of this divided gallery, are formed of two rows of large flat stones about nine feet seven inches high. From the upright stones or walls, large stones project over each other, appearing like inverted stairs, till they nearly meet atop, where an immense stone laid flat forms the covering roof. From this description it appears that each room was covered with a quadrangular conical ceiling, and that the whole fabric may be termed a long barrow constituted of four singles. A hill similar to the above, in the parish of Ballymacdermot, in the county of Louth, was found to contain three chambers or apartments. A cave, at a place called New Grange, near Drogheda in the county of Meath, in Ireland, deserves notice, partly because of the accuracy of the description. It differs in some respects from the preceding; though, resembling them closely in others, it supplies some useful information.

The cave is constructed within a barrow, or rather, a cairn of stones of greater magnitude than any other in the British Isles. The present height is about seventy feet; but it was probably, when entire, about one hundred, for great reduction has been made by the abstraction of the loose stones of which the structure is composed, for common purposes. The mound covers an area of about two acres, and was once surrounded by a circle of many upright stones from seven to nine feet high, some of which still remain. One stone, the largest, eleven feet in length, is thrown down.z

On the north-west side of the cairn, at some height up the side, in a cavity of about forty feet within the circumference of the pile, there is a covered way, which affords a passage into the centre of the structure. It somewhat exceeds forty feet in length; is formed of flat stones set upright, bearing stones laid across. This passage is three

y Grange is a corruption of Grainuagh, that is, the uagh, or cave of Grian, the Sun. Vallancey, De Reb. Hib. p. 211.

z Higgins. Introduction, p. 41.

feet wide and two feet high at the opening, narrowing till at the distance of thirteen feet from the entrance it is only two feet two inches wide, after which some stones standing diagonally in the passage render the farther progress extremely difficult. From this point the passage gradually heightens, retaining its previous width, till at the central cavity within the cairn it becomes nine feet high.

The floor or area is about six feet in diameter; is rather irregular; for it somewhat resembles the form of a cross. This area is surrounded by upright stones, from which rises a tall conical ceiling about twenty feet high, crowned or covered atop with a large flat stone. At the first rise of the cone above the upright stones it is octangular, up to the height of fifteen or sixteen feet, then the sides are reduced to six, next to five, and at last to four. It is difficult to conceive the reason of these latter forms.

The octagon, it is well

known, is a symbol of the earth, distinguished into so many divisions of the horizon or compass; the square is also a symbol of the earth, but the hexagon and pentagon are utterly anomalous from any known principle, and can be best ascribed to the unskilfulness of the workmen. On the floor of the cave stand two oval basins of stone, each in diameter about four feet by five. One stands on the ground, the other on a stone, as on a base.

Several of the stones forming the gallery of approach to the cave are marked with characters, which, as explained by Gaelic scholars, state that the whole fabric was dedicated to Nature, the Great Mother of all things. If the name be derived from grian, the sun, the structure must have been dedicated to the Great Father also; a supposition which accords with the cruciform floor, allusive perhaps, to the linga of the Sastra; and the form of the conical ceiling is circular to a certain degree and to a certain degree square, which implies a union of the male and female principles. Other inscribed stones record that men, oxen, and swine, had been sacrificed

at the dedication of the work. Aengut or Oengus is the name by which the work is known in the neighbourhood: it signifies the work is the tomb of heroes, or, according to another interpretation, the tomb of the Magician. The uncertainty of this interpretation of this name given by the vulgar, affords no objection to the more decisive evidences afforded by the inscription and the established name of the structure. There are records which state that the work was in ancient times surrounded with a grove.

The forms of the sacred caves found in different countries now invite the attention to the question, what were the purposes for which these caves were constructed, making a great addition to the simpler barrow, a mere mound of earth or stones. Some writers, like the author of the Etruria Celtica, confidently affirm that the structures were exclusively sepulchral. Others maintain that they were temples dedicated exclusively to some deity. The traveller Clarke, treating of the caves of the Cimmerian Bosphorus, observes, that if they were sepulchres, they were of course temples, and that the double character was invariably attached to them. Of this diversity of opinion it may with truth be observed, that none of these positions are exclusively right or exclusively wrong, for that these structures were of a mixed character; that some of them were temples in the most simple sense of the word, not being used for interment; others were exclusively sepulchral, and sacred only as being the appropriate abode of the spirit of the person interred; while others again were structures dedicated to some particular god, and at the same time places used for interment. A reference to examples stated as above will sufficiently shew the truth of these three positions.

When Homer and other classic writers of antiquity speak of the taphos, or sepulchral barrow, they regard it merely as being the place where the remains of the person departed are deposited, and do not make reference in the slightest

degree to any other personage. They do indeed regard it as an object that ought to be held sacred, or at least in high reverence, because the spirit of the dead is supposed to be there specially abiding, and even to be sensible of any act of reverence or respect performed at the mound by kind and affectionate friends. The taphoi of Achilles, Hector, and other heroes who fell at Troy were thus regarded; so also was the taphos of Agamemnon, when visited, according to Euripides, by Orestes and Electra; as also the tumulus of Misenus, the pilot of the fleet of Æneas. These remarks apply also with equal truth to the Celtic barrow mentioned in the poems of Ossian; and, as far as our knowledge extends, they may be applied with equal truth to what are called the fire-towers of Scotland and Ireland. These may properly be regarded as sacred structures, but merely sepulchral.

It has been shewn in a former chapter, that the sanctity of the taphos and the barrow was derived primarily from the patriarchal altar, and communicated more immediately from a supposed resemblance to the created world, regarded either as a symbolical representation of the divine presence, or rather, according to the theories of idolatry, as the god actually in person present. The temple is always symbolical, in like manner, of the same presence; whence it follows that no incongruity ensues from the supposition that the taphos or barrow may be properly assumed to be appropriated and dedicated to any individual deity, and be constructed for that purpose only. At one of the gates of Troy was a tumulus of ancient Ceres, held in such reverence that, like a temple, it afforded an asylum to Æneas and many Trojans. The Treasury of Atreus was not the sepulchre of that king, but the cave in the mound or taphos was the locality where the idol of Danaë was kept, as was supposed, in perfect safety. This Danaë was a divine personage; she was the object of religious worship, and the cave of the mound was the temple of her presence. The Treasury of Minyas was a temple of

the god worshipped by that chief of an ancient tribe, not his sepulchre. There is not the slightest reason for the belief that the cave of Cacus was sepulchral. The Celtic cromlechs afford many instances of the tumular cave, some dedicated to the goddess Ket, as Kit's Coity House, near Aylesford, in Kent. The cromlech at Plàs Newydd, in Anglesey, was dedicated to Ceridwen. The Welch mythological poems make mention of the sacred llahns or temples dedicated to Ket and other deities, where solemn and probationary rites were performed, which was evidently the most important and only use of the structures thus named, for there is no evidence that they were places of interment. These facts fully justify the position that all the taphoi and barrows, and the cavern apartments within them, were not sepulchral, but that many were sacred structures or temples dedicated exclusively to individual gods.

It must not, however, be denied that many of these tumular structures were exclusively sepulchral, and that many were temples dedicated as above to certain gods. This circumstance has led to the error that all were either the one or the other. This also is an error, for many of these structures have been used for both. Instances of this kind are numerous: a reference to a few may sufficiently establish this position. In the principal cell within the great pyramid of Egypt was one sarcophagus for the body of the founder, and another in which the remains of an embalmed Apis have been found by modern travellers. The like occur in the tomb of Psammis; facts which shew that both the pyramid and the tomb were dedicated to that god. The area at the base of the pyramid clearly indicates that the pyramid was a temple. The cave at New Grange may be cited as affording a full proof of what may be called the double dedication of the sacred mound, for letters sculptured on the stones of the gallery of entrance state that the structure was dedicated to the goddess Nature; the etymology of the name grian in