regular and even somewhat intricate plan, beneath all the uncouth
simplicity of this arrangement of rough stones; and certainly, whatever
was the intellectual and scientific advancement of the people who built
Stonehenge, no succeeding architects will ever have a right to triumph
over them; for nobody's work in after times is likely to endure till it
becomes a mystery as to who built it, and how, and for what purpose.
Apart from the moral considerations suggested by it, Stonehenge is not
very well worth seeing. Materially, it is one of the poorest of
spectacles, and when complete, it must have been even less picturesque
than now,--a few huge, rough stones, very imperfectly squared, standing
on end, and each group of two supporting a third large stone on their
tops; other stones of the same pattern overthrown and tumbled one upon
another; and the whole comprised within a circuit of about a hundred feet
diameter; the short, sheep-cropped grass of Salisbury Plain growing among
all these uncouth bowlders. I am not sure that a misty, lowering day
would not have better suited Stonehenge, as the dreary midpoint of the
great, desolate, trackless plain; not literally trackless, however, for
the London and Exeter Road passes within fifty yards of the ruins, and
another road intersects it.

After we had been there about an hour, there came a horseman within the
Druid's circle,--evidently a clerical personage by his white neckcloth,
though his loose gray riding pantaloons were not quite in keeping. He
looked at us rather earnestly, and at last addressed Mrs. ------, and
announced himself as Mr. Hinchman,--a clergyman whom she had been trying
to find in Salisbury, in order to avail herself of him as a cicerone; and
he had now ridden hither to meet us. He told us that the artist whom we
found here could give us more information than anybody about Stonehenge;
for it seems he has spent a great many years here, painting and selling
his poor sketches to visitors, and also selling a book which his father