SERPENT-TEMPLES.

391

his day, mentions with approbation a plan of thetemple of Shap as drawn by a gentleman ofCarlisle; but I have not been able to find thisdocument, which now that the dracontium isnearly destroyed, would be almost invaluable.

II. The above are the principal known dra-contia in Europe . Many more may be perhapsdiscovered upon diligent inquiry. Parallelitha,as such, have been seen by thousands of travel-lers. The majority have looked, and passed onwith indifference : better informed persons haveconsidered them as merely relics of the Druidicalsuperstition; and the covetous farmer has con-verted, with a ruthless hand, their venerablecolumns into materials for building walls orrepairing houses ! But a more enlightened agemay even yet rescue from annihilation monu-ments which have been at once the work andthe admiration of ages. The light which hasbeen thrown upon remote antiquity by thesevenerable ruins is too strong to be extinguished.It is like their own perpetual fire, which, thoughquenched upon Silbury and Mount St. Michael,still burns in the rites of the ceremonial religionwhich, at the ashes of Baal , has kindled thetapers of the Church of Rome .