ese hoar memorials exist in almost every country.

[Footnote 15: "The Sculptured Stones of Scotland" (two volumes), by
John Stuart, LL.D., Secretary to the Scottish Society of Antiquaries.]

[Footnote 16: "Ogam Inscribed Monuments," by R.R. Brash; edited by G.M.
Atkinson.]

A remarkable instance is afforded by Absalom, the son of David, who
himself set up a stone to record his memory: "Now Absalom in his
lifetime had taken and reared up for himself a pillar, which is in
the king's dale: for he said, I have no son to keep my name in
remembrance: and he called the pillar after his own name: and it is
called unto this day, Absalom's place" (2 Samuel, chapter xviii. verse
18).

Professor Stuart indeed declares that there is no custom in the
history of human progress which serves so much to connect the remote
past with the present period as the erection of pillar stones. We meet
with it, he says, in the infancy of history, and it is even yet, in
some shape or other, the means by which man hopes to hand down his
memory to the future. The sculptured tombs of early nations often
furnish the only key to their modes of life; and their memorial
stones, if they may not in all cases be classed with sepulchral
records, must yet be considered as remains of the same early period
when the rock was the only book in which an author could convey his
thoughts, and when history was to be handed down by memorials which
should always meet the eye and prompt the question, "What mean ye by
these stones?"

To such remote antiquity, however, it is probably undesirable to
follow our subject. It will no doubt be thought sufficient for this
essay if we leave altogether out of view the researches which have
been made in the older empires of the earth, and confine ourselves to
the records of our own country. Of these, however, there are many,
and they are full of interest. In date they probably occupy a period
partly Pagan and partly Christian, and it has been conjectured that
all or most of those discovered had their source in Ireland, with
a possibility of an earlier importation into Ireland by Icelandic,
Danish, or other peoples. Many of these stones have been found buried
in the ruins of old churches, and most of them may be supposed to owe
their preservation to some such protection. The drawings of one or two
may be given as samples. Those here sketched (Figs. 100 and 101) are
in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, and occupy
wi