, a gentleman of Salisbury, one of a small association of antiquaries, of whom the learned and persevering Sir R. C. Hoare may, I believe, be considered a member, very obligingly, drove me to Stonehenge. In our way thither he informed that these gentlemen and himself being determined to give to the world a practical confutation of this error, agreed to send for a person from London to survey the spot and give an estimate of the charge of re-erecting three of the fallen stones, that is, one entire trilithon; they did so: after duly considering the matter, the person applied to, agreed to raise the uprights, and replace the top stone for 300; this, he told me, they were willing to give him, and would have done it, but it was necessary to have permission from the lord of the manor, (the late Duke of Queensbury,) on applying to him for the purpose, he declined giving his consent by saying, that he thought the whole more picturesque in its present state, and desired that, on that ground, they would excuse him.

We cannot reasonably suppose the Phenician colonists in Britain, and their rude descendants, (being miners, hunters, or shepherds,) possessed a skill in

mechanics, or in any art or science, superior to that which the parent state had attained to.

In the days of Solomon, the Tyrians excelled all other people in arts and manufactures: among the arts, in which they were thus pre-eminent, were architecture and sculpture; and, on this account, they were resorted to by the neighbouring nations; but that they were very deficient in mechanical skill, is sufficiently obvious from the prodigious number of Hyram's people that were employed in erecting the temple at Jerusalem, and it is neither impossible nor improbable, that some of these very workmen and overseers might come over to the assistance of the British priests, in the erection of their magnificent temples of Abury and Stonehenge. The stones employed in building Solomon's house at Tadmor, in the Wilderness, are spoken of as being large or costly, stones of eight cubits, and stones of ten cubits high: the largest stones of Abury are nine cubits. high, and about the same width; some of those of Stonehenge are from eight to ten cubits high, but narrow. The two famous pillars of brass at the porch of the temple, were each eighteen cubits high, by four cubits diameter, but then they undoubtedly were hollow.

When Solomon numbered the strangers, that is, the Tyrians, that were in Jerusalem, while the Temple was building, they were found to be

70,000 Bearers of burthens

80,000 Hewers in the mountains

3,600 Overseers of the work

TOTAL 153,600

A number which can only be accounted for by a deficiency in mechanical science,

which made it necessary to resort to physical power chiefly.

The stones of Abury and Stonehenge, being brought pretty near to the place of destination, the erection of them would be much facilitated by a simple process, and one with which the Britons were familiar; a bank, or platform of earth, about nine or ten feet high, with an inclined plane of very easy ascent might be made of earth and chalk, up this the stones might be partly drawn, and partly impelled by levers,. till each stone, being forced beyond its balance, slid easily into the cell in the chalk prepared for it.

With respect to the use of these erections; they were, doubtless, the places of general rendezvous for the performance of their religious rites, for judging the people, and for exercising the native students, as well as those of other countries, in the religion and learning of the British priests. It was the practice of Samuel to go once every year to the places of convention, marked by the consecrated Stones of Memorial; that is, to Mizpeh, where he himself had erected the pillar which he called Ebenezer, to Gilgal, and to Bethel, to sacrifice unto the Lord, and to judge the people. To judge the people was one of the solemn duties of the Druids, at their general conventions, as well as to perform their sacred rites; the Druids of Gaul were instructed in Britain.* As worshippers of the sun, the times of the grand conventional meetings were regulated by the primary divisions of the ecliptic tnto solstices and equinoxes: the distant stone Pillar, when viewed from the centre of the temple, directed the eye to that point of the horizon in which the sun rose at the time of the summer solstice; three other stones, lying in the trench of Stonehenge, directed the eye of the central observer to the rising and setting of the sun at the time of the winter solstice, and to its setting in the summer: thus far these British structures were astronomical, and, with the exception of what I have already noticed, I believe they were no further so.

* Cæsar. Comment. lib. vi.