error may have crept into the text, but that any execution of a work, like the present, could have taken place within the time, at all. In the engravings, particularly, the author pretends to nothing more than to give ideas with the rudeness of a delineator, conversant in the art of drawing or surveying little more than for the occasion.

With the satisfaction of establishing his point, the author commits his sentiments to the award of those who, with him, love to penetrate into the secrets of past and remote periods. Should even to these the detail of trenches, embankments, and mounds appear irksome in perusal,---what must it have been to the author in investigation?

Concerning one of the writers, St. Pierre, adduced in the succeeding sheets, some reservation is worthy to be inserted. With the general plan of his philosophy and sentimentality, the author pretends no interference. The Arcadie he thinks an unexceptionable and valuable performance, and as such has appealed to it, and proposes still to derive further assistance from it. In some instances, again, of translation from the Latin poets, should any levity of diction be discernible by a grave eye, the offence is inseparable from the authority, which it was necessary to adduce.

Necessity must serve as an apology, for the substitution of the Roman type in the expression of Greek sentences. The office, which the author has employed, was not provided with a Greek font. Delay was not admissible; and to employ another person impracticable.

Ceasing now from a course, directed like that of a reptile along the ground, the author looks forward to the future with a pleasing anticipation of a superior career. His second volume, introducing animated beings into the scenes prepared and depicted in his first, will contain an epitome of history, applicable to the Bow-stone region from the earliest to the present day. This will be put into a train of progress, as soon as the author's frame and mind have been sufficiently recruited by an interval of rest and the benefit of the means, for the enjoyment of which he has been obliged to repair to the undersigned place.

BUXTON, 9th JUNE, 1810.

TOPOGRAPHY

OF

ANCIENT MILITARY MONUMENTS, IN LYME PARK AND

ITS VICINITY.

PARK'S MOOR, OR BOW-STONES.

AN ancient monument attracts the eye, in passing from Lyme Park into Lyme Handley. It stands almost in a line with the foot path, at its intersection of the old high road, leading along the ridge of hill from Macclesfield to Badge's Clough in Disley: and forms a mark for the division of the townships of Lyme and Lyme Handley, both in the parish of Presbury.

It consists of a base of an oval form, lying with its longest axis, nearly east and west. It exhibits two sockets or holes. The western one is nearly of a circular shape; but that at the east deviates almost into angles.

In these stand two pillars. They do not, however, fit compactly, but have an environing rim grown up with grass. They have likewise declined from their perpendicular state. This seems to be caused by the decay of some compost, originally used to keep them in their positions; whence, their

B

own weight, aided by the gusts of wind, to which they are exposed from their high situation, has caused them to stoop under the hand of time. From this may be inferred their long erection.

Their great antiquity is further shewn by the attrition, which they have received from the weather. On some of their sides their circularity is almost rendered oblate, as if they had been rubbed with a smooth body. Their tops are much excavated from the same cause. The base too is formed into a gentle well on the south side, similar to the appearances in an ancient trough under a pump. It stands likewise out of level, as if long pressure had made the ground yield beneath it.

The pillars taper gradually from their basis. The western. one ends in a cone with its peak just broken off, and its circumference indented. The eastern one is much more oblate at the top. This pillar too is much shorter than the other, but yet appears to be equally near its original height; because, being both of them encircled near the tops with a carved ornament in the figure of an undulating wreath, this appearance is the most perfect in it. The same marks appear likewise to have been carved from the peak down to this undulating rim, though these are much defaced. The superior preservation of the rim in the eastern pillar, may arise from the cause, that, owing to its larger bulk, it was susceptible of a deeper incision. This ornamental work is an infallible sign of considerable superfluity and elegance in the period of their origin.