ry begins when the living begin to care
about a good opinion of those who come after them. Some of the single
Cornish pillars tell us little indeed; nothing, in reality, beyond the
fact that they were erected by human skill, and with some human purpose.
Some of these monoliths seem to have been of a considerable size. In a
village called Men Perhen, in Constantine parish, there stood, "about five
years ago,"--so Dr. Borlase relates in the year 1769,--a large pyramidal
stone, twenty feet above the ground, and four feet in the ground; it made
above twenty stone posts for gates when it was clove up by the farmer who
gave the account to the Doctor.(56) Other stones, like the Men Scrifa,
have inscriptions, but these inscriptions are Roman, and of comparatively
late date. There are some pillars, like the Pipers at Bolleit, which are
clearly connected with the stone circles close by, remnants, it may be, of
old stone avenues, or beacons, from which signals might be sent to other
distant settlements. The holed stones, too, are generally found in close
proximity to other large stone monuments. They are called _men-an-tol_,
hole-stones, in Cornwall; and the name of _tol-men_, or _dol-men_, which
is somewhat promiscuously used by Celtic antiquarians, should be
restricted to monuments of this class, _toll_ being the Cornish word for
_hole_, _men_ for _stone_, and _an_ the article. French antiquarians,
taking _dol_ or _tol_ as a corruption of _tabula_, use _dolman_ in the
sense of table-stones, and as synonymous with _cromlech_, while they
frequently use _cromlech_ in the sense of stone circles. This can hardly
be justified, and leads at all events to much confusion.

The stone circles, whether used for religious or judicial purposes,--and
there was in ancient times very little difference between the two,--were
clearly intended for solemn meetings. There is a very perfect circle at
Boscawen-un, which consisted originally of nineteen stones. Dr. Borlase,
whose work on the Antiquities of the County of Cornwall contains the most
trustworthy information as to the state of Cornish antiquities about a
hundred years ago, mentions three other circles which had the same number
of stones, while others vary from twelve to seventy-two.

"The figure of these monuments," he says, "is either simple, or
compounded. Of the first kind are exact circles; elliptical or
semicircular. The construction of these is not always the same,
so