Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 8.djvu/211

 AND THE PROBABLE DATE OF STONEIIENGE. i:>.'i theses, and, for reasons which appear satisfactory, rejects thein. lie is inchiiecl to fix the round temple far more to the eastward, than would suit the views either of our own or of the Swedish anti(iuaries ; and whether we agree with him or not, the criticism which identifies Stonehenge with this teni})le of the Hyperboreans, rests, I think, on grounds nuich too (piestionable to secure the assent of any cautious inquii-er. The opinion which assigns to Stonehenge, and indeed to uU our Uruidical structures, a date posterior to the lloman conquest, is the one most generally entertained at the present day. It has been elaborately maintained by Mr. J. Rickman.^ He objects to an earlier date for Avebury, because it adjoins to a Roman road ; because it resembles a Roman am|)hi- thcatre ; because its dimensions seem to be adjusted to the measure of a Roman mile ; and lastly, because the engineer, who made the Roman road, did not avail himself of the deep ditch round Silbury, to lessen the steepness of the ascent ; whence we may conclude that such ditch was not in existence when the road was made. His attempts to support the second and third "* of these positions appear to the writer to be most unsatisfactory ; and with respect to the first, it might be answered, that the Roman road from Silchester to Bath was, in all probability, preceded by a British trackway, and that the point where the Ickneld road crossed such trackway, was w^ell suited for the site of a great national temple ; while the fact that the Roman engineers did not avail themselves of the lower level afibrded them by the ditch, might be owing to their unwiUingness to wound the national prejudices by violating unnecessarily a national moiunncnt. Rickman maintains, that tools of mixed metal, such as are found in the barrows of the early Britons, would liave been unequal to the " respectable w^orkmanship," which he observed on the tenons and mortices of the Stonehenge ^ ArchcEoJof/ia, Vol. 28. the measurement correct, how could the ■• The avenue which stretched south-east symuieti-y of the structure le anyway from the niahi temple, was intersected by de|)endent on the distance of Silliury from the Roman road, and, accordinj; to Rick- the point, where the road cut throu},'h the man, the distance of Silbury both from avenue ? Tiie proper inference seems to the point of intersection and from the be, that the Romans would not allow a centre of the Avebury circle, was a Roman great public road to be diverted out of its mile. I can only say, that according to my course, in order to spare the mere adjuncts measurement, Silbury hill is distant from of a Imihling, wliose hnl.l upon the respect the centre of the circle more than a Roman and reverence of the |i('oi>le had probably mile, and from the point of intersection been for some time declining. very consklciably lens. But even were