t is well studded or sprinkled with origins and antiquities
popularly illustrated, and has little or none of the dryness of an
antiquarian pen. We quote two such passages, and especially direct the
attention of the reader to our third extract, relative to the early
influence of Christianity:--

_Stonehenge._

The temples in which the Britons worshipped their Deities, were composed
of large, rough stones, disposed in circles; for they had not
sufficient skill to execute any finished edifices. Some of these circles
are yet existing; such is Stonehenge, near Salisbury: the huge masses of
rock may still be seen there, grey with age; and the structure is yet
sufficiently perfect to enable us to understand how the whole pile was
anciently arranged. Stonehenge possesses a stern and savage magnificence.
The masses of which it is composed are so large, that the structure seems
to have been raised by more than human power. Hence, _Choir-gaur_[11] was
fabled to have been built by giants, or otherwise constructed by magic
art. All around you in the plain, you will see mounds of earth or
"tumuli," beneath which the Britons buried their dead. Antiquaries have
sometimes opened these mounds, and there they have discovered vases,
containing the ashes and the bones of the primeval Britons, together with
their swords and hatchets, and arrow-heads of flint or of bronze, and
beads of glass and amber; for the Britons probably believed, that the dead
yet delighted in those things which had pleased them when they were alive,
and that the disembodied spirit retained the inclinations and affections
of mortality.

[11] The "_Giant's Dance_"--the British name of Stonehenge.

_London in the Seventeenth Century._

London was quite unlike the great metropolis which we now inhabit. Its
extent was confined to what is now termed "the city," then surrounded by a
wall, built, as it is supposed, about the age of Constantine, and of which
a few fragments are existing. All around was open country. Towards
the north-east a deep marsh,--the name is yet preserved in
Moorfields,--extended to the foot of the Roman ramparts. On the western
side of the city, and at the distance of nearly two miles, the branches of
a small river which fell into the Thames formed an island, so overgrown
with thickets and brushwood, that the Saxons called it "_Thorney_," or the
"Isle of Thorns." The river surrounding Thorney crept sullenly along the
plashy soil; and the spo