again find the metonic cycle.—Near Clenenney, in North Wales, is a circle containg 38 stones, two metonic cycles.—Near Keswick is an oval of 40 stones. This I have little doubt is in number 40, for the same reason as the second circle at Stonehenge, already explained.—Dr. Borlase says, ‘There are four circles in the hundred of Penwith, Cornwall, (the most distant two of which are not eight miles asunder,) which have 19 stones each, a surprising uniformity, expressing, perhaps, the two principal divisions of the year, the twelve months, and the seven days of the week. Their names are Boscawen’unn, Rosmodereny, Tregaseal, and Boskednan.’ Here the similarity could not escape Dr. Borlase; but the idea of a cycle never occurred to him. There is no room to attribute any thing here to imagination.”
In the same chapter my reader may see many other examples of astrological numbers in the old temples of the Druids. Before I quit the temple of Abury, I beg leave to suggest whether it may not be probable that the number of the stones of the inner circle of the serpent’s head may have been 19 instead of 18; that it may have had a centre stone; and that the Longstone Cove which stands at a little distance may have been considered as part of the temple? This would give, instead of 142 for the number of stones in the inner circles, the number 144, and would not derange any of the other cyclar sums, as my reader will find on experiment. Amidst the intricacy of the modern buildings and old stones, Dr. Stukeley and Sir R. C. Hoare might easily be led into so trifling a mistake. I beg my reader to make this correction, then to take his pencil and try an experiment or two with the different numbers, and he will find how curiously the sums into which I first supposed the great circle to have been divided come out, viz. 12 signs, 36 decans, 72 dodecans, and 360 degrees. All this may be nonsensical enough, but are not all judicial astrology and the ancient mystical doctrines of lucky and unlucky, sacred and profane numbers, nonsensical? It is of no use to say they are nonsensical. Can any one say that even the wisest of the ancients did not entertain these doctrines?
9. What I have said respecting the division of the great circle into 360 degrees, and into decans and dodecans, receives a strong confirmation from the description which Josephus gives of the mystical meaning of the Jewish tabernacle, &c. He says, “And when he ordered twelve loaves to be set on the table, he denoted the year as distinguished into so many months. By branching out the candlestick into seventy parts he secretly intimated the Decani, or seventy divisions of the planets; and as to the seven lamps upon the candlesticks, they referred to the course of the planets, of which that is the number.” Again: “And for the twelve stones, whether we understand by them the months, or whether we understand the like number of the signs of that circle which the Greeks call the Zodiac, we shall not be mistaken in their meaning.”[1] The Decani here mentioned must evidently allude to what Sir William Drummond calls Dodecans, each of which consists of five degrees; and what is here called 70 must mean 72, for 72 × 5 = 360; but 70 × 5 would only equal 350, neither the division of the circle, nor of the year which Moses made to consist of 360 days. In his account of the flood the year or circle is divided exactly according to my theory. In his explanation Josephus is confirmed by Philo, another very eminent person, who states the identical doctrine. The expression used here respecting the seventy divisions of the planets, shews that when the word seventy is used, seventy-two must be understood, as it still is, and always was, in some other cases; for example, in that of the version of the seventy, though LXXII. always is meant. It is here evident that though a secret meaning was known to exist, its nature was only a subject of speculation.
- ↑ Antiq. B. iii. Chap. vii. If this tabernacle was not astrological, I should be happy to be informed what would make it so.
