Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume II.djvu/306

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From these inexhaustible mines of holders a careless choice would have been sufficient for the purpose of selecting stones proper for the temple; as most of them assume a form approaching to the paral- lelogram. That this was really the case, and that the architect of Abury had not recourse to the labour of the chissel, in order to give these huge masses of rock a regular shape, is evident from the first glance of such of them as remain; a simplicity which throws back its erection into the remotest depths of time. Indeed, a second survey of this temple only served to confirm that idea which I had before thrown out in a publication of last year;* that Abury was constructed by the aborigines of Britain, or that body of Celts which first peopled this country. Others may conceive that the rude- ness of its materials arose from the observance of that law which confined the Jews to the use of unhewn stones in the building of their stone altars: cC And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, vC thou shalt not build it of hewn stone, for if thou " lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it:" but 1 am free to confess myself as attributing the total absence of art in the appearance of the stones, to arise from a want of knowledge of its instru-

Vidc Excursions, p. i8j.

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