mphitheatre
have presented, the vallum and its declivities lined with spectators,
whilst the hallowed area was preserved for the officiating Druids, and
perhaps the higher order of the people!
Gentle Reader! be ye lordling or lowlier born, once more _turn back to
the engraving_. We have a subject of yesterday rife and ready for you,
on the next page; but _turn to the engraving_. Look again at those
circles, and the fantastic forms that compose them, and think of the
infatuated thousands that were wont to assemble round them, and of the
idolized sons of power that once stood within their hallowed area.
Think of those days of sacrifice and superstition--those orgies of
ignorance and barbarism--and contrast them with the happy, happy
age of religious liberty in which it is your boast and blessing to
live--and then you may read "sermons in stones," to the masterminds of
your own time. To us, the stones of Abury are part of the poetry of
savage life, and of more interest than all the plaster toys of these
days. But they may not be so with you and "FINIS." We were once
compensated for missing Fonthill and its finery, by witnessing
day-break from Salisbury Plain, and associating its glories with the
time-worn relics of STONEHENGE!
The _engraving_ and data are from Mr. Higgins's Celtic Druids, for
the loan of which and a portion of this article, we thank our friend
"JAMES SILVESTER," whose valuable note on "_Circular Temples_" must
stand over for our next.
* * * * *
We had penciled for our Supplement the following beautiful lines from
Mr. Watts's "Literary Souvenir," but they will be more in place here.
_Silbury_ is an immense mound adjoining the road to Devizes, and
opposite Abury; Sir R.C. Hoare thinks it part of Abury; but H. and
many others think it the sepulchre of a King or Arch-Druid.
SILBURY HILL.
Grave of Cunedha, were it vain to call
For one wild lay of all that buried lie
Beneath thy giant mound? From Tara's hall
Faint warblings yet are heard, faint echoes die
Among the Hebrides: the ghost that sung
In Ossian's ear, yet wails in feeble cry
On Morvern: but the harmonies that rung
Around the grove and cromlech, never more
Shall visit earth: for ages have unstrung
The Druid's harp, and shrouded all his lore,
Where under the world's ruin sleep in gloom
The secrets of the flood,--the letter'd store,
Which Seth's memorial pillars from th
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