kind which I had ever seen. It was circular, and consisted of
stones immensely large and heavy at the bottom, which towards the
top became thinner and thinner, having been fashioned by the hand
of art to something of the shape of scollop shells. These were
surmounted by a very large flat stone, which slanted down towards
the south, where was a door. Three or four individuals might have
taken shelter within the interior, in which was growing a small
thorn tree.

I gazed with reverence and awe upon the pile where the first
colonies of Europe offered their worship to the unknown God. The
temples of the mighty and skilful Roman, comparatively of modern
date, have crumbled to dust in its neighbourhood. The churches of
the Arian Goth, his successor in power, have sunk beneath the
earth, and are not to be found; and the mosques of the Moor, the
conqueror of the Goth, where and what are they? Upon the rock,
masses of hoary and vanishing ruin. Not so the Druids' stone;
there it stands on the hill of winds, as strong and as freshly new
as the day, perhaps thirty centuries back, when it was first
raised, by means which are a mystery. Earthquakes have heaved it,
but its copestone has not fallen; rain floods have deluged it, but
failed to sweep it from its station; the burning sun has flashed
upon it, but neither split nor crumbled it; and time, stern old
time, has rubbed it with his iron tooth, and with what effect let
those who view it declare. There it stands, and he who wishes to
study the literature, the learning, and the history of the ancient
Celt and Cymbrian, may gaze on its broad covering, and glean from
that blank stone the whole known amount. The Roman has left behind
him his deathless writings, his history, and his songs; the Goth
his liturgy, his traditions, and the germs of noble institutions;