of the earthwork, are still to be traced. There were entrances to the great outer work on the eastern and western sides. The advantage of the worked stone for buildings in progress at Salisbury may sufficiently account for its disappearance here, though it is not the less startling to find so few traces of the Norman city. It is not easy to deter

mine the date of the earthworks. They may have been British, strengthened and deepened during the Roman period; or, as modern antiquaries are much inclined to believe, the strengthening of the ditches and the defences of the central portion may have been Saxon works, possibly directed by Alfred himself, who, during the Danish wars, held Sarum as an important position.

There is no lack of material for reflection, therefore, as the visitor stands on the ruined mounds of Old Sarum, and looks across its desolate area-half tilled, half tangled with

coppice; or, turning toward the downs, marks the straight line of what was once Roman road, which disappears in the far distance, pointing toward Silchester. We proceed our

selves to climb the downs, following, for some part of our way, the higher road to Amesbury. But whatever course we take, we soon find ourselves on the upper level of the chalk country, and reach "that goodly plaine or sea of carpet, which," wrote John Evelyn, "I think for evenness, extent, verdure, and innumerable flocks, to be one of the most delightful prospects in nature.” These upper undulations of the plain are little altered; and the "sea of verdure" passes into the horizon on either side of the road still almost unbroken. The sheep abound. The bustard has, it may be said, completely vanished. The bird is, perhaps, not quite extinct in this country, and a specimen is now and then, but at very rare intervals, shot in Norfolk, or on the southern chalk downs.* But when Gilpin, at the opening of the present century, journeyed into the west of England in search of "picturesque beauty," he encountered flocks of bustards on Salisbury Plain, and describes them as "the only resident inhabitants of this vast waste."

The country between Old Sarum and Stonehenge is by no means entirely level, though the modern traveller will hardly be "frighted at the great hills," after the fashion of Mr. Pepys; nor can he well describe himself as journeying, like Sir Launcelot―

"Far o'er the long backs of the bushless downs,"

for the rounded summits of many of the hills have been planted, chiefly in order to provide shelter for game. But, as has been said, the plain itself is still a great sheep-walk, and the impression it gives is still much the same as that which Turner has conveyed to us in his drawings of Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge. On that great plain of Salisbury, according to Mr. Ruskin, the artist "had been struck, first, by its widely-spacious pastoral life; and, secondly, by its monuments of two great religions-Druidical and Christian." There is perhaps no point from which the cathedral and Stonehenge are visible at once. But they are often seen within a few hours; and the thought of one may very well affect our feeling about the other. Turner, we are told, was not a man to miss the possible connection of these impressions. "He treats the shepherd's life as a type of the ecclesiastical, and composes his two drawings so as to illustrate both." The sunlight and shadow that on a breezy day chase each other along the green hill-slopes are hardly more characteristic of the plain than the rains and fierce storms that so often sweep across it, and it is under this latter aspect that Turner has chosen to contrast his subjects. In the drawing of Salisbury, the plain is swept by "rapid, but not distressful rain. The cathedral occupies the centre of the picture, towering high over the city, and is surrounded by a great light. In the foreground stands a shepherd, leaning on his staff, whilst children shelter under an adjoining ridge. This is the teaching of the great Christian Church. The rain is the rain of blessing-abundant, but full of brightness. Golden gleams are flying over the wet grass, and fall softly on the lines of willows in the valley-willows by the water courses. The little brooks flash out here and there between them and the fields. Turn now to Stonehenge. That also stands in great light, but it is the Gorgon

* In 1856, a fine male bustard was taken near Hungerford.

light. The sword of Chrysaor is bared against it; the cloud of judgment hangs above. The rock-pillars seem to reel before its slope, pale beneath the lightning. And nearer, in the darkness, the shepherd lies dead, his flock scattered."*

It is thus we reach Stonehenge, and under no inappropriate impression. Whether or not we choose to connect this mysterious monument with the Druids and their possibly savage rites, it is certain that the awe and wonder which it inspires are not a little increased by a background of lowering cloud, or the flash and roll of the tempest. Under any circumstances, however, the size and dignity of the stones are hardly appreciated until we stand almost under them. This is perhaps owing to the bareness and extent of the surrounding landscape; but, whatever may be the first disappointment, it is but momentary. Evelyn's judgment will be ours: "Stonehenge is a stupendious monument." "Come thither," writes Pepys, "and find them as prodigious as any tales I ever heard of them, and worth going this journey to see. God knows what their use was. Gave the shepherd woman for leading our horses, 4d.”

and theories are gathered into Warton's sonnet :

For their "use," the principal statements

name.

"Thou noblest monument of Albion's isle!
Whether by Merlin's aid from Scythia's shore

To Amber's fatal plain Pendragon bore,
Huge frame of giant hands, the mighty pile,
To entomb his Britons slain by Hengist's guile;
Or Druid priests, sprinkled with human gore,
Taught 'mid thy massy maze their mystic lore;
Or Danish chiefs, enrich'd by savage spoil,
To Victory's Idol vast, an unhewn shrine,
Rear'd the huge heap: or, in thy hallowed round,
Repose the kings of Brutus' genuine line;

Or here those kings in solemn state were crown'd:
Studious to trace thy wondrous origin,

We muse on many an ancient tale renown'd."

But these questions we must leave for the present.

And before touching on the earlier notices of Stonehenge, it may be as well to insist on the true meaning of the It does not signify the "hanging stones" (in the sense of "suspended" stones), nor has it anything to do with Hengist. The full form of the word in Anglo-Saxon was Stánhengena," or possibly, in the singular, "Stánhengen;" and this can only signify the "stone gallowses," or the "stone gallows." A permanent gallows of stone was by no

means unknown among our Saxon ancestors. They were evidently struck by the resemblance of these great triliths to such an erection; and the name implies that those who gave it, at any rate, were ignorant of the true history and of the primitive "use" of Stonehenge.†

"Modern Painters," Vol. V., pp. 147-8.

† See a note, by J. M. Kemble, on the signification of "Stonehenge," in Notes and Queries (Second Series), Vol. III., p. 2. "I think it quite possible," he adds, "that the Triliths may have served as 'gallowses' on some grand occasion, and that after a defeat some British leaders may have been sacrificed to Woden by tying them up on the same." Hanging was the form in which captives were sacrificed to Woden.

The first impression, on reaching Stonehenge, is of the utter confusion of the monuments. We are so accustomed to "restorations" of Stonehenge, to the due ordering, on paper, of circles and ellipses, that we are hardly prepared to find, on the spot, so complete a disarray of the stones which at one time may have formed them.

After such a personal visit, we are not surprised to be told that no "restoration" is quite satisfactory; that, although there is very little discrepancy of opinion with regard to the outer circle, or the five great central trilithons, there is the greatest possible variety of opinion as to the number and position of the smaller stones inside the central, or between the two great circles. Taking first, however, what is certain, we see that Stonehenge, or the ruin of it, stands in the centre of a circular enclosure formed by a bank of earth, with an exterior ditch. On the north-east of the enclosure was the straight avenue or approach, the earthen banks marking which are, in fact, continuations of the bank forming the circular enclosure. The diameter. of. this enclosure is about 336 feet. In the centre are the great stones. When complete, there was an outer circle of thirty roughly-squared piers, spaced with tolerable regularity, and connected at the top by a continuous line of thirty imposts, forming a corona or ring of stone at a height of sixteen feet from the ground. The uprights were cut with tenons, which fitted into mortice-holes hewn in the under sides of the horizontal stones; and these imposts were dovetailed to each other. Sixteen of the uprights and six imposts retain their original position. Within this great circle was the grandest and most imposing portion of Stonehenge: an ellipse, formed by five, or perhaps by seven, great trilithons or triplets of stones, each having two uprights and one impost. Each trilithon was distinct, and the series was not connected by imposts, as in the case of the outer circle. They were not all of the same height, since they rose progressively from north-east to south-west, until the highest trilithon attained an elevation of twenty-five feet. Of these huge masses, two remain perfect, and there are two single uprights, one of which leans considerably. The outer circle, as well as this great ellipse, are constructed entirely of the so-called "Sarsens," a silicious sandstone, found on the sides of the Wiltshire Downs and in the adjoining valleys. But besides these, there remain, within the main circle, a number of stones of a very different character-syenite for the most part. These must have been brought from a great distance, since the formation is not found in this part of Britain.† Some of these stones occur in the space between the outer circle and the great ellipse, and there are others within the ellipse. None are so large or so important as the Sarsen blocks, and the highest does not rise to more than seven feet six inches. The rest are generally smaller. It is in the attempt to determine the original position and arrangement of these stones that so much difficulty presents itself. It has been asserted, and the usual "restorations" of Stonehenge accept it as proved, that there was a complete circle of these smaller stones between the outer ring and the ellipse-a circle of pillars, about four feet in average height, and from thirty-six to forty in number; and again, that there was an arrangement of them, three stones

* Fergusson: "Rude Stone Monuments," p. 90.

They are of the same nature as the igneous rocks of part of the Lower Silurian region of North Pembrokeshire and Carnarvonshire. The "Sarsens" are believed by Mr. Prestwich to be consolidated portions of the sands and quartz of the plastic clay series.