discovered beneath the covering stone or within the cell. The black soil of the floor has been alleged in proof; but that symptom is such as could not have been produced by a single funeral pyre, admitting that it were constructed within the cell: : a practice little likely, and never, as far as records teach, adopted at any time or by any nation. These conjectures on the uses of the cromlech and the cause of the discoloured state of the area of the interior, not being satisfactory, the following may be proposed as decisive. The discoloured state of the soil within the inclosure was most assuredly owing to the slaughter of victims slain, or rather perhaps of their blood poured upon the altar of the deity of the cell, and the burning of the flesh consumed on it, whence the cell obtained the name of the smoky house; a title which, according to the poet, might with great propriety be given not only to the cave of Cacus, but, as appears from other authorities, may with equal propriety be assigned to every cromlech. One of the personages of the Celtic pantheon is described in the Triads as being the Son of the Cell, the Incloser of Flame.

If cromlechs were used as places of sacrifice, they were to all intents temples. They are mentioned as such in the Bardic Triads. One of them, dedicated to the Celtic goddess Ket or Ceridwen, is called the Hall of Ceridwen. The name llan, always signifying a sacred inclosure, a sanctuary and temple, is often given to the cromlech. It is also designated

by the phrase of llogel byd, the world abode; which accords with the general doctrine of idolatry, that every temple is to be regarded as a similitude of the world. This position will perhaps appear more certainly true, from the names of the deities by which different cromlechs are designated. Kit's Coity House is the trivial name of the celebrated cromlech near Aylesbury in Kent. Kit is a corruption of Ket, the Ceridwen of the hall celebrated in the Triads. Kit's Coity

t Davies' Rites of Druids, sec. iii. p. 199.

House was the house-the temple-of that goddess. The cromlech near Cloyne is known to the Irish by the name of Carig Croith, a name signifying that it was a stone of worship dedicated to the sun. In Wales several are known by the name of Koiten Arthur and Bwrd Arthur, a personage of great celebrity in the Celtic pantheon, whose name was given to a British hero of great celebrity, possibly because he honoured that deity as his patron god. The great cromlech in Anglesey was dedicated to Bronwen, the British Proserpine. In the island of Jersey the cromlechs are called Pouquelehs, the stones of divine spirits; indicating that each of these structures was dedicated to some divine personage, and as such the temple in which that personage was especially worshipped.

In some instances the cromlech is accompanied by what may be termed outworks, such as are known appendages of Celtic temples. In front of the cromlech at Tobins-town there are still extant rows of hillocks, which form a kind of avenue of approach to the cromlech, such as the avenue which was the approach to the temple of Abury in Wiltshire. The cromlech near Glanworth in the county of Cork has a vestibule or approach marked out by two rows of stones, diverging from the west end of the fabric. The whole is surrounded by two rows of stones, as already described, the whole forming an assemblage of stones such as are usually called a Druidic temple. Similar inclosures are seen at several of the cromlechs in Wales. These facts seem to suggest the opinion, that no Celtic temple was complete unless it embraced a cromlech within its boundaries. To the circumstances already noticed may be added the fact, that upright stones are not unfrequently found standing in front of the cromlech corresponding with the pillars in the porch of the temple at Jerusalem, and with the like before some of the temples of Hindosthan, all indicative of the power of the deity worshipped within the holy place.

Of these structures some consist of one cell only, some of

two, and some of three cells. The Lanyon Quoit is an instance of the first kind, and may be consigned to the same class of structures as were called by the Greeks hiera, holy buildings. The cromlech at Tobins-town consists of one cell, with a pronaos or porch in front, as is seen at many of the temples of Greece and Rome. The cromlech of Sennor appears to have consisted, when entire, of two cells; that of Anglesey of two most certainly. One of these may be said. to correspond with the vaos (naos) or nave of the temples of classical antiquity; the second, or farther and interior, corresponds with the σŋkos (secos), or the most holy place, of ancient temples. The cromlech of Glanworth consists of three cells. The Llech y Gowres had apparently the same number. The covering stones of several other cromlechs extend far beyond the uprights on which they rest, and evidently show that the area they were capable of covering was of greater extent than that which is included by the stones now standing. These appearances show that there may have been many cromlechs consisting of several apartments, like those of Glanworth and of the Isle of Anglesey. Be this as it may, the fact that there are such different apartments in any of the cromlechs now extant will be sufficient to show what was the true origin of the temples of Egypt, Greece, and many other countries; and that, like the barrows of ancient and the spires and towers of modern times, they are all extended forms of the primal altar of the Garden of Eden and the later altars of the ancient patriarchs.

Although the cave temple differs thus widely from these superterraneous structures, yet it owes its origin to the same principle, that the divine spirit abides in the taphos or barrow, and that an entrance into the interior of the high place brings the votary more near to the object of his worship than when he remains on the outside. When treating of the earth barrow the opinion was advanced, that the long barrow was a compound of round barrows placed contiguous, and so close to

each other as to form one barrow." Conjecture may surmise many reasons for such combination. One extremity of the barrow may have been the abode of a deity or of the spirit of a person, more eminent than a contiguous barrow dedicated to an inferior deity or person of lower rank. The long barrow may also have owed its form to the intended purpose of uniting the worship of different gods in the same sacred structure, or the interment of friends in the same barrow, in which their abiding spirits might live in happy communion.

These observations apply with equal propriety to caves of oblong form, or to those consisting of several cells in linear order of succession; either the long cave or the cave of several cells, may be regarded as a contiguous location of single cells or caves, whether divided or undivided. It has been seen in the construction of towers, that a succession of floors or stories within, or of circular mouldings on the outside, were symbolical of the different regions into which the universe, according to different cosmographical theories, was presumed to be distinguished. The same principle may be believed to have influenced the Celtic theologues, and to have induced them to represent symbolically the world by one cell; or by two, if it were intended to represent earth and heaven only; or by three cells, figurative of the three regions of space; a distinction recited continually in the Hindu rites and ceremonies, solemnly propounded in the Theogony of Hesiod, and therefore certainly known to the Celtic theologues, of whom the Ascrean may be presumed to have borrowed his theory, for they had not been silenced or driven from Greece any long time before he lived and

"A ridge of considerable length occurs beside the Roman Foss road, near Ratcliffe-on-Wreke, in the county of Leicester. It is evidently a structure formed, at least in part, by man; and being, like the barrow about a mile distant, near Thurmaston, lately destroyed, situate near a highway anciently of great publicity, it must be regarded as instance, together with others in this kingdom, of the long barrow, the true though remote origin of the present form of our churches.

T

one

wrote. Much of the force of this argument depends upon the position that the Celtic temple and cromlech was symbolical of the earth or universe: it may therefore be expedient to make further research into the usages attendant on these Celtic structures, which, while they illustrate the rise and progress of sacred architecture, may be usefully, or at least amusingly, illustrative of the usages and opinions of the ancient inhabitants of the British Isles.

Kist-vaen, maen-ketti, maen-arch, and some others, are terms occurring in the writings of Welch archæology, all signifying a stone chest. These the author of the work on the Rites of the Druids regards as being the same thing as the cromlech, a cell inclosed by several stones. With all deference due to a person so conversant as that author is with the Celtic language and Celtic usages, it must be affirmed that the cromlech differs from the hist-vaen in being constructed with several stones, whereas the latter are vessels of the form of a chest, consisting of one stone only. For this position the following reasons may be assigned. According to the author, kist-vaen, a stone chest, is a name precisely synonymous with maen-arch. Maen-ketti is exactly the same; for he writes, ketti is a derivative of ket, and must have implied an ark or chest, for we still retain its diminutive form in keten, a small chest or cabinet. Kŷd is another name for the sacred ark. This vessel passed the grievous waters, say the Bardic mythologists, stored with corn, and was borne aloft by serpents. Such was the history of the egg so famed in the Celtic mysteries. This egg was evidently the same as the kŷd or ket. It signified the world borne by serpents, the symbols of time and eternity, or the world existing during the succession of many ages. Such is the true import of the symbol. But wherever any words bearing this signification occur, especially if they refer to waters, the ingenious author suffers himself to be borne away by the y Ibid. sec. 2, p. 122.

x Davies' Rites of Druids, sec. 4, p. 394.