similarity in their instruments of art.' But with respect to their habits during the brazen age, nothing more than this can safely be concluded,that they were content to walk in the old paths, and that no one during that time distinguished himself by successful usurpation, or by innovations under the pretence of reform. They lived and died unknown to fame, and we know as little of the men who used our Celts, as we do of the man in the moon. The next was a more aspiring age; not that of iron-for that was the poet's own hard lot, which he bitterly bewails-but an intermediate age, an age of heroes and demigods; that is to say, of ambitious princes and priests, who, as at Thebes, and in the Trojan War, conspired to overturn the ancient institutions, not openly, but insidiously, under the name of reform; and therefore they contrived to be invested with titles, which properly belonging to the Noachidæ gave them considerable authority, especially among those who were imbued with the Eastern philosophy, and believed that their gods might pass through repeated incarnations on earth, in the persons of distinguished men. Thus they succeeded in changing the political and religious aspect of the world; and besides the present reward of success, the profit and glory which crowned their enterprises, they were exalted after death nearly to the same rank, and consigned to the same abodes, as the patriarchs 1 Aus allem sehen wir, dass die ältesten Völker nicht so fremd gewesen sind, als man sonst geglaubt hat, und dass die Religion ein Band war, welches eine Gemeinshaft unter ihnen knüpfte und erhielt. - K. Barth's Hertha, p. 132. themselves. Both the Daimons, therefore, and the Heroes, were located at the furthest extremity of the known world in the oceanic islands of the Blessed', or, as Demetrius distinctly asserted, in the British islands 2: and on this account, in one of them particularly, the inhabitants were deemed by the other Britons sacred and inviolable. With respect to the Daimons, Plutarch lets us into an important secret: after stating that they were the associates of Saturn, while he governed the world, he adds, that they were seers, who had the power of prophecy 4; in other words, they were an order of Druids, Vates s : but, when they were consulted upon subjects of great importance, the oracle issued from the sleeping-place of Saturn; for he was said to lie asleep in a cave, where he was confined by rocks of gold, and supplied by birds with ambrosia, which diffused its fragrance over all the island, 1 Τοῖς δὲ δίχ ̓ ἀνθρώπων βίοτον καὶ ἤθε ̓ ὀπάσσας 2 Ζεὺς Κρονίδης κατένασσε πατὴρ ἐς πείρατα γαίης Τρὶς τοῦ ἔτους θάλλοντα φέρει ζείδωρος ἄρουρα. Hes. Op. et Dier. 166. Τῶν περὶ τὴν Βριττανίαν νήσων - Plutarch. De Defectu Orac. sect. 18. 3 Ἱεροὺς καὶ ἀσύλους. Ibid. 4 Πολλὰ μὲν ἀφ' ἑαυτῶν μαντικοὺς ὄντας προλέγειν, τὰ δὲ μέγιστα καὶ περὶ τῶν μεγίστων, ὡς ὀνείρατα τοῦ Κρίνου κατιόντας ἐξαγγέλλειν. — Plutarch. De Facie, &c. sect. 26. 5 Θεολόγοι περιττῶς τιμώμενοι, οὓς σαρουίδας (i. e. Druidas) ὀνομάζουσι. χρῶνται δὲ μάντεσιν, ἀποδοχῆς μεγάλης ἀξιοῦντες αὐτούς· οὗτοι δὲ τὰ μέλλοντα προλέγουσι, καὶ πᾶν τὸ πλῆθος ἔχουσιν ὑπήκοον. — Diod. Sic. lib. v. p. 308. 6 Τὸν Κρόνον ἐν ἄντρῳ βαθεῖ περιέχεσθαι ἐπὶ πέτρας χρυσοειδούς και θεύδοντα. Ibid. flowing from the rock as from a fountain. During his slumbers there, the whole of the divine counsels were revealed to him; and the reason why he is said to sleep is very remarkable because sleep tranquillises the Titanic emotions, and renders the soul pure and clean. It is evident, therefore, that the place of confinement was a mystic cell of purification, in which the Archdruid, the representative of the Patriarch, immured himself to practise austerities, and to utter his oracular responses. Even the history of the Christian church affords too many examples of caverns employed for the former purpose. "An extensive grotto on the Dnieper is lined with very small cells, hardly wide enough for young children to occupy, in which, though there was not room for them to turn themselves, certain saints, nevertheless, spent years of their lives without bread, supported only by herbs and the water which dropped from a place in the rock over their cells. Some made themselves close prisoners in their cells, and were supplied with meat and drink through a niche above."1 The compassionate persons who brought these supplies were the birds of Saturn; but the Celtic saint must have fared better than the Christians, for the savoury smell of his viands was scented far and wide. After all, however, they may not have been so ambrosial as the tradition represents. It is probably no more than a poetical embellishment derived from the ancient name of Stonehenge, the largest and most important temple of the Arkites in these islands: 1 Macarius's Travels, part ii. that was Petræ Ambrosiæ; and it is usually accounted for thus: the Saxons under Hengist treacherously murdered upon that spot three hundred of the principal Britons, with whom they were feasting and drinking; and Ambrose, a native chief of great renown, erected those celebrated stones in memory of his murdered countrymen. But Milton throws a juster light upon this transaction, when he contends that Ambrose was a prophet: "I perceive not," says he, "that Nennius makes any difference between him and Merlin; for that child, without father, that prophesied to Vortigern, he names not Merlin but Ambrose 1:" he was, therefore, the very man who personated Saturn. Another tradition, however, connects him with this monument in a different way:-he is said to have advised the king (Ambrosius) to send to Killany, in the county of Meath, for a circle of stones, and transport them to Salisbury Plain. The king laughed; but Merlin assured him that they were stones of great efficacy, and brought thither formerly by the heroes from Spain, who placed them as they are at present. Their motive for bringing them was this: in cases of sickness, they medicated the stone and poured water on it, and this water cured any disorder. Uther Pendragon went with 15,000 men and conquered the Irish; but could not move the stones, till Merlin, by his art, drew them, without labour, to the ships." Now we may venture to assert, in the teeth of the Milton's Hist. of England, Book iii. 102. 2 Roberts's Antiquities of Wales, p. 72. tradition, that Stonehenge never made this tour from Gades to Salisbury Plain through Ireland. It only means that men, whose ministrations were to give efficacy to the stones, were procured from a college of priests, at Killany, and that they would not come at the bidding of the king, but were persuaded by the solicitations of Merlin. But it is evident that the stones were not considered as monuments, nor merely as parts of an architectural design. They were sacred in themselves, and had the divine power of conferring health through the medium of water; and the veneration with which they were regarded went back to an unknown antiquity. It is a great mistake, therefore, to derive their name from the king or prophet, who, in fact, is indebted to them for his own appellative he was the priest of the Ambre temple, which gave the name of Ambresbury to the nearest town, now Amesbury. Its real etymology must be one which will equally well suit another remarkable Petra Ambrosia on the Cornish coast. The famous Logan Stone, which has recently afforded so much scope both to the mischievous propensities and to the mechanical skill of our sailors, was called Menamber. It was eleven feet long, six wide, and four in depth, and so nicely poised, that a child could move it. "The vulgar," says Borlase," used to pay this stone more respect than was thought becoming good Christians; which was the reason that part of the lower stone was cut off in Cromwell's time, which has given it its present reclining posture." Now, if it would have been absurd to 1 Borlase's Antiquities of Cornwall, p. 172. |