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Curiosities--Basaltic and Rocky: British

It has long been a dispute among the learned, by what nation, and for what purpose, these enormous stones were collected and arranged. The first account of this structure we meet with, is in Geoffrey of Monmouth, who, in the reign of King Stephen, wrote the History of the Britons, in Latin. He tells us, that it was erected by the counsel of Merlin, the British enchanter, at the command of Aurelius Ambrosius, the British king, in memory of four hundred and sixty Britons, who were murdered by Hengist the Saxon. The next account is that of Polydore Virgil, who says that the Britons erected this as a sepulchral monument of Boadicea, the famous British queen. Inigo Jones is of opinion, that it was a Roman temple, from a stone sixteen feet long, and four broad, placed in an exact position to the east, altar-fashion. Mr. Charlton attributed it to the Danes, who where two years masters of Wiltshire : a tin tablet, on which were some unknown characters, supposed to be Runic, was dug up near it, in the reign of Henry VIII. but is lost.

Its common name, Stonehenge, is Saxon, and signifies a Stone Gallows, to which these stones, having transverse imposts, bear some resemblance. It is also called, in Welsh, Choir Gawr, or the Giant's Dance. Mr. Grose thinks that 4 F Dr. Stukeley has completely proved this structure to have been a British temple, in which the Druids officiated . He supposes it to have been the metropolitan temple of Great Britain, and translates the words choir gawr, the great choir, OI temple. Mr. Bryant is of opinion, that it was erected by a colony of Cuthites, probably before the time of the Druids; because it was usual with them to place one vast stone upon another, for a religious memorial; and these they often placed so equally, that a breath of wind would sometimes make them vibrate. Of such stones, one remains in the pile of Stonehenge. The ancients distinguished stones erected with a religious view, by the name of Amber; by which was signified any thing solar and divine. The Grecians called them petræ ambrosia. Stonehenge, according to Mr. Bryant, is composed of these amber stones: hence the next town is denominated Ambresbury; not from a Roman Ambrosius, but from the ambrosia petra, in whose vicinity it stood. Some of these were Rocking Stones; and there was a wonderful monument of this sort near Penzance, in Cornwall, which still retains the name of Main-amber, or the Sacred Stones. Such a one is mentioned by Apollonius Rhodius, supposed to have been raised in the time of the Argonauts, in the island of Tenos, as the monument of the two-winged sons of Boreas, slain by Hercules; and there are others in China, and other countries.