the Great Pyramid of Geza is made the standard of comparison, to which the tomb of Allyattes and Silbury Hill are referred: the cross of St. Paul's and the top of the Monument are also introduced for the same purpose. The Lydian Barrow was erected 562 years before the Christian era, that is, 2381 years ago. There is one Barrow in our own country, to which, from a particular circumstance, we are enabled to assign the lowest degree of antiquity. On the range of hills South of Kennet, near Marlborough, there is a Roman road, which runs in a right line nearly parallel to the Old Wansdyke: this road, on its approach to an ancient Barrow, is carried round it, and then its rectilinear course is resumed. This incontestibly proves the priority of the Barrow, and as the road was in all probability not constructed later than the third century, leaves 1500 years for the lowest degree of antiquity assignable to this mound: of how much higher antiquity it may in reality be, cannot now be ascertained. It is one of many others that are scattered over these hills, and are, at least, coeval with the Wansdyke, if not ages anterior to it. The contents of a Barrow thus circumstanced must be very important, as a standard to which the sepulchral indicia of other Barrows might be referred, in order, in some degree, to determine the time in which they were deposited. In crossing this range I observed one Barrow with a rude stone pitched at the base of it, similar to that at Brighton, noticed in the former Lecture. It seems as if the early Saxon converts to Christianity had frequently buried their dead in these sepulchral mounds, for an edict was published in the year 987, that no Saxon should be buried in the Tumuli of the Pagans, but in the cemeteries of the churches to this practice is to be attributed the subsequent interments met with in the Barrows, a circumstance which sometimes serves to embarrass the curious investigator. Near an old single-trenched Camp at the South West corner of Wimbledon Common, is a very small flat Barrow cut into the form of a cross: I don't know that it has been noticed by any writer. In an old History of England this Camp is called Bensbury. Next to the high antiquity, is the universality of these mounds. They occur in every quarter of the globe. The learned author of the History of Virginia, besides several of less importance, notices one very large Barrow in his own neighbourhood, and one of the Cairn kind on the ridge called the Blue Mountains. The formation of this Barrow differed, in some respects, from any other that we have an account of; for it consisted of a thick layer of earth, on which was laid, promiscuously, a layer of bones of various animals, as well as human, then a layer of earth, and again another layer of bones, and so on, stratum super stratum, till the whole Conical mound was formed. The same author relates an interesting anecdote of a party of Indians, who once came through the woods directly to this mound, without making any enquiry, and who, having staid near it for some time, exhibiting expressions of sorrow, returned to the high road, from which they had deviated five or six miles purposely to pay this visit it is much to be regretted that no enquiry was made respecting their knowledge of this Barrow a clear and distinct account, if it had been obtained, would have been highly important to the historian and topographer; on the other hand, a vague and obscure tradition would have evinced the remote antiquity of this and similar erections in America. By this visit it is pretty clear that these American mounds were the works of the natives; and proves that this part of the population of America consisted of emigrants from some country in which this mode of burial was practised. A wide field for curious speculation is thus opened to us, : The British custom of raising a mound over the departed hero, or person if eminence, shows that the ancient inhabitants of this island had an intercourse with the Grecians. This is supported by the testimony of ancient writers, who assert that above a thousand years before the Christian era, that people, in conjunction with the Phenicians, traded to Britain for tin, and the country was called by them Cassiterides or the islands of Tin; this metal was certainly well known to the Grecians in the days of Homer, for the mention of it occurs repeatedly in the Iliad. Not only the external form of the sepulchre, but the internal contents of such as have been explored, strongly indicate a similarity between the British and the Grecian mode of burial, as we find the latter described by Homer; particularly in the funeral of Patroclus, as performed by the Greeks, and that of Hector by the Trojans. A large pile of wood was constructed, and the body of the deceased laid thereon, together with his favourite horse and dog, which were killed for that purpose: after the pile had burned for several days, till it was nearly consumed, they quenched the few remaining flames that still hovered about it witha dark-coloured wine: it was then the exclusive duty of the relatives and most intimate friends of the deceased to collect the ashes and deposit them in an urn: they then placed the urn upon the ground, and raised a Conical hill of earth over it: "His snowy bones his friends and brothers place, With tears collected, in a golden vase; The golden vase in purple palls they roll'd, ILIAD, b. 24, 1. 1003. Arms and various other things were deposited with the urn, under the impression that what had been useful to the deceased in this life would be so in his new state of existence. The poor Britons also burned the bodies of their dead, and having reduced them to ashes, deposited their remains in an urn, not of gold, but of unburnt clay and rudely formed, as we shall find when we come to treat of the contents of the British Barrows. I have often been at a loss to account for Cremation; the hill sepulchre also appears to be of too remote antiquity to admit of being traced to its origin. With respect to the latter, there are two passages in Sacred Writ, which lead us to conclude that hill burial is intended by the writer; "And they buried him "(Joshua) in the border of his inheritance, on Timnath-Serah, which is in Mount Ephraim, on the North side of the hill of Gaash;" The hill of Gaash probably means the Tumulus or sepulchre of Gaash: had the sacred historian meant a hill, in the common acceptation of the word, I think he would have written, 'the hill Gaash', and not of Gaash. Joshua c. xxx, v. 24. Again, "and Eleazar, the son of Aaron, "died; and they buried him IN a hill that pertained to Phineas his son, which was "given him in Mount Ephraim." Joshua c. xxxiii. v. 24. It seems, from the preceding passages, that Mount Ephraim was divided into sepulchral inheritances, and, like the British downs, suffused with scattered Tumuli, of which number were the hill or Tumulus of Gaash, and the Tumulus of Phineas, which are thus incidentally brought to our notice. Even the cave-sepulchre of Macphelah, in the field of Hephron, might be sunk in the earth and distinguished by a Tumulus raised over it: something very analogous to this frequently occurs among the British Barrows, which often cover a cist or cave sunk in the chalk for the reception of the entire corps. Through the kindness of the Rector of Cammerton, near Bath, in the year 1818, I was gratified with the sight of a very curious Tumulus which he had recently opened, and to which he conducted me. Under a Barrow of moderate size was a large chamber or cave of an oblong figure, formed by walls of rude uncemented stones; it appeared that the entrance was by a similar wall of loose stones, which was occasionally removed to admit a new interment and then made up again; the entrance was rather descending. Similar Barrows occur in the deserts of Tartary and other parts of the East, which gave probability to this conjecture, respecting the cave sepulchres of the Jewish patriarchs. With respect to Cremation, or the burning of the dead bodies, unless the following passage has some reference to it I know not of any allusion to this practice in all the Sacred Writings; "And they buried him (Manasseh) in his own sepulchres "which he had made for himself in the city of David; and laid him in the bed, "which was filled with odours and divers kinds of spices, prepared by the 'apothecaries' art, and they made a very great burning for him;" II Chron. c. xvi. v. 14. I have sometimes thought, that the Phenicians and other idolatrous nations of Palestine, believing that human burnt offerings were acceptable to their chief deity Moloch, might conclude that they were performing an act highly pleasing to him, in burning the bodies of their deceased friends and relations; another, and perhaps more probable origin of this custom, might be that of necessity, which is the fruitful mother of invention. To sleep with their fathers-to be deposited in the tomb of their ancestors-was, in primeval times, an object of anxious solicitude; of this there are numerous instances in the Bible: I will cite but two or three, and those briefly. Jacob, on his death-bed, commanded his sons to remove his body from Egypt, when they should leave that country; "Bury me,” said he "with my fathers, "in the cave that is in the field of Macphelah; there they buried Abraham and |