Should any of our readers be disposed to study

dec's book, also Villemarqué's book on "Breton Ballads," the "Barzaz Breiz," and Emile Souvestre's "Derniers Bretons." These, with a Breton Grammar and Dictionary, and a Vocabulary, which may be found in any of the great Towns, will give them a great interest in the language and a facility in acquiring it.

VIII.-ANTIQUITIES.

1. DRUIDICAL OR CELTIC KEMAINS.-Brittany is pre-eminently the country in which the remains of the past indicate a greatness which its present condition would scarcely justify. Whether we look upon the monuments of the ancient aborigines and their powerful priesthood, or upon the old feudal strongholds, or upon the relics of ecclesiastical architecture, we are struck with the evidence of former grandeur which every where meets the view.

The best examples of the Druidical period are to be found in the Morbihan, where the avenues of Carnac, the menhirs or long stones of Locmariaker, and numerous cromlechs and dolmens shew the mighty power of the Celtic lords of the soil; but they are scattered also over the whole of Brittany. The antiquity of these remains is too remote to assign more than a conjectural origin to them; but they are evidently the remains of a very ancient people, who made this their Holy land, and loved to propitiate their deities with tours de force, to do great things for their gods, and "reared up the standing pillars, and set up the figured stones in the land to bow down to them."-(Leviticus XXVI.-1: margin).

I. The various descriptions of Druidical remains are known in the Breton language, as menhurs, or | peulvans, (maen, stono; hir, long; plur, meni-kirion)—

which are single pillars of stone placed vertically in the ground.

In the Spectator, No. CCCLXV., an explanation is given of the round towers of Ireland, such as that of Devenish, from which it may be inferred that the menhir and the May-pole had probably the same origin and symbolism. The peasant women of Brittany still resort to the menhirs, as to that of Plouarzel, in hopes that by the contact with the hard stone they may be cured of sterility. Many of these pillars have been Christianised, and surmounted with crosses.

II. Dol-mens, or flat stones (dol, lying along), set up on other upright stones, supposed to be Druidical altars, known in Cornwall as Cromlechs.

III. Logan stones, or pierres bran-lantes; in Welsh, Maen sigl, or rocking stones, set up or naturally disposed on a point so as to move with a slight touch, if rightly applied. They were probably used by the Druidical priesthood as a proof of their power, or an ordeal, as Mason says-"It moves obsequious to the gentlest touch of him whose heart

is pure, &c." The superstitious peasantry still

VII. Licavens are triliths, like those of Stonehenge, and were generally found at the end of the great stone avenues; but few, if any, exist in their original position. Those who are curious in Druidical lore consider that they were used to support the effigy or picture of the serpent, which was the object of their worship, and that the avenues are placed in serpentine convolutions. The most remarkable examples of each kind are the menhirs of Locmariaker, Quiberon, Lanvau, Plouarzel, Kerpenhir, S. Samson, near Dinan, somewhat out of the perpendicular from the attacks of treasure seekers. There are also two in Belle-isle, called Jean and Jeanne de Runelo; of Dolmens, those of Er Roch, near Vannes; the Table de Cæsar, or des Marchands, and les Pierres

plattes, near Locmaria; the Roche Bigot and Roche of Kerno and Kergonan, on the Monk's Island, Morvan, near Cadoudal; the dolmen of Kerfily,

in the sea of Morbihan.

The Logan stones of Pontwig, and Huelgoët, the Roche-Binet, between Vannes and Trédion, still retain their rocking motion and their legendary powers.

The Galgal of Gaf'r Innis, of which an illustration is given, will be described ad locum.

Barrows or tumuli are common in the Morbihan,

IV. Gal-gals, or Grottes-aux-fées, is the name given to the coty-houses, or grottoes of stones placed in a long alley, with slabs on the top, such as that on Gav'r Innis, probably used for sepulture.

V. Barrows, or Cairns, are heaps of stones and earth, frequently containing a kist vaen, or maen, the sarcophagus of some Celtic warrior.

VI. Pierres-a-bassins, or rock altars, are found in many places, and from the cavities or basins cut or worn in them, are supposed to be the altars on which the Druids sacrificed their human victims, and these cavities to be receptacles for the blood; others, however, attribute them simply to the action of the air and rain. The peasants, at any rate, consider that sitting down in them is good for rheumatism.

The Cromlechs, or Dolmens, are also supposed to have been sacrificial slabs, and the cavity under was made use of to allow the blood to drip upon cattle or captives, who were thus consecrated or purified.

Madame near Ploemeur, the Butte des Tombes, at Tréhorentenc; the Mané Lud or Mountain of Ashes, near Carnac, and many others which have been found to contain ashes and sepulchral remains.

Rock altars at Coëtsal, where the peasants call upon S. Stephen to cure them of their lumbago; at S. Guen, Gras d'or, Hesquéno, and Rohalgo.

Carnac, and its vicinity, is the greatest field for antiquarian research, and its avenues of many thousand upright stones will ever be a subject for wonder and conjecture.

2. ROMAN REMAINS.-Although many of the relics of the past are attributed to the Romans, and Julius Cæsar, in particular, has left a lasting remembrance of his prowess, yet there are few monuments of their occupation. Many localities correspond with their Roman names, such as Erguy-formerly Rheginea, Corseul, the chief town of the Curiosolites; Vannes, the chief city of the Veneti, and a few Castella, on elevated spots, still retain their Roman appellations; but Dariorigum, now Locmariaker, has quite disappeared, and Blabia, now Port Louis, ouly exists in the name of the river Blavet. Nantes

still recalls the name of the Namnetes, and Rennes and Rhedon of the Rhedones of Cæsar. In many parts of Brittany remains of Roman roads, and the foundations of Roman Villas are found. At Bourgerel, near Vannes, have been found several pieces of tesselated pavement; at Nostang, the remains of a bath, and a Roman camp with its prætorian eminence. Near Locmariaker were also discovered in 1853, the walls of a Roman house, built about 350 A.D., with several coins of Magnentius. The Museums of Dinan, Rennes, and Vannes, have some interesting relics of Roman occupation, inscribed stones, statuary, pottery, coins, &c.; but perhaps the most singular of the Roman relics is the statue of the Venus Quinipily, which still stands in the garden of the château of that name, near Baud, which will be noticed ad locum.

when the Wars of the Succession were ended, a kind of religious enthusiasm, fostered" too by emissaries of the pope, took possession of the people, and with a grand impulse and effort they set to work to raise up worthy temples to the God of their fresh and fervent faith. A band of Franc-maçons or foreign architects traversed Brittany and directed the good work; but every noble devoted his fortune to the object, and every peasant became an architect and a mason, and each vied with his neighbour in contributing his share of money or labour, his stone or cartage, his timber or land to complete the work which was to immortalise his parish and himself; and fainéant was he who hung back and had no part or lot in finding a fitting logement for the Bon Dieu. And so the quarries gaped, and the woods fell, and saw and axe, and hammer and chisel fashioned the

3. ECCLESIASTICAL REMAINS. The road-side crosses which may still be seen at most of the cross roads in Brittany, are also of great antiquity. Formerly, there was one at every cross-road, some of very simple form, four short limbs with a circular disk, on which was carved a rude image; some much higher, and of more elaborate sculpture, with figures of the Saviour, the S. Esprit, the two Mary's, as at Dinan, S. Caradec, and a thousand others, but these are more recent. The earliest date from the 10th century; but the Calvinists made sad work of them in the religious wars, and it was calculated that it would take more than a million sterling to restore the old crosses of Morbihan alone. The wooden erections of modern art are the most repulsive and horrifying objects it is possible to conceive. They are generally ghastly life-like representations of the Saviour on the cross, with a large allowance of red paint, and an array of hammers, nails, spears, the pincers, crown of thorns, lanthorn, &c., ranged as a trophy underneath.

these lasting monuments of piety and zeal.

To speak of the majority of these beautiful churches as ruined and desecrated, the carved work broken down with axes and hammers, the saints decapitated, the roofs fallen in, the pavement up-torn, and the lofty towers the abode of the owl and bat, is only to rehearse the sad story of the fanaticism which alike vented its fury on our English cathedrals and churches; but, as in our own country, a better era has begun, the churches long silent, deserted, and damp-stained are being restored and awoke to their former splendour, and the Imperial hand which has scattered its favours broadcast over France has not omitted to make Brittany a participator in its largesse.

Many of the finest churches in Brittany owe their origin to some miracle or vow. Such are the churches of Folgoët, (or the fool of the wood) of Notre Dame de Roncier at Josselin, of S. Jean du Doigt, of S. Anne of Auray, and S. Mathurin of Moncontour, whose magnificence arises from the miracles performed on their respective sites; while the fine church of "Bonne Nouvelle," in Rennes, arose from a vow of the Earl of Montfort to build a church when he heard the good news of the death of De Blois.

The finest and most interesting churches of Brittany are, in Ille and Vilaine;-those of S. Malo and Rennes cathedral.

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