marks of superstitious labour, to be discoverable on many other curious knolls of rock; but it is possible that the indentations taken for artificial traces of a mysterious mode of religious worship, are often merely the works of nature. That the deities of the Druids might be worshipped under the semblance of rocks (the emblems of firmness, durability, and protection) is, however, quite probable; as a similar superstition can be traced amongst many nations, and as a reverence for the supposed sanctity of certain rocks and stones has been evinced, in a faint degree, by the Irish and Welsh in ages not very remote. *

The same antiquarian writer describes another species of stu pendous stone work, which he is disposed to consider as rockdeities of the Britons. These are termed, in Cornwall, Tollmen, from the Cornish words Toll, a hole, and Maen, a stone. They consist of "a large orbicular stone, supported by two stones, between which there is a passage "+ The incumbent mass is of a prodigious size, and was probably placed on the subjacent rocks by some great natural convulsion, though the passage beneath may, perhaps, have been assisted by art, and the whole adopted for some use of priestcraft.

I pass the more quickly over these supposed vestiges of a rude superstition, as it is quite impossible to ascertain, with any resemblance of precision, their destined use or appropriation. Not that the conjectures of ingenuity are wanting; but, in this instance, they impart little interest to the subject on which they are employed. The Rocking-stones may have been used in divination, or in imposing on the multitude, by an indication of divine assent or repulsion; and Rock-basins may have been appropriated to the preservation of lustral water; or to the reception of the blood of victims; or to the retention of libations. But all these

* For more extended remarks on this subject, see Borlase's Antiq, of Corn. wall, p. 170.

+ Borlase's Antiquities of Cornwall.-See a description of a celebrated and very curious Tollmen, in the Beauties for Cornwall, p. 453—4.

these vestiges are as open to the unsatisfactory chimera of fauey, as the hoar which frost spreads over vegetation, or the mimic-alps of an autumnal sky; since we are necessarily involved in the gloom of entire ignorance, respecting the particular forms and rituals of an unlettered superstition, of so very remote an existence.

CROMLECHS.*-The Cromlech is a rude monument, consisting of several huge upright stones, which act as supporters to a stone placed nearly horizontally. The number of upright stones is very frequently three; but by no means determinately so; and is often not less than six. In a few instances the supporters are still more numerous. The stone forming the top, or covering, is generally of a swelling form; approaching to convexity; and is almost invariably placed in a position more or less shelving. Cromlechs are usually found on spots which are elevated by nature; and are sometimes raised on Carnedds, or hillocks of an artificial construction. Two are occasionally united, or nearly so; and several may be often seen in the close vicinity of each other, and near sepulchral barrows or carnedds. They, likewise, occur in the midst, or on the edge, of circles of stones arranged by the hand of art. That these are hiefly, if not uniformly, monuments of the early Britons is scarcely to be disputed ;† and that they were connected with the rituals of the Druidical religion would appear to be probable, from the frequency with which they occur in the neighbourhood of vestiges which can be rationally attributed only to the Druids.

Considerable

Many of these curious monuments are noticed in different volumes of the Beauties, and particularly in those for Cornwall, Devonshire, and Wales. A Cromlech in Cornwall forms the Vignette to the second volume of the Beauties; and one in Devonshire to the fourth volume.

+ Mr. Gough has advanced many arguments in support of a notion that the Cromlechs of Britain were of Danish workmanship; but it is truly remarked in the Beauties for Cornwall, p. 389 (note) that many of these monuments exist in the most hidden recesses of the Welsh mountains; districts which the Danes never penetrated.

to 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 inankind; 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; and, 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. 662.

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 te have been practised by the same early Britons 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. 156—7.

The