, or erect a stair; and yet, with all
this ignorance, showed great ingenuity in selecting the situation of
Burghs, and regulating the access to them, as well as neatness and
regularity in the erection, since the buildings themselves show a style
of advance in the arts scarcely consistent with the ignorance of so many
of the principal branches of architectural knowledge.

I have always thought, that one of the most curious and valuable objects
of antiquaries has been to trace the progress of society, by the efforts
made in early ages to improve the rudeness of their first expedients,
until they either approach excellence, or, as is more frequently the
case, are supplied by new and fundamental discoveries, which supersede
both the earlier and ruder system, and the improvements which have been
ingrafted upon it. For example, if we conceive the recent discovery of
gas to be so much improved and adapted to domestic use, as to supersede
all other modes of producing domestic light; we can already suppose,
some centuries afterwards, the heads of a whole Society of Antiquaries
half turned by the discovery of a pair of patent snuffers, and by the
learned theories which would be brought forward to account for the form
and purpose of so singular an implement.

Following some such principle, I am inclined to regard the singular
Castle of Coningsburgh--I mean the Saxon part of it--as a step in
advance from the rude architecture, if it deserves the name, which must
have been common to the Saxons as to other Northmen. The builders had
attained the art of using cement, and of roofing a building,--great
improvements on the original Burgh. But in the round keep, a shape
only seen in the most ancient castles--the chambers excavated in the
thickness of the walls and buttresses--the difficulty by which access is
gained from one story to those above it, Coningsburgh still retains the
simplicity of its origin, and shows by what slow degrees man proceeded
from occupying such rude and inconvenient lodgings, as were afforded
by the galleries of the Castle of Mousa, to the more splendid
accommodations of the Norman castles, with all their stern and Gothic
graces.

I am ignorant if these remarks are new, or if they will be confirmed
by closer examination; but I think, that, on a hasty observation,
Coningsburgh offers means of curious study to those who may wish to
trace the history of architecture back to the times preceding the Norman
Conquest.