Considerable difference of opinion has prevailed, as to the purpose for which Cromlechs were designed. Dr. Borlase, and several other writers of much reputation, believe them to have been intended as sepulchres; and the former observes "that the supporters, as well as covering stone, are no more than the suggestion of the common universal sense of mankind; which was, first, on every side to fence and surround the dead body from the violences of weather, and from the rage of enemies; and, in the next place, by the grandeur of its construction to do honour to the memory of the dead. Our altar-tombs, at this day, are but a more diminutive and regular Cromleh.”* When found at the centre,

or on the border of, a sacred circus, the same writer supposes the Cromlech to have "formed the sepulchre of one of the chief priests, or druids, who presided in that district; or of some prince, a favourite of that order."

While Dr. Borlase is decided in believing these monuments to be sepulchral, he admits it as likely that they afterwards became the scenes of the "Parentalia, or where divine honours were paid, and sacrifices performed to the manes of the dead;" but he contends that those rites must have been celebrated at some distance from the Cromlech, as that monument, from the want of sufficient size, and the inclined position of its upper stone, could not have been conveniently used for sacrificial fires.

Mr. King and Mr. Rowlands agree in supposing that Cromlechs, although, perhaps, often connected with the commemoration of the distinguished dead, were not themselves intended for sepulchres; but rather, in such instances, for altars of oblation. In regard to the larger Cromlechs, of which several specimens. are noticed in the "Beauties," Mr. King suggests a conjectural appropriation, which, if not convincing, is assuredly ingenious. From the conspicuous site on which they are usually placed, and from the readiness with which the flow of blood might be traced on a slab of stone, large and sloping as is the covering stone of these

Antiq of Cornwall, p. 228.

these Cromlechs, he supposes that they were the altars on which human victims were sacrificed, in dreadful attempts at divination.

However chimerical such an appropriation of the larger Cromlechs may be deemed by some readers, there appear fair grounds for supposing that this species of monument, in general, was intended for sacrificial, rather than for sepulchral purposes; and that the Cromlech was strictly an altar.* From the nature of its construction, unless very great constituent portions have been removed from every known Cromlech throughout the kingdom, it could not afford, within its chest-like interior, protection for the deceased human body, either from the insults of an enemy or the inclemency of the weather. The cavity formed by the upright and incumbent stones is, likewise, often dissimilar in shape ; aud, in the instance of the Cromlech termed Kitt's Cotty House, in Kent, is divided, by the position of the middle-upright, into the resemblance of two cells, but neither of them sufficiently large to receive the body of a man at full length. On the other hand, the interior of a well known Cromlech near Dyffrin House, in Glamorganshire, is not less than seventeen feet in length, and thirteen feet in width. While the interior is thus unsuited to the purpose of secure sepulture, I must think that the incumbent slab almost declares its object, and is precisely adapted to the solemnization of animal sacrifice.

But that Cromlechs were frequently, though perhaps not uniformly, connected with commemorations in honour of the dead, appears highly probable, from their so frequently occurring in the immediate neighbourhood of Barrows, or Cairns, evidently funereal;

G

• On a subject entirely open to the exercise of conjecture, the remarks of Tradition may not be unworthy of notice.-A Cromlech in the midst of a circle of stones, in the Isle of Arran (Scotland) is asserted, by the thinly spread and stationary inhabitants of that lonely district, to have been the place" on which the ancient inhabitants burnt their sacrifices in the time of the heathens." See Martin's Description of the Western Isles, p. 220.

Beauties for South Wales, p. 66%.

funereal; or in some instances forming, indeed, the apex of such tumuli; and the slanting position in which the covering stone, with very few exceptions, is systematically placed, would appear to be well calculated for the slaughter of animals whose streaming blood was sacrificed to the shade of the deceased chieftain, priest, or warrior. Beneath, or in the close neighbourhood of some few Cromlechs, bones have been discovered; but this does not appear to indicate decidedly that even such Cromlechs were raised as funeral monuments; since we may readily believe it likely that pious hands would place the remains of the priest, or of the earnest devotee, near the altar of his faith and religious rituals.

UPRIGHT STONES, SINGLE OR NUMEROUS, BUT NOT CIRCULAR.—In many parts of England and Wales are found, in an erect position, very massy and high stones, either singly or two or three together; and, from their unhewn rudeness and solid character, together with the absence of all tradition concerning them, many of these are supposed to have been raised by the ancient Britons. The custom of commemorating events of distinguished importance by similar natural pillars, is ascertained to have existed in the very first ages of society; and is so simple and obvious a mode of celebration, that we may readily believe it to have been practised by the same early Britous who raised the Carnedd to the memory of the dead, and worshipped the deity in the midst of a stony circle.

An instance of the single stone, probably of British erection, and as likely to be commemorative of some important occurrence, may be noticed at Rudston, in the East Riding of Yorkshire. This pillar is not less than twenty-four feet in height, five feet ten inches in breadth, and two feet three inches in thickness. Three stones, probably erected by the Britons on a similar occasion, occur at Trelech, in Monmouthshire,* and may be adduced as a specimen

of

These stones are noticed in the Beauties for Monmouthshire, p. 136-7.

The

of the monument consisting of several pillars. These are of unequal height, the tallest being 15 feet above the ground; and they stand too nearly in a right line to have formed part of a circle used for religious purposes.

But, although not constituting portions of a temple, there is reason for believing that large erect stones, placed artificially in the ground, may have been regarded with religious reverence by the ancient Britons, and may, indeed, have been worshipped by them, as representatives of their fanciful gods. A similar species of idolatry is known to have prevailed in the earliest ages of mankind;* and a superstitious regard for these rude monuments (the probable relique of idolatrous veneration) is ascertained to have existed amongst the inhabitants of Britain, even in the seventh century.†

It is, likewise, probable that single stones were often erected as memorials of civil contracts; but the investigator may be sometimes misled if he hastily attribute such erections to a solema purpose, whether religious or civil, as many of the ponderous stones often seen on heaths, in fields, or by the road side, were, possibly, placed as mere boundary marks; and, perhaps, in ages long subsequent to those now under discussion.

BARROWS; CAIRNS; AND FUNERAL RELIQUES OF THE ANCIENT BRITONS.-The funeral monuments of the earliest ages of society, are calculated, by their simplicity of construction, to survive the sculptured stone, and engraved brass, of periods more G 2 refined.

The editor of that part of the Beauties describes the three stones as being probably "set up as sepulchral memorials, or to designate a place of Druidical worship."

See Antiq. of Cornwall, p. 162; and Mona Antiqua, p. 52.

+ Borlase's Antiquities, &c. p. 162-163. It is believed that the early Christian missionaries often compounded with the prejudices of the Pagan Britons. Unable to dissuade them from viewing these shapeless, ponderous, stones as objects demanding reverence, the Christian ministers embellished the rude emblems of divinity with the figure of the cross, and thus piously diverted the adoration of the heathen into a more sacred channel.

refined. These we know to have consisted, amongst many nations, of heaps of stones, or earth, raised over the body of the deceased; and such we find, from unequivocal testimony, to have been the practice with the ancient Britons.

On many of the downs, the moors, and other waste lands of Britain, hitherto deemed repulsive to the labours of the agriculturalist, are still existing barrows, or tumuli, which sometimes meet the eye in melancholy solitude, but which, in other districts, are piled around in an emphatical profusion, and impart to the surface a wavy roughness, fraught with the truly impressive story of days long past, and otherwise beyond the reach of record.— Beneath these rude heaps lie buried the ancient inhabitants of the island!

The tumuli, or barrows, found in England and Wales* vary much in shape and size, as well as in situation. The greatest variety is, perhaps, to be seen in the neighbourhood of Stonehenge; and Sir R. Colt Hoare † describes the peculiarities of the most prominent, and divides them into classes, in the following manner.

The Long Barrows "differ considerably in their structure as well as dimensions; some of them resemble an egg, cut in two lengthways, and the convex side placed uppermost; some are almost of a triangular form; whilst others are thrown up in a long ridge, of a nearly equal breadth at each end; but we find, more generally, one end of these barrows broader than the other, and that broad end pointing towards the east: we also more frequently find them placed on elevated situations, and standing singly; though in some groups is seen one long barrow intro

duced

• These tumuli are noticed in many parts of the Beauties. Some of the most curious occur in the volumes for Cornwall; Derbyshire; Dorsetshire; Hampshire; Lincolnshire; Kent; and Wiltshire. Cairns, or Carnedds, are frequently described in the Beauties for Northumberland, and for Wales.

+ Hist. of Ancient Wilts. Part I. Introduction. In the same place are presented engravings of the most curious varieties of funeral tumuli, existing in the above neighbourhood.