some centuries past, whenever stone has been wanted, whether to build houses or walls, or to pave the roads, the Temple was the ready quarry to which every one had recourse; and within the last two years, three, if not four, of the few remaining stones have been broken up, and used for no other purpose but to form a kind of wall to keep up the earth on the right hand side of the road to Swinden.

I first entered the town over the fields from Beckhampton. I saw one or two stones of the Beckhampton avenue as I approached the church, but nothing of the Temple itself, and the first feeling was something of disappointment; for the idea I had formed of the place was, that it was a village among stones, here a cottage, and there a stone peering upwards high as the roof of the cottage; and that the first grand features of the place would be, that a number of cottagers had built their huts in a magnificent Stonehenge. The church, and the four houses near it, one of which is a handsome old hall, with garden and extensive outhouses, appear little different from an ordinary country village; but proceeding onward the mound becomes very conspicuous, and seems to promise something extraordinary.

I would, however, rather recommend to any one who should visit Abury, to approach it, as I afterwards did, by the road from Marlborough, which nearly corresponds with the line of the Kennet avenue, and enters the sacred enclosure by the original opening out of that avenue. As we approach along that road, a large piece of the mound presents itself upon us, bending towards the north, over which may just be discerned the ridges of one or two of the houses built within. The mound, which sweeps to the south, though equally bold and elevated, is hardly in sight. At a distance, the pinnacles of the church tower are seen rising above the trees, which here, as in most of the villages on the Wiltshire Downs, are thickly planted amongst the houses. In the foreground is seen, still erect,

one of the stones which formed the Kennet avenue, standing on the left of the road, encrusted with dark brown, grey, and ochry lichens.

Close to this stone, and at the point where meet the roads from Marlborough and from Beckhampton, close

also to the entrance within the inclosure, stands a toll-bar house. On entering the inclosure, four of the stones, still erect, immediately present themselves, and they appear to stand at the angular points of a square, This, however, is soon found to be a deception, for on going up to them, the two nearest to the mound are found to stand near each other, and the other two at a considerable distance. Those nearest to the mound belonged to the great, or outer circle. They may be called flat stones; being in breadth about five yards, and in thickness about one. They stand edge to edge, that is, with the flat sides towards the interior and towards the mound, and the curve in which they stand appears to correspond, as exactly as in so rude a work could be expected, with the curve of the ditch and mound. The interstice between them, or what we may call the inter-columniation of the outer circle, is about eight yards and a half. I had no means of making an exact measurement; but this corresponds well with Stukeley's account of the number of stones in the outer circle; and perhaps a more accurate admeasurement of the space occupied by these two stones, would afford decisive evidence of the accuracy of Stukeley's report, that the number of stones in this circle was exactly one hundred.

Advancing toward the other uprights, we see before us several of the houses which compose that part of the village which is within the inclosure. We find that these uprights are flat stones of nearly the same height and size with those in the outer circle, and like them standing edge to edge. We discover also three other stones, which have evidently once belonged to the same arrangement with those which remain in their original position, but which are lying prostrate on the ground; and these five stones have evidently been five adjacent stones of the outer circle of the Southern Temple. Not that it could be fairly inferred from the present appearance that there was once a double circle and a central pillar: for of the pillars and the inner circle not a vestige remains, and these five are all that remain of the outer circle of this Southern Temple. But the curvature (though on a first view, when they are seen from the ground by which I approached them it appears to be rather

that of the flat side of a very long ellipse) is soon found to be of a circle of no very great diameter.

All these remain in the state in which they were seen by Sir Richard Hoare in 1812.

Enter the town, and turn to the right along the principal street, all within the inclosure, till we arrive at an opening through the mound, the road being continued towards the moor. From the opening by which we enter, to this opening, the mound is entire. Sycamores and ashes have been planted on portions of it. At this extremity one or two stones belonging to the outer circle remain. On entering the field, of which the next portion of the mound is the boundary, two uprights of the outer circle immediately present themselves, like the former, and still conforming to the curvature of the mound; and on advancing a little further, two others belonging to the same circle are in sight. We also soon perceive two belonging to an inner circle, and on approaching these a most interesting sight presents itself; two uprights, taller than the rest, and standing much nearer together, at an angle of about 110 degrees. These are two of the three stones which formed the cove or cell of the Northern Temple. Their very appearance shows that they were originally something different from the rest. These have lately been placed in very imminent peril. The two just before-mentioned belonged to the circles by which the cove was surrounded; but in 1812, there were four of them, and it is only within the last two years that this number has been reduced. I saw the man who destroyed them. He was a labourer employed on Mr. Naldy's farm, and it was by Mr. Naldy's orders that they were broken to pieces. The reason was that they stood inconveniently to him in his husbandry arrangements; but this reason would press quite as strongly against the two cove-stones, for they stand in the midst of his hayricks, and may perhaps occasion some little inconvenience in the piling up or taking down the produce of the farm.

But beside the destruction of two uprights, the same person acknowledged to having broken to pieces one which had fallen; and another person in the village told me that two of the

prostrate stones, besides the two uprights, had lately been broken to pieces, by tenants of Mr. Thring of Wilton, of whom Mr. Naldy was one. It was added that the tenant had received permission from the owner; but this may be a mistake. Such an unparalleled remain may be in little esteem with

"the dull swain,

Who treads on it daily, with his clouted shoon:"

but something better may be expected where the proprietorship resides. There is, however, no replacing them as the Rocking-stone was replaced; for they were broken to pieces, and the new wall on the Swinden road is composed of the fragments.

The labourer employed in the work told me that the earth had been examined to the depth of a yard or more, at the foot of the cove stones, to see if there were any evidences of sacrifices having been performed there, but nothing peculiar was observed.

The road to Swinden is cut through the mound, and at the point of intersection one of the stones of the great circle is seen, and a little beyond it others. But here the mound is thickly planted and enclosed, so that there is not the means of walking along it, and so continues till we arrive at the next opening, which was the outlet towards the Beckhampton avenue. The remaining part of the mound, namely, that between the avenue gates, is in fine preservation, very bold and elevated; one or two stones of the outer circle are seen below, and from this part, and this only, there is a view of Silbury Hill to the South, the apex of which is above the line of the distant horizon, and of Tan Hill, a natural elevation in the distance.

One or two observations more I must beg permission to make.

1. The common people of Abury uniformly call these stones Sazzenstones. This orthography more correctly represents the sound than Sarsen-stones, which occurs in the "Ancient Wiltshire :" but whether the term is applied exclusively to these, or is common to blocks of stone like these but in their native beds, I cannot say.

II. By whatever people this temple was erected, they were evidently people who were accustomed to the use of the decimal arithmetic. The ave

nues consisted each of two rows, each composed of a hundred stones. The greater circle was of a hundred stones. The larger circles of the inner temples, each thirty. This cannot all have been accidental: and here lies a great part of the importance of establishing Stukeley's enumeration. But there is some reason also to think, that with the decimal arithmetic they had something mingled of the duodecimal, exactly as we have at present, who have names of the numbers up to twelve, before we begin to repeat the ten: for the inner circles of the two smaller temples, each consisted of twelve stones. If this was the effect of de

but which I think they might, by their personal influence, at least for the present prevent. Few parts of Stukeley's writings are more interesting than those paragraphs in which he shows the successive depredations made upon this temple in the last century, and names the persons who committed them. And I hope that all future "Tom Robinsons" will have their names and deeds handed down to posterity in the pages of the Gentleman's Magazine. JOSEPH HUNTER.

Mr. URBAN, FEEL obliged

July 14.

two arithmetics were familiar to the persons who constructed this temple, a much later date must, I think, be assigned to it than is commonly supposed.

III. I cannot regard this temple as at all different in specie, but only in extent, from other circular temples: and especially that at Arbor-Low, in Derbyshire. Arbor-Low, to be sure, is quite a miniature work when it is looked at in connection with Abury: but there is the same lofty mound of earth encompassing a circular area, and the same appearance within, of stones arranged in a circle corresponding with the lines of the vallum. But, suppose the people who constructed Arbor-Low, were designing to produce a similar work of far greater extent and magnificence, the design of producing greater extent and greater magnificence is all that is wanted to account for the additional appendages at Abury, without having recourse to the fiction of a serpent. For in the first place, what would more naturally suggest itself, when they had got the more spacious inclosure at Abury, than to place within it the two inner temples of smaller dimensions? and if more was wanted to render the place glorious and honourable, what more natural than that the two approaches should be along avenues corresponding in structure to the edifice itself?

But I am now getting upon debatable ground, while my intention was merely to describe what I saw, or what may be deduced with little chance of error: but especially to draw the attention of the public, and of the Wiltshire antiquaries in particular, to the dilapidations which are going on,

a passage in my "History of England during the Middle Ages," for pointing out that Walter Espac, mentioned by Geoffrai Gaimar, (as the person from whom, through the Lady Constance, he obtained the first translation of the British history, to use it in the composition of his poem,) was not Walter the Bishop, but Sir Walter Espace, whom Burton mentions in the passage quoted in your last number, p. 503. D.A. Y. is quite right; I have examined the old chroniclers as to this knight, and, as some of your readers whom the subject interests, may like to know how he is mentioned there, I will beg your leave to add the following particulars concerning him.

John, the Prior of Hagulstad, in his brief Historia, says of him: “In 1132 Walterus Espec, vir magnus et potens in conspectu regis et totius regni, received the monks of the Cistercian order sent by Bernard, the Abbot of Clairvaux, and placed them in the solitude of Blachoumor, on the river Rie, from which the monastery was called Rievalliz."-Twysd. X. Scrip. vol. i. p. 257.

Ethelred, a future abbot of this place, thus describes him :-"Walter Espec was there; an old man, full of days; active in mind, prudent in his counsels; mild in peace and provident in war; preserving always friendship with his companions and fidelity to his king. He was tall and large, with black hair and a profuse beard. He. had an open and spacious forehead, large eyes, and a voice like a trumpet, but with great majesty of tone." The Abbot details his speech to animae his associates on the expedition o Scotland, in which the Battle of the