investigation into the history and circumstances of each particular example. With the scant materials that exist, this is by no means easy; but as it seems the only mode by which truth can be arrived at, it is the task to which we propose to devote the following pages; should it prove impossible, we may indeed despair.
It is curious to observe how different would have been the fate of this science, had the Scandinavians followed up the line of investigation commenced by their writers in the sixteenth century. Olaus Magnus, for instance. Archbishop of Upsala, writing in 1555, describes the megalithic remains of Sweden with the sobriety and precision with which a man in the present day might give an account of the cemeteries of Kensal-green or of Seutari. Some, he tells us, marked battle-fields, some family sepulchres, others the graves of greatly distinguished men,[1] In like manner, Olaus Wormius, in 1643, describes the tombs of the kings of Denmark as a writer in the present day might the Plantagenet sepulchres in Westminster Abbey.[2] Neither have any doubt or hesitation about the matter, and though Dr. Charleton was hasty in following this author too implicitly in applying his data to this country, still, so far as I can form an opinion, if that line of research had been steadily followed out, there would now have been as little doubt about the age of Stonehenge, as there is about that of Salisbury Cathedral. Stukeley, however, cut the vessel adrift from the moorings of common sense, and she has since been a derelict tossed about by the winds and waves of every passing fancy, till recently, when an attempt has been made to tow the wreck into the misty haven of prehistoric antiquity. If ever she reaches that nebulous
- ↑ "Veterum Gothorum et Suevorum antiquissimus mos est ut ubi acrlores in campis seu montibus instituissent et perfecissent pugnas, illic erectos lapides quasi Egyptiacas pyramides collocare soliti sunt . . . Habent itaque hæc saxa in pluribus locis erecta longitudine x. vel xv. xx. aut xxx. et amplius et latitudine iv. vel vi, pedum, mirabili situ sed mirabiliori ordine et mirabilissimo charactere, ob plurimas rationes collocata literato, rectoque et longo ordine videlicet pugilarum certamina, quadrato, turmas bellantium, et spberico familiarum designantia sepulturas ac cuncato equestrium et pedestrium acies ibidem vel prope fortunatum triumphasse," &c. &c.—De Gentibus Septentrionalibus, &c. p. 48.'
Or again:—"Quos humi recondere placuit honorabiles statuas lapidum excelsorum prout hodie cernuntur mira compagine in modum altissimæ et latissimæ januæ, sursum transversumquo viribus gigantum erecta."—Ibid. 49.
- ↑ 'Danicorum Monumentorum,' libri sex, 22 et seqq.
