Sir Samuel Ferguson in the Ireland of his day
Ferguson, Mary Catharine Guinness, Lady, 1823-1905
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HIS ATTITUDE TOWARDS QUESTIONS OF BELIEF . 346 APPENDIX — BIBLIOGRAPHY .... 369 327 INDEX ....... 375 SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON. CHAPTER XVI. 1862-1873. friendships (continued) — henry winterbotham, m.p. ' ' So, whene'er I turn my eye Back upon the days gone by, Saddening thoughts of friends come o'er me, — Friends who closed their course before me. Yet what binds us, friend to friend, But that soul with soul can blend ? Soul-like were those hours of yore ! Let us walk in soul once more ! Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee ; Take, — I give it willingly ; For, invisible to thee, Spirits twain hath crossed with me ! " — From the German of Uhland. It was on the way to Homburg in the autumn of 1862 that the friendship was formed which gave to Ferguson and his wife one who was almost as a son to them for the short remainder of his life. Henry VOL. 11. a 2 HENRY WINTERBOTHAM, M.P. Winterbotham, a young English barrister, afterwards Member for Stroud, and Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, was then beginning his pro- fessional career in London, and spending his vacation abroad in the companionship of a sister and cousin. Ferguson and his wife, accompanied by her sister, had journeyed leisurely from Antwerp to Treves on the Moselle, lingering in the cities, so rich in art and architecture, in the Low Countries through which they passed, and exploring the picturesque region of the Ardennes. At their hotel at Treves they noted their fellow-travellers, but did not exchange courtesies, devoting their stay at Treves to the exploration of the grand Roman remains of the once Imperial city. Next morning they observed their fellow-travellers on the deck of the steamer in which they were about to descend the Moselle. Not wishing to lose any part of the scenery of the winding and romantic river, breakfast was ordered on deck. When his wife joined Ferguson to summon him to his repast, she found him in animated converse with the young Englishman, which she hesitated to interrupt. They were dis- cussing the question whether Milton — in ' Paradise Lost ' — did not, in his description of the council held by Satan and his compeers after their expulsion from Heaven, derive his material from the debates and debaters in the Long Parliament ? Could it be that Sir Harry Vane was pointed at in Belial? and who were the originals of Beelzebub, Moloch, and the great Arch-Fiend himself? She waited for a pause in their A SUNDAY AT BERTRICH. 3 conversation, when Ferguson introduced his wife to Mr Winterbotham, and she proposed the at fresco breakfast, and invited him and his party to join them. A few hours sufficed to make them intimate, and when the young lawyer — who alone of the party was familiar with the district — proposed that the Fergusons should give up their project of reaching Coblenz that evening, and, breaking the journey midway, should strike in- land under his guidance to Bertrich, and spend the next day — Sunday — at this quiet place, they acqui- esced. On landing, a cart was despatched with the luggage and an order for rooms to Bertrich, and the combined party ascended a mountain, on whose summit was a restaurant, commanding a fine view of the Moselle. Here they dined. They afterwards de- scended the other side of the hill, reaching their destination in the evening. The sunny scramble up the mountain, the walk through the woods in the afternoon, the simple service in the church next day, the chanting of the Te Deum, and singing of the Hundredth Psalm in the woodland solitudes on the afternoon of Sunday, followed by a few more days of delightful intercourse, made the new acquaintances fast friends. Before they separated it was arranged that Mr Winterbotham, who had never been in Ire- land, should spend his next vacation with his new- found friends. From thenceforth hardly a year was allowed to pass without visits from him. He made numberless friends in Ferguson's house. His manly and noble character, his candour, his frank, affec- 4 HENRY WINTERBOTHAM, M.P. tionate, and courteous bearing, attracted all who came in contact with him, and made them his warm well- wishers. He was a devoted adherent of Mr Gladstone, and called himself a Radical, and his political views were not those of most of his Irish hosts ; yet he was so candid, honest, and sincere, that these differences did not break the ties of friendship. Remember I am the greatest Radical in the Ministry, and yet you approve of me [he wrote to a Conservative friend]. I am amused at men's prejudices. Often when shut up in some country-house with some old Tory, I watch the surprise with which the honest fellow's prejudices drop off as he recognises how much we have in common. I generally begin with the piano [Mr Winterbotham was a delightful musician], and you know even Saul's evil spirit couldn't stand that. In a letter to Mr W. de Vismes Kane of Drumreaske House, Co. Monaghan, to whom Mrs Ferguson had written about him, he speaks of her — I have already had cause to know that she is not only a charming companion herself, but a most successful friendship- planter. If you have as much confidence in her judgment as I have, you will let me look forward to the pleasure of making your acquaintance whenever you may come to London or I to Dublin. That acquaintance was made when he next visited the Fergusons. Soon after, he cemented the friendship by becoming Mr Kane's guest at Drumreaske. Henry Winterbotham was a delicately organised, fair-complexioned young man : his smile was winning, his nature frank and gracious. His character is MR WINTERBOTHAM'S LETTERS. 5 disclosed in his correspondence. The letters that happen to have been preserved are chiefly addressed to Mrs Ferguson : — My dear Mrs Ferguson, — An answer by return your letter certainly shall have. I am conscious of a strong gravi- tation towards Ireland whenever I think of a holiday. It has become my established play-ground. I need no reflection to feel assured of enjoyment there, and no words to tell me of the cordial welcome I should receive. But in truth I am just now drawn powerfully to my own home. I have not seen my mother since Christmas, and of my father I have had only a glance ; and besides my own longing for home, I don't think it is quite fair for the young birds to spend all their cheerfulness away from home, so Willy and I resolved to go home and cheer up my father and mother. They are getting old, and as their own life gets more shadowy they live more in the intenser life of their children; so, though they never urge it, I know they are glad we are going to spend our holiday with them. I am sure I need say no more to you to excuse myself from Dublin this Easter. You can't think how much I enjoyed myself with you last autumn, and to stay in Dublin with you and see more of your friends would be a real delight. However, perhaps Dublin hospi- tality would not be my best doctor ; for be it known to you in strict confidence, I am suffering from gout. Why did my great-grandfather drink the port and leave the gout instead? I have been very busy (for a young barrister) ever since Christmas, and sedentary pursuits and the everlasting dinner- parties to which my social instincts lead me have told at last. So I am going to rest in the country. Our legal holidays begin this week. I go home to Stroud to-day. Term begins, with a wholesome disregard of ecclesiastical proprieties, the day after Good Friday. Kane goes to Ireland next week. I am sure his mother must want his comfort, so I did but feebly urge him to spend the holidays with me. I see a great deal of him, as he has quite fallen in with a little knot of fast friends here : he will tell you of them. We shall miss 6 HENRY WINTERBOTHAM, M.P. him very much when he returns to Ireland for good. He is becoming half a Saxon already. Willy enjoys the society you were kind enough to introduce him to at Cambridge. It is quite a new phase of college life to him. But notwithstanding its charms and vigorous boating and fiddling (for he is devot- ing himself to the violoncello ! ), he is, I think, working well for his degree, this being his last year. What he will do then isn't settled. I want him to come to the Bar — where there is plenty of room for both of us — but whether he would keep his heart for so long a celibacy I don't know. Good wives are at a high premium here, I fancy. I can't get any one to have me. Perhaps a visit to Dublin would be more successful. You can't think how Irish questions interest me, though they but half amuse me. There is a strange touch of the comic about even the greatest of them, and still more in the treatment of them. To a thoughtful man, however, the whole of that Belfast story, and chiefly its end, must be very sad. It isn't that Englishmen have better principles or instincts, but they have more law-abiding habits. But I mustn't babble over into a fourth sheet. Remember me kindly to Mr Fer- guson, and believe me always your affectionate friend, Henry S. P. Winterbotham. The " Kane " here spoken of was not the Monaghan Squire, but the eldest son of Sir Robert and Lady Kane. Robert Romney Kane, now a County Court Judge, was then a student of law, and he too, like his namesake, met Winterbotham first at 20 North Great George's Street. They became fast friends, and, both in London and in Ireland, saw much of one another. In 1864 Winterbotham and his younger brother William had joined Ferguson and his wife, who were making an archaeological tour in the West. " I care nothing for your antiquities," wrote Henry, " but much for Mr Ferguson's society. Wherever he wishes to MR WINTERBOTHAM IN SWITZERLAND. 7 delve I am ready to hold the hod. Let me know your movements. As soon as I am free Willy and I will join you." They "turned up" at Sligo, and, with the Fergusons, made their way to Donegal. There Dr Stokes and his daughter, Dr Petrie, Dr Todd, and the Rev. H. H. Dickinson joined the party, and spent some time together in exploring the region of Glencolombkill. In 1867 Winterbotham wrote from Switzerland : — Many thanks for your kind letter. I hope you will ere this have received a newspaper I directed to be sent you with an account of our election. I don't know if the paper mentions the dark young stranger who hurried up just before the election and was by my side throughout. Kane seemed to enjoy the fun, and he and my young brother Willy shouted enough for an army. I am very worn out with the heat, excitement, and fatigue, and have fled here. Kane and my two younger brothers are letting off a little of their superfluous steam by walking round Mont Blanc while I am spending the week in dozing and writing letters. I am perched up at Glion overlooking the Lake. I need not say how lovely and fresh everything looks. The hills seem never to grow old. The wooded hills just behind Glion remind me closely of those delightful ones about Bertrich where we spent the Sunday (how many?) years ago. When the three younger ones rejoin me on Monday, we hope to go to Zermatt and really exert ourselves. My election has started me on a new and interesting career, and I am unaffectedly glad of my success ; but nothing seems to make up to me the accumu- lated sorrows of the last year, or to do anything to fill the void they made nearest my heart. Yet every one says I am very lucky ; so I am going to believe it. At any rate, so long as I can stand I will fight on. I am very glad indeed to hear of Mr Ferguson's appointment, so congenial to his tastes. I can understand, however, that it is no small sacrifice so far 8 HENRY WINTERBOTHAM, M.P. as money goes. But how true is it " man does not live by bread alone," and what a ludicrous estimate does the outside world make of the sources of our real happiness, especially in your case, who seem to me to live in a very atmosphere of kindly friendship ! I should like very much to breathe that air again, but for many reasons I cannot hope to do so yet ; but certainly when I do next come to Ireland, I shall not treat you so ungratefully as I have done, but make my way to Great George's Street or a Record Tower, or wherever else your hospitality will shake me down a bed. Willy is articled to a solicitor in London, a friend of mine and brother of Alfred Waterhouse the architect. He is as full of energy as ever, and will, I think, have a useful and honourable career. But one would think I was writing to you from the Antipodes. Farewell. Remember me very kindly to Mr Ferguson, and let not any whom I have known quite forget me. — Believe me always, my dear Mrs Ferguson, your loving friend, Henry S. P. Winterbotham. The young Member for Stroud had to contest his seat at the election of July 1868. When his return was assured, he wrote to his Irish friends : — August 10, 1868. I cannot pretend to answer your kind letter as it deserves — that is, in a quiet leisurely way. Judge from the enclosed slips in what a whirl I am. We do these things so quietly in England that you would think our proceedings tame, but I assure you we are all highly enthusiastic. I know that apart from politics you will be glad to know that my seat is as safe as anything in this uncertain world can well be, though we shall have a hard fight for it. My constituency is raised from 1400 to 5600 ! and I am busy teaching the new electors where Ireland is, what sort of people live there, and stirring up kindly feelings towards them. I may be wrong (for your friend De Visme Kane told me you were a sound Conservative), but it can only do good to arouse here some interest in Ireland. On Saturday (15th) I hope to wash my hands of politics, and UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE, HOME DEPARTMENT. 9 meet Robert Kane, and a few of our common London friends, at Grasmere, for a fortnight's walking about the Lake District. My intention is then to return with Kane to Ireland, and stay about there for a few weeks — in fact, until I am sent for here. If you are in Ireland in September, I think I may at least promise myself the pleasure of seeing you. How good of you to take all that trouble to see me in London ! I keep my address (24 Grosvenor Mansions, Victoria Street) carefully out of all Court guides, &c, that I may have one quiet haven from political, legal, and nondescript bores. Alas ! they find it out, and my friends miss me. I am very glad you are gone abroad ; there is no change like it. I do hope it will restore Mr Ferguson thoroughly. Do not, I pray you, alter your plans in the least. You are almost certain to find me in Ireland any time in September. I would come abroad to you, but may not go out of call. In March 1871 Henry Winterbotham was made Under Secretary of State for the Home Department — a high position to be attained so early. Yet he was to prove no exception to the irony of Fate. On the very day of his appointment one of his cherished friends, Mr Herbert, died ; a little later his sister, Mrs Anstie, passed away; and on Christmas Day his father was suddenly removed by death. He too could say, Suc- cess is come ! But ah ! it comes too late ! " The lips that would have loved to speak his praise, The hearts that would have kindled at his name, " were gone from earth ! He wrote dejectedly to his Irish friends : — House of Commons, 12//& June 1871. I was very glad to receive your letter, and wish I had leisure to answer it duly. It is not so much time for writing as a 10 HENRY WINTERBOTHAM, M.P. leisurely attitude of mind one wants for friendly correspondence. My life is a continual and varied activity. My work is too interesting to be wearisome, yet it pretty well exhausts me, especially now I am learning my trade. I am cherishing a dream of coming over to Ireland in the autumn with three or four friends of Kane's and mine, and settling at Howth or Killiney for a fortnight ; but all is yet uncertain, and I must have a month in Switzerland first. If we come, it will be the last week in September. I fear you will then be away ? I well recollect our walk over Howth, and all your extravagant imag- inations of what I could do. Extravagant I still call them, repeated in your letter ! but thank you for them, nevertheless. Certainly, without some higher aim than one's everyday life realises, one would never rise above it ; so I let my friends, and myself too, sometimes dream. I have had forty interruptions in writing these few lines, and am ashamed to send them, yet will do so, that you may believe I value your kind thoughts of me. I have spoken only of my active life, and it is active ; but you will not think there is not a deeper, sadder undercurrent of thought and memory. My dear sister's death I felt much. That long Good Friday spent in her room, with my arms or her husband's round her as we supported her, and for eighteen hours watched her dying — that was a day not to pass lightly from the recollection. The following year brought a more cheerful account of his life and prospects : — You know the interest I take in public life, so I was easily persuaded by Gladstone to quit the Bar and take Office. It was no small sacrifice to me as a poor man. However, I owe no man anything, and have enough, and am, alas ! unmarried, so it does not matter. I was a little tempted a fortnight ago by a proposal of the Duke of Argyll that I should go to India as legal member of the Viceroy's Council. ^8000 a-year and carte-blanche to make laws for some 200,000,000 people was an attractive offer. But I resolved to stay at home. I enjoy my life whether in or out of office. LAST INTERVIEW WITH WINTERBOTHAM. II The last interview between the Fergusons and their young friend was at the Langham Hotel, a few months before Winterbotham's health finally gave way. They had been abroad, and on their way home stayed in London for two days only, and devoted the first to calling on the friends they wished to see. If absent, they left an invitation for breakfast next day at their hotel. Many friends assembled at the Langham on that morning, Henry Winterbotham being one. He looked ill and worn. "You are burning the candle at both ends," was the greeting with which they received him. "I am," he replied, "and I cannot avoid it. The Home Office all day ; the House at night, and Society and the Shah for friends ; little sleep, and much worry. But I will come to you soon, and you will take me to Howth and set me up. I shall write and offer myself as your guest the moment I am free." Almost his latest letter was written in the same tone. He craved for companionship with the " quiet, wise, and good," and loathed the crowded salons where little interchange of serious thought or personal regard was possible. I am always glad to see your handwriting and get a peep at Ireland [he wrote]. Many thanks for your very kind and oft-repeated invitations to Ireland. I assure you neither my regard for my Irish friends nor my interest in Ireland have grown in any degree less through absence, though the daily increasing multitude of acquaintances and of interests is a true dissipation to the soul. . .. So you see how necessary it is I should come and see you once more. When we are turned out in earnest, and I am 12 HENRY WINTERBOTHAM, M.P. once more a free man or gentleman at large, you shall soon see me. What with latitudinarianism in thought, Home Office work for effort, and Society and the Shah for friends, my poor little life is fast losing itself in nothingness. When the session was over he again wrote to say that his holiday must be a short one, and having heard that Sir Robert and Lady Kane, with their daughter, were on their way to Italy, he would pro- pose to join them and see Rome, if the Fergusons would excuse his change of plans. They at once set him free, and were happy to think that he would visit Rome for the first time in such congenial society. After a short sojourn in Florence, Winterbotham pushed on to Rome, the Kanes proposing to follow a few days later. When they rejoined him it was evident to them that he was dying, and they tele- graphed for his family, nursed him with loving care, sitting up all night ; but before his brothers could arrive his soul had winged its happy flight " To where beyond these voices there is peace." He died on the 13th of December 1873, and lies in the English burying-ground at Rome. From one of the tributes to him in the public press a few passages are cited, for the testimony borne to his worth is a true one : — The late Under Secretary for the Home Department. The Government, the House of Commons, and the Liberal party lose a man of unusual promise by the premature death LETTER OF MR DE VISMES KANE. 13 of Mr Winterbotham. He was decidedly one of the ablest among the younger men who have lately been rising into influence. . . . His amiable character and courteous bearing won him the friendship of many men who were compelled in public life to rank themselves among the constant opponents of his party. There can be no doubt that his early death withdraws from our political scenes one of the few young men of genuine promise who have appeared during recent years in the House of Commons. In looking over, after his loss, the few which happened to be preserved out of Winterbotham's many letters, there was one in which he spoke with frank cordiality of Mr De Vismes Kane, whose friend- ship he had gained in Ferguson's house. Mrs Fergu- son, knowing that he would like to read it, sent the letter to Mr Kane, stipulating only for its safe return. There was little fear [wrote Mr Kane] that I should mislay the letter you so kindly lent me — for which I return you my best thanks. It is seldom that one has the opportunity of learning the unprejudiced opinions of others concerning one- self, and very rarely that of a friend given dispassionately. I was therefore much interested in getting this peep into the mirror of a friend's mind ; and though every reference to Winter- botham is fraught with intense regret, yet the drawing out of one's love to him is pleasant. I don't know that I ever felt so perfect a sorrow for the loss of any one, not a near relation. View it on what side you will, one's regret must be intense. Such characters are so rare; his public character being as estimable as his private one, and his great talents lighting up and manifesting the lovable traits and admirable proportions of the whole. You have conferred a great benefit upon me, over and above those many others which I do not forget, in bringing me into contact with such an admirable nature, the memory of which hangs like a perfect model in my memory, of what a Christian 14 HENRY WINTERBOTHAM, M.P. man may be in this complex state of probation in the nine- teenth century. Twenty-one years later, Mr Kane again spoke of Winterbotham in the following letter to Lady Ferguson, 1 8th November 1894 : — Thanks to you and my dear friend your husband, I enjoyed a good deal of delightful intercourse with Winterbotham. A more noble character I have never met, — so full of enthusiasm for everything that was good, and true, and kind ; so wise, and yet so simple in his manners and habits. He enjoyed his visit to me here vastly, although I was in wretched health at the time. His liberality of sentiment was wonderful, and although his politics were very distasteful to me, his principles were such as I was sure would guide him aright in the end. Had he only lived to see Mr Forster, his friend, Chief Secretary for Ireland, how he would have strengthened his hands in dis- couraging the factious and false Nationalism which, by sedition, political corruption, and assassination, tried to make Ireland a Nation ! Had Winterbotham survived to the present time, what an earnest Unionist would he have been ! How readily he would have severed himself from Mr Gladstone's opportunist policy ! It is a cordial to my heart to remember how noble an Irishman and how honest an Englishman were my friends, and how warmly I appreciated their characters. Henry Winterbotham's younger brother William, who had come to Ireland with him in 1864, and had spent some time with the Fergusons in Donegal, in due course of time became a prosperous married man and the father of a promising family. In a letter to Mrs Ferguson he wrote thus of his departed brother : — I am not likely to forget you and Dr Ferguson, and your warm affection for my dear brother, nor am I likely to value less your friendship now he is gone who first introduced us to IS LIFE WORTH LIVING ? 15 each other. . . . Henry was the brightness of my life, the most affectionate and also the wisest and best friend I had on earth. Every important step I have taken in life, from school to College, from Cambridge to my present work in town — he advised them all. All my best friendships I owe to him. The question is sometimes asked nowadays, " Is life worth living? " To which an emphatic " Yes " should be returned. " We bless Thee for our creation, pre- servation, and all the blessings of this life." For, in looking back upon its joys and its sorrows, it must be acknowledged that happiness largely predominates. " 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,'5 writes Tennyson ; and Longfellow, when his thoughts reverted to departed friends, gives expression to the same sentiment : — " Oh ! though oft depressed and lonely, All my fears are laid aside, If I but remember only Such as these have lived and died." i6 CHAPTER XVII. 1863. AN ANTIQUARIAN TOUR IN BRITTANY. ' ' If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work : But when they seldom come, they wished-for come." —Shakespeare. Ferguson spent the long vacation of 1863 in diligent exploration of that marvellous region of north-western France which is penetrated by the Sea of Morbihan. His headquarters were chiefly at Vannes, Auray, Car- nac, and Plouharnel. In the last place — the best centre for the antiquary — he stayed for about a month, making maps and plans, and investigations amid the tumuli and standing - stones — menhirs, dolmens, alignments, as they are locally called — of that myster- ious region in Brittany whose past is still an un- solved problem. Imagine a district in which thou- sands of great stones, set up on end in numerous rows several feet apart, cover miles of country, and are known as alignments, and where great sepulchral monu- ments abound, each containing a central chamber formed by immense stones rudely ornamented, and THE MEGALITHS OF MORBIHAN. 1J roofed by a mighty mass of stone. These, again, are often covered by a cairn of smaller stones, and over them a mound of earth which looks like a natural hill till it is ascertained to be a prehistoric sepulchre. Such are the objects around the Sea of Morbihan or existing on its islands. If stripped of its coverings the central chamber of great stones is named a dolmen. The menhirs are obelisks of unhewn stone, standing alone or in pairs, most of them fallen. One of the latter, of granite, had stood seventy feet aloft, " one of the greatest monoliths ever raised by the hands of man." The problems which perplex the mind at the sight of these monuments are of deepest interest. What is their date ? Who were the builders, and to what race did they belong ? Had they a written language ? Had they the use of metals ? For what purposes did they erect these stupendous works ? Ferguson has left unpublished material descriptive of the megaliths of Morbihan, in which he speculates on their origin and affinities : — Throughout the west of Europe, from the Pyrenees to the Scandinavian peninsula, and from the Elbe to the extremest parts of the British Isles, are found those great stone structures popularly known as Druids' Altars, Giants' Beds, or Cromlechs. Brittany is particularly rich in these remains, and in Brittany they exist in greatest number and size in the department of Morbihan. Here we are astonished as well by the hugeness of the masses as by the vastness of the areas comprised in some of their combinations ; for besides the common forms of stone table and detached obelisk with which we are familiar elsewhere, we find, in the Morbihan, ranges of great stones set on end, forming connected figures of miles in length, and covering vast scopes of ground in their alley-like perspectives. VOL. II. ' B l8 AN ANTIQUARIAN TOUR IN BRITTANY. Looking to the Eastern cradle, from which all the arts of life appear to have proceeded, we find in high India sepul- chral structures of analogous character but of smaller dimen- sions. No connecting-link appears in the north of Europe ; but in the region of the Mediterranean — on both sides, but chiefly on the African — traces exist which may be thought to unite the distant extremities of the chain. With few exceptions these monuments exhibit no trace of any other art than that of transporting and upheaving great masses of rock. A few are distinguished by a peculiar species of ornamentation, and evince the skill of the stone-cutter; objects of metal have been disinterred from some, and on one structure of an analogous character Runic alphabetic characters have recently been discovered. With these exceptions, the problem everywhere presents itself to the mind of the observer, How have these blocks of ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred tons weight and upwards, been quarried, transported, and set on end or heaved up on their supports by men apparently ignorant of the use of metals — by men in so low a state of barbarism as to be obliged to use flakes of flint for their knives, and sharpened stones for their chisels and hatchets ? At Saumur, for example, where one of the greatest stone chambers in existence may be seen, a department of the museum — small but extremely interesting — is filled with objects drawn from monuments of this kind which have been dis- closed and cut through in the formation of public works. A thin flint-flake of eight or ten inches in length, without dif- ference of edge or back, point or handle ; a boar's tusk stuck in the cavity of a morsel of bone ; a stone hatchet, mounted by inserting its narrow end in the core, or perhaps in a slit cut in the side, of a deer's horn ; a little cup, sometimes of unglazed pottery that plainly never felt the rotation of a wheel ; a few beads of rounded shining stone, pierced for the reception of a string, — these, with fragments of the bones of men and animals, constitute the deposits actually found under the freshly-opened stone chambers around Saumur. Similar in- stances might be multiplied from hundreds of other museums, both insular and continental ; but the writer instances the col- lection at Saumur in particular, because, whatever be the civi- lisation disclosed by the contents of the minor monuments, the BRETON AND STONEHENGE MONUMENTS. 19 same may be ascribed to the builders of the great one, between which and the smaller dolmens of the neighbourhood there exists no distinction save in size. . .. Tradition generally ascribes these works to mythical if not to purely imaginary beings. Stonehenge, reported by Polydore Virgil to be the sepulchre of Aurelius Ambrosius, and some of the Irish megalithic sepulchres referred by bards of the twelfth century to personages of a prehistoric period, are the principal if not the only exceptions. The reference of any monument to gods, to giants, or to fairies, raises a strong presumption against its being the work of the people who ascribe to it such an origin. The arms and implements found in or figured on them have as little place in actual or traditionary use as have the names of those who erected them in local nomenclature. All general information on the sub- ject points to the conclusion that the megaliths are the work of a race extinct or merged beyond the power of identification in some succeeding wave of population before the commence- ment of the historic era. It will be observed that Ferguson inclined to the belief that the Breton monuments were pre -Celtic. Yet he weighs carefully the speculations of others — notably of Algernon Herbert, who propounded the theory that after the withdrawal of the Roman legions from Britain Druidism regained much of its power, and that the erections in stone were symbolic, and ex- ponents of the Arthurian myths. Ferguson desired to compare the monuments of western France and south- western England, and on his return journey visited Wiltshire, seeing Stonehenge, Abury, and Old Sarum. In his account of the Morbihan, he describes Gavr-Inis on one of its islands. Those who have visited New Grange, near the Boyne, may realise the Breton struc- ture. The stones which form the walls and roof in both are covered with ornamentation very similar in 20 AN ANTIQUARIAN TOUR IN BRITTANY. taste and design. Irish tradition makes New Grange the tomb of the Great Dagda — the last Tuatha-de- Danann prince — conquered by the Milesian Celts, who came to Erin by way of Northern Africa and Spain. The department takes its name from the Mor-bahan — i.e., the Little Sea or Estuary of Vannes, forming an inner gulf of the Bay of Quiberon. . .. Two of these islands [in this sea] bear conspicuous monu- ments— that is to say, Gavr-Inis, lying a little within the narrows, and Longue Isle {Mis Mr), fronting Locmariaquer and the embouchure of the Auray. . .. Gaour-Inis, or Giant's Island [as Gavr-Inis is called by the people], argues at all events a non-Breton origin, just as Coir Gaour, or the Giant's Dance, applied to Stonehenge, would imply that the Welsh who gave it that name in the time of Cambrensis knew nothing of its real authors. The monument — a mound containing a galleried chamber — stands on the southern end of the island. It has been often and well described both by word and picture. The mound, although it has been stripped down to the stones covering the sepulchral chamber, still presents an imposing elevation, and the stones are of great dimensions. What attracts the visitor, however, is not the size of the monument, but the remarkable character of the sculptured ornamentation with which all the stones constituting the side-walls, with one ex- ception, and some of the flagstones forming the floor of the gallery, are profusely carved. It is the bizarre and South- Sea-Island-like character of this ornamentation that makes the first and most lasting impression, and transports the imagina- tion, even more forcibly than the rough blocks of earlier struc- tures, to the infancy not only of art but of man himself in the west of Europe. Design of the same general character is, however, to be found on similar monuments in Ireland, and also, as the writer is assured by reliable testimony, in the district of the Pyrenees. Concentric arcs, spirals, zigzags, parallel carved lines, leaf-like and branch-like patterns, interspersed with triangular objects, which appear designed to represent stone hatchet-heads and are conventionally called celts, are the prevailing forms. . .. GAVR-INIS. 21 In all the multiplicity of carvings there is but one which can with certainty be recognised as the representation of a known object. It is a stone hatchet, mounted in its handle, very rudely engraved on a spiral stone introduced to give height to one of the parietal props of the corridor. It is noticeable from the form of the haft, which is reverted at top, so as with its backward curving point to give appui to the small end of the stone wedge projecting through the aperture of the handle. For in the mounting of the stone hatchet the blade is inserted in the handle, not the handle in the blade. But this form of haft, with its reverted top, is something peculiar, not seen in the sculptures, medals, or remains, so far as is known to the writer, of any other part of the world, and is here noticed as confirming the truth of another and very remarkable repre- sentation of the national weapon as seen on a neighbouring monument which will be spoken of hereafter. Great blocks of stone form the floor as well as the roof and walls of the structure. These flooring - stones overlap, so as to give a gradual ascent to the chamber ; and there seems some reason to surmise that another vault exists beneath. However this may be, it is evident that the work was planned and put together with much deliberation, for some of the carvings are returned on the sides of the stones in situations which could not have been reached after the blocks were built in. The decoration extends even to the flooring- stones. The last step, forming the threshold of the chamber, has sculp- tures on its upper surface of the same character as the side suggests, and presents on its edge the primitive herring-bone pattern which enters so largely into what is conventionally called Celtic ornament. Though stripped of so much of its covering, the tumulus of Gavr-Inis is still a mound of grand dimensions, and is seen overtopping the islands and promontories which surround it from all sides of the Morbihan. . .. The description which Caesar gives of the towns of the Celtic tribes who occupied the Morbihan in his time reads with interesting significance : " The sites of their towns were such that, being placed on the very ends of the little tongues and promontories of the land, they neither afforded access to assailants on foot by reason of the rushing in of the tide 22 AN ANTIQUARIAN TOUR IN BRITTANY. from the main sea, which here takes place every twelve hours, nor to naval attack, because at the recess of the tide the vessels should go to wreck in the shoal -water; and so, in both ways, siege operations were impeded. And whenever, by force of great constructions, these difficulties were sur- mounted, and the sea excluded by dams and embankments, and these got up to the height of their town walls, so that they began to apprehend the event, they would bring up a crowd of shipping, of which they had great abundance, and transport themselves and their goods to some neighbouring town, where they would avail themselves of the same local facilities for their defence." — De Bell. Gall., III. xii. If Gavr-Inis, then, as this consideration would suggest, was the site of a town in Caesar's time, was this tumulus, and were the other great neighbouring monuments of the same kind, in existence? or have they been erected since? and if then in existence, were they Gallo-Venetian works, or the works of an earlier race, over some of whose sepulchres the Gallo- Veneti erected their dwellings? It is authentically known that the Veneti of Caesar's time had the use of letters and of iron. In some of the arts of life, as in navigation, they were in advance of the Romans, having dispensed with the use of oars, sailing by the adjustment of helm and rigging, and using chain cables. They fought with missile weapons, and it may be presumed, like other Gauls, with the sword. We nowhere read of the stone hatchet as in use by them or any other Gaulish tribe. It appears incredible that works betokening a period and a taste so savage could have been Venetian of Caesar's period. There is still less reason to refer them to the Gallo-Roman civilisation which succeeded, and lasted down to the obscure era of Arthurian romances. . .. Thus each step of the investigation seems to throw us farther back into the night of history, and to invest these rude remains with a more surprising interest. Gavr-Inis has been the subject of frequent description. Not so the neighbouring monument on the Isle Longue, of which some account will now be given. It stands on the extremity of the island, looking southward over the narrows, at the entrance of the Little Sea, and westward over the roads of Locmariaquer and embouchure of the Auray. From MONUMENTS AROUND LOCMARIAQUER. 23 a distance it appears a grey heap of loose stones with some traces of a terraced outline, and a hummock rising from the centre. . . . Whatever be its epoch, it has existed through a sufficient number of centuries to excite our wonder at the cohesion which still keeps its uncemented stones in their places. This, too, is due not to the size of the materials, for the stones of this part of the structure are such as a moderately strong man might easily lift, nor to any niceties of adjustment, for there is nothing of the cyclopean character in the masonry, but to the durable character of the plan itself. The construction is simply a cairn of dry stone sur- rounding a solid conical pillar, the external rings of which are laid with stones of a moderate size, placed endwise round a well-packed core. Yet to the height of from four to six feet this dry-stone pillar still emerges from the surrounding- ruin, and may yet for centuries continue to shake its shaggy coat of lichens in the gales from the Atlantic. . . . Neither ornament nor any kind of inscription could be discovered in the interior. 