Stonehenge possesses a stern and savage magnificence.
The masses of which it is composed are so large, that the structure seems
to have been raised by more than human power. Hence, _Choir-gaur_[11] was
fabled to have been built by giants, or otherwise constructed by magic
art. All around you in the plain, you will see mounds of earth or
"tumuli," beneath which the Britons buried their dead. Antiquaries have
sometimes opened these mounds, and there they have discovered vases,
containing the ashes and the bones of the primeval Britons, together with
their swords and hatchets, and arrow-heads of flint or of bronze, and
beads of glass and amber; for the Britons probably believed, that the dead
yet delighted in those things which had pleased them when they were alive,
and that the disembodied spirit retained the inclinations and affections
of mortality.
[11] The "_Giant's Dance_"--the British name of Stonehenge.
_London in the Seventeenth Century._
London was quite unlike the great metropolis which we now inhabit. Its
extent was confined to what is now termed "the city," then surrounded by a
wall, built, as it is supposed, about the age of Constantine, and of which
a few fragments are existing. All around was open country.
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