Intactas, tua Mecænas haud mollia jussa. Virgil.
And tho’ there has been of late a large volume publish’d on the subject of Stonehenge, yet we may well say there has nothing been wrote upon the subject. Nor have I any other notion of this performance, than that it is as a first attempt to say something upon those famous philosophers and priests the Druids, who are never spoken of in antiquity but with a note of admiration; and are always rank’d with the Magi of the Persians, the gymnosophists of the Indians, the prophets and hierophants of the Egyptians, and those sort of patriarchal priests, whose orders commenc’d before idolatry began; from whom the Pythagoreans, Platonists, and Greek philosophers learn’d the best things they knew. To clear away rubbish, and lay a foundation only, in this difficult and obscure work, is doing somewhat. The method of writing which I have chose is a diffusive one, not pretending to a formal and stiff scholastic proof of every thing I say, which would be odious and irksome to the reader, as well as myself. The knowledge I have acquired in these matters, was from examining and studying their works; the proofs are deriv’d from distant and different topicks, and it would be very inconvenient to marshal them syllogistically in a work of this nature; the proof results from the intire work; in all matters of so great antiquity it must be found out by the reader; and to one that has proper sagacity and judgment, conviction will steal upon him insensibly, if I am not mistaken; and he will own the evidence in general, is as strong as the nature of the subject will bear, or requires.
It was very disagreeable to me that I was forc’d to combat against a book publish’d in the name of the celebrated Inigo Jones, for whose memory I have the greatest regard. I wonder the publisher of that work did not think of a very easy method to convince himself that he was in an error. If Stonehenge is a Roman work, it was certainly built by the Roman scale; had he reduc’d his own measures to that standard, he would have seen the absurdity of his opinion; for we cannot think that a temple, or elegant building, as he would have it, should not shew its founders by the scale on which it is form’d; they are all fractions in the Roman scale, undoubted evidence that the Romans had no hand in it. For there is no meaning, no design in the choice of the measures, neither in general nor particular; a thing unworthy of a great architect, or a great design. But it appears very evident to me, that Inigo Jones had little or no part in that work, especially as it is moulded at present; and I think I have reason to be of opinion that he never drew the designs therein published, because I should be unwilling to say he knowingly falsified them. I have very much shortened what I had to say against that book, because I have no love for wrangling, and barely mention’d what was necessary, that the reader may have a true notion of this noble antiquity.
P. 1. TAB. I.
Stukeley designavit
G.V.Gucht Sculpsit
A British Druid