monte minor procumbit.—— Virg.
It measured full 22 feet long. Reuben Horsall, clerk of the parish, a sensible man and lover of antiquity, remembers it standing. And when my late lord Winchelsea (Heneage) was here with me, we saw three wooden wedges driven into it, in order to break it in pieces.
In the great [frontispiece plate], I have noted many dates of years, when such and such stones were demolished, and took down the particulars of all: some are still left buried in the pastures, some in gardens. I was apt to leave this wish behind;
Pro molli viola, pro purpureo narcisso
Carduus, & spinis surgat paliurus acutis! Virg.
The seat of many is visible by the remaining hollow; of others by a hill above the interr’d. Of many then lately carry’d off the places were notorious, by nettles and weeds growing up, and no doubt many are gone since I left the place. But the ground-plot representing the true state of the town and temple, when I frequented it, I spare the reader’s patience in being too particular about it.
When this mighty colonnade of 100 of these stones was in perfection, there must have been a most agreeable circular walk, between them and the ditch; and it’s scarce possible for us to form a notion of the grand and beautiful appearance it must then have made.
TAB. XII.
P. 22.
A peice of the great circle, or
A View at the South Entrance into the temple at Abury Aug. 1722.
