Among more modern authors, may be quoted Sir Philip Sidney’s lines:—
“Near Wilton sweet, huge heaps of stones are found,
But so confused that neither any eye
Can count them first, nor reason try
What force them brought to so unlikely ground.”
Then Wharton’s sonnet:—
“Thou noblest monument of Albion’s isle!
Whether by Merlin’s aid from Scythia’s shore
To Amber’s fatal plain Pendragon bore,
Huge frame of giant hands, the mighty pile,
To entomb his Britain’s slain by Hengist’s guile;
Or Druid priests, sprinkled with human gore,
Taught ’mid thy massy maze their mystic lore;
Or Danish chiefs, enriched with savage spoil,
To victory’s idle vast, an unhewn shrine,
Reared the rude heap; or in thy hallowed round
Repose the kings of Brutus’ genuine line;
Or here those kings in solemn state were crowned
Studious to trace thy wondrous origin,
We muse on many an ancient tale renowned.”
To descend to prose. Langtoft, in his Chronicle, says:—“A wander wit of Wiltshire, rambling to Rome, to gaze at antiquities, and there screwing himself into the company of antiquarians, they entreated him to illustrate unto them that famous monument in his country called Stonage. His answer was that he had never seen it. Whereupon they kicked him out of doors, and bade him go home and see Stonage.”
The immortal Pepys says the stones are “as prodigious as any tales I have ever heard of them, and worth going this journey to see.”
The archæologist, Mr. Edmund Story Maskelyne, fixes the date of Stonehenge at 900 or 1000 B.C. I quote what he says from a lecture, read 1897, “On the Age and Purpose of Stonehenge”:—
“It is of consequence that we should recognize that Stonehenge was built about nine or ten hundred years B.C., and not 700 A.D., as many writers would have us believe. For instance, Dr. W. M. Flinders Petrie, in his book, ‘Stonehenge, 1880,’ states his opinion that it was erected A.D. 700±200, that is, between A.D. 500 and 900. The date of Stonehenge will be of great interest if there is found at Avebury remains sufficiently perfect to determine astronomically the date when that monument was erected. For it cannot be but interesting to ascertain when the two cults—that of the sun, pure and simple, as exemplified in the original Temple at Stonehenge; and the cult of the sun in connexion with the serpent, as exhibited at Avebury—respectively prevailed in this country.”
Mr. Story Maskelyne’s reasons for his theory that Stonehenge was built by the Phœnicians are as follows:—
“I should like to add some reasons for my belief that Stonehenge was built by the Phœnicians. In the first place, I cannot think of any other people that could have either designed or executed such a monument, which required both science for its conception and skill for its erection. The Phœnicians, with their perfect familiarity with masts, and cordage, and pulleys, could easily lift the imposts, of which the largest—being about 11 ft. long, 4 or 6 wide, and 3 ft. thick—would weigh less than ten tons; and the Phœnicians must have known how the Egyptians raised masses of stone many times heavier.
“The trilithon [24] standing clear seems to have had some fascination for these people. They are found still standing in Tripoli in Libya, as described in ‘The Hill of the Graces,’ a record of investigation among the Trilithons and Megalithic sites of Tripoli by Mr. Cowper, F.S.A., 1897, and specimens exist on the Continent of Europe, in Normandy and in Brittany. One may be seen in the Island of Ushant, and another in St. Nazaire on the probable route they adopted for the passage of tin.
“Another peculiarity can be seen to this day by any one at Stonehenge in the large trilithon impost, namely, that the under surfaces of the imposts which rested on the uprights are smoothly cut and slightly bevelled, so as to throw the principal weight of the mass of the impost on its outside edge, thus excluding rain, &c., and this very contrivance was employed by the Egyptians in the pyramids, and it is certain that the Phœnicians had free intercourse with Egypt. Finally, the Phœnicians had founded Cadiz, their Gadir in the eleventh century B.C., more than two centuries before the date which, from astronomical considerations, I assign for the building of Stonehenge. We know that they sailed along the shores of Spain and Gaul and to the Baltic, and though they preferred coasting as a rule, the straight cut across from Cherbourg to Poole or Christchurch in fine weather would not be a long voyage; and as they certainly did trade with Britain, and it must have been hazardous for British coracles to sail across the open sea, laden with tin, we may conclude that Phœnician ships did cross the Channel. We know also that the Phœnicians made, more or less, homes for themselves wherever they landed; and it is probable that they did so at Poole or Christchurch, also that they would build them a temple where they found it convenient to stay.”