his wife Judith), in whom, a kindly man, the writer commemorates one of the many kind friends he has lost, with a sadly small number remaining.

Lord Ossory, about forty years ago, purchased a ship's flag, which was raised on a lofty flag-staff on this tower on festive occasions, victories, &c. Both have disappeared, as in the case of the gilt ball at Bow Brickhill.

The tower is often ascended for the view; the battlements are breast-high, which would prevent fear of danger. The belfry windows are of considerable and apparently disproportioned size, but it appears, from a view, probably seventy years back, which shows the building otherwise than as now, that their height was then relieved by transoms. They are of late years frightfully blocked up by boarding, with mere eyelet holes for sound. It contained three bells, but two only remain, of considerable size and good tone. The churchyard is remarkably large, but, with the beautiful grounds and moat of the parsonage, in indifferent condition, ascribed to the non-residence of the rector.

Lidlington, near the principal road from Woburn to Bedford, is in a hilly position, and is reckoned the first picturesque object on the Bedford side the view is very beautiful on a minor scale. A rustic poet, not equal to Bloomfield, lived here, named Bachelor, thirty years since. The name only of the "park," which appears in ancient maps, still remains: there is nothing particular in the history of the parish. The church is engraved in "Fisher's Collections," with a north aisle and a leaning tower, far more outrageous than that at Pisa; but the writer was informed by his excellent friend Mr. Marsh, of Felmersham, that the drawing immensely exaggerated it. About 1810 the church, with the exception of the chancel, was pulled down, and replaced by a compact nave and tower, built by Mr. Nixon of Woburn; and, though some would term it carpenters' gothic, it is both neat and pleasing. The chancel has been since rebuilt, and a gallery has been lately erected as at Hockliffe, down one side of the nave. In the old tower were five bells; the tenor was cracked, and at the jubilee, 1809, a blacksmith was induced, by five shillings reward, to asGENT. MAG. VOL. XXXII.

cend the belfry and hammer the great bell in that dangerous structure, whilst the other bells were ringing (teste Mr. Platt, a deceased steward of the Duke of Bedford). The tower now contains the old 4th bell and a "ting tang." The church stands on the slope of the hill, and, with some trees in the churchyard, has a pleasing appearance. The living, though augmented by 1,2007. from Queen Anne's Bounty, is barely 100l. per annum.

Wootton stands on a slight elevation, about a mile to the left of the lower road leading from Woburn to Bedford.

The church is an interesting and pleasing, though not large, building. Dr. Bonney, formerly the respected archdeacon of Bedford, and now of Lincoln, who did great service to the architecture of churches in this county by a general visit, after sixty years' disuse, states it to partake of both early-English and decorated. (Ecclesiastical Topography, 1848.-H.K.B.) There is no clerestory, in which it rerembles Westoning, Harlington, and Bromham, in the same county; but the centre is lofty, and the handsome arches, rising to the roof, give it a grand appearance for the size of the building. There are only three on each side, but wide, nearly 20 feet each, and the clustered columns are lofty and elegant.

The windows also are good examples of the Perpendicular class; and one only, on the south side, is barbarised in the loss of its mullions: the centre one on this side is elevated above the other two, resembling Tilbrook, Beds, which is on a smaller scale. On the north side of the chancel is a heavy brick vestry, and in the centre of the aisle a curious, and strong, open-work wooden porch, which may date from Henry VI. to Elizabeth. The interior of this church is very neat; an open gallery at the west end of the nave, of wainscot, which has been extended to the side walls, is supported by fluted square pilasters. It is satisfactory any where to see the pious and generous designs of our ancestors-which they no more expected to be destroyed than their bones to be taken out of their coffins respected, amidst modern "purism" in architecture "iconoclasm" with a new phase-which occasionally involves some selfish or heart3 Q

less conceit. The font is supported by dwarf pilasters; the cover pushes aside, in lieu of rising. Dr. Bonney describes the "rood-screen" as "rich Perpendicular." It has fine minute work, but appeared to the writer an imitation, of the last century. The tower arch is boarded up, for comfort, but has a window, and a small rich painting of the king's arms in a white scroll frame.

Mr. Lysons tells us that the chancel contains several tombs of the Monnoux family, including the Baronets from their creation, 1660. This will account for the large number of hatchments,— sixteen,—some of them fading, on the chancel walls. There are two very fine mural monuments. The little bell is over the gable of the nave, but inclosed in a kind of black wooden cupboard, and rung by a rope within the chancel. The tower is pretty good, with double belfry windows, and a leaded spire, not equal to that of Cranfield: it contains five bells, tenor about 15 cwt. The writer is informed, by an archæological native of Bedford, that some of those at St. Paul's church are dated Wootton, consequently there must have been a bell-foundry here in the last century. The population is about 900 and the manor belongs to Sidney college, Cambridge.

Marston Mortaine, or Morteyne, lies on the Woburn road two miles nearer to that place; it is a large parish, containing nearly 1000 inhabitants, and some of the richest meadow land in this part of the kingdom, part of which is occasionally flooded in winter. This place had a market on Tuesdays, and a fair, granted about the year 1300; also a chapel of ease at Wroxhill.*

The

The church here is reckoned one of the handsomest in the county, but it is rather neat than beautiful. tower stands separately about twenty yards to the north of the chancel; no reason appearing for this arrangement. A similar instance, on a grander scale, is at Beccles, Suffolk. However, the lower story of the tower is groined with stone, and, according to the Topography," the northern vestry is also; and on both grounds, particularly

* Lysons.

the former, it strikes the writer that there may have been a cloister between the tower and church, though the cause must be obscure. There is a deep aperture, which may have been either window or door, in the second story on this side. The tower is massive, and the single belfry windows give it a heavy appearance. It contains five deep-toned bells, tenor twenty cwt. The walls are six feet thick. And it may be mentioned as a curious custom here that a May-bush is yearly put up on the top of the turret, which they call the "bushel,” and left there till the next " Maymorning."

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This church is supposed to have been built between 1440 and 1460, and a brass in the chancel is pointed out, on the spot, as that of the founder. There are five arches, and a half western one, on each side; the latter is inexplicable. The west window is decent, though not imposing: there has never been a gallery, although, as in neighbouring places, there has generally been good singing. A rather flat appearance characterises the arches: but the clustered columns look well; there is, however, somewhat of a sombre air in the interior, which would be better adapted for the empty nave of a collegiate building. The two porches make it resemble a former "town" church; the south aisle is prolonged, forming a chapel, and there is a large east window to the chancel. There is a turret and staircase at the west end of the nave. The interior has neat old pews and seats, dark varnished to their original colour.

Marston is one of three valuable livings in Bedfordshire, belonging to St. John's college, Cambridge, its value being estimated at 900l. per

century, or the purposes of learned men who have theories of their own to establish. Theories without end have been advanced on the origin and intention of such monuments. Stonehenge, as being (mechanically) the more wonderful, has engrossed the chief interest, and from the days of Hengist to the present has ever held the first place in the estimation of the public. Upon Stonehenge, therefore, has been exhausted the learning of by far the greater number of theorisers. Geoffrey of Monmouth tells us that it was originally erected in Ireland, where it was called "The Dance of the Giants," and was transported (in one night) to Britain by Merlin, and became the burial-place of Uther Pendragon. Mr. Bolton believed it to be a monument in honour of the famous Queen Boadicea. Inigo Jones was of opinion that it was a Roman temple to the god Coelus. Dr. Charleton considered it a Danish erection for civil purposes. Gibbons (of "the fool's bolt soon shot") is sure that a race of giants called the Cangi were the architects of it. The late Mr. Brown of Amesbury thought it an antediluvian temple. Mr. Duke believes it to be a representation of the planet Saturn revolving in its orbit round the sun at Abury. And Mr. Herbert (Cyclops Christianus) comes to the conclusion that it represented-a GROVE OF OAKS!

"It is my belief that groves of upright stones were substituted by the later Britons for the oak-tree groves of obsolete Druidism." (p. 99.)

The common belief of antiquaries on the subject of the origin and intention of Stonehenge is that, whensoever or by whomsoever erected, it was a temple of the sun; and there are not a few who think that in the number and arrangement of the stones they recognise an astronomical chart: for, if they see not with Godfrey Higgins the oriental cycle of Vrihaspati in the sixty stones of the outer circle, they fancy with him that in the inner parabola of nineteen, and perhaps in the inner circle of thirty-eight, or twice nineteen, stones, may be discovered the Metonic cycle, at the end of which the solar and lunar years recommence

their courses.

Those who think thus find a strong corroboration of their opinion in the

well-known passage of Diodorus Siculus where he quotes Hecatæus (of Abdera) and "certain others," who affirm that "opposite to the coast of Celtica there is an island in the ocean, not smaller than Sicily, inhabited by the Hyperboreans; that in this island there is a magnificent temenos of Apollo, and a remarkable temple of a circular form . . . . which Apollo visits once in every nineteen years, in which period the stars complete their revolutions; "-that near this temple there is a sacred city, filled with the priests of Apollo, "who continually play upon their harps in the temple, and sing hymns to the god;"—and that "the supreme authority in that city and sacred precincts is vested in those who are called Boreada, being the descendants of Boreas."

In this description it is easy to recognise Stonehenge, the ancient town of Ambrosbury or Amesbury (especially if Ambre means sacred, as Bryant tells us), and even perhaps the Bards, under the slight disguise of the harping Borcada. We do not commit ourselves unreservedly to this opinion; but we cannot help thinking that those who, with Godfrey Higgins and some other archæologists of higher mark and celebrity, believe the Hyperboreans of Hecatæus to have been the Celtic tribes who once inhabited Britain, have much to say for the identification of Stonehenge with the circular temple of the Hyperborean Apollo.

This theory is of course very much in the way of Mr. Herbert's notions of the modern post-Roman origin of the Cyclopean works in this and other countries of western Europe. He accordingly devotes the whole of the first chapter of his book to this point, and brings forward all the artillery of his Greek to dislodge the British Apollo. The Celtica of Hecatæus is not the Gaul of every other geographer or historian. The island opposite to Celtica, and as large as Sicily, is not Britain, but some island beyond the sea of Azof,-perhaps Scandinavia. The Hyperboreans were not Britons, but Scythians, or rather a Grecian colony (like the Geloni) settled in Scythia.

To prove these assertions Mr. Herbert has recourse to the compass, and shews clearly enough that Britain does

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not lie to the Boreas quarter of Magna Græcia, the scene of the actions of "that celebrated impostor" Pythagoras, and his "two confederates' Aristeas and Abaris, "by whom the Hyperboreans seem to have been introduced to the Greeks." (p. 4.) But if Mr. Herbert had made the ordinary allowance for the ignorance of the ancients in matters of latitude and longitude, and if he had considered the notorious fact that the Italians and residents in Italy called all the transalpine countries to the "north of their own, he might have consented to the interpretation that Gaul (to the "north of Metapontum or Crotona, where Pythagoras taught), was the Celtica of Hecatæus, and that the island opposite to Celtica, and belonging to the Hyperboreans (or "people who lived beyond the north wind"), was Britain. To come to this conclusion he need not have looked beyond the present mariners' compass used in the Adriatic at this day, on which the north point is called Tramontana, i. e. beyond the mountains, sc. the Alps.

We have every respect for the classical learning displayed by Mr. Herbert in endeavouring to disposess the Hyperborean Apollo of his temple in Britain, but we cannot allow his single authority to outweigh that of a still better scholar than himself, Mr. Payne Knight, who in his Priapus has adopted the commonly received opinion, in which he has been followed by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, an inferior Grecian indeed, but a sensible and cautious archeologist.

Were we called upon to express our own opinion on the subject we should not hesitate to say that we believe the circular temple of the Hyperborean Apollo to have been in Britain, but not at Stonehenge. For in the first place we do not think the present Stonehenge, with its machine-raised trilitha and tool-worked mortices and tennons, so old as the temple described by Hecatæus. And in this we are disposed to agree with Mr. Herbert, although we should not, as he has done, bring down its erection to the fifth century. In the second place, we attach much more importance than he seems to have attached to the very curious epithet applied to the Hyperborean temple-ὁ ναὸς ὁ πτέρινος, “ the winged temple." (p. 16.)

Pausanias, cited by Mr. Herbert, explains this epithet to signify that the temple in question "was constructed at Delphi of the wax and wings of bees, and removed from thence into Hyperborea." On which Mr. Herbert remarks that "the object of this fable was probably to facilitate the miracle of removing the temple by composing it of the lightest materials imaginable. But whatever its meaning it is singularly unfortunate for those who would build their Hyperborean temple of the most ponderous materials that ever cumbered the earth." (p. 16.) We do not think that there is any fable in the matter, and we esteem what he calls a singularly unfortunate circumstance the most fortunate that could have occurred in confirmation of our own theory, which is this-that the winged temple of the Hyperboreans is Abury with its two avenues, and that the model of it in wax might have been brought from Delphi, as Pausanias asserts. We subjoin a woodcut of Abury and its concomitant tumulus Silbury Hill, and leave it to our readers to judge how far it may be called with propriety & vaòs & Tтéρivos. ναὸς πτέρινος.

The above is the Dracontium of Abury, a word which Mr. Herbert holds in especial horror; why we cannot conceive, unless it be that he does not approve of the literal interpretation given by most divines of the narrative of the fall of man by the agency of the serpent, to the truth of which interpretation the idolatry of serpent worship, and, a fortiori, the dracontium, as proving the intensity of that idolatry, bear most convincing testimony. We hope Mr. Herbert is not so far gone in Germanism as to rationalise the narrative of Moses. Be this, however, as it may, he holds the dracontium in such especial horror that, when he refers his readers to the Archæologia for information respecting Carnac, it is not to the twenty-fifth volume that he refers, where not only almost all that can be said about Carnac has been said by Mr. Bathurst Deane, and all that can be ascertained of its figure has been delineated after an accurate survey by Mr. Murray Vicars, then a professional architect and surveyor, but he refers to volume twenty-second, in which Mr. Logan gives a sketch (without a survey, and therefore a very