and from the memory, perhaps, of these kind of exercises, sprung the notion of Sir John Hautvil’s Coyts, he being a strong and valiant man, and expert in these games of our hardy ancestors: the vulgar confounded the two histories into one, and, fond of the marvellous, applied the name of Coyts to those monstrous stones. So in Wales to this day they call the _Kromlechea_, Arthur’s Coyts. Thus therefore we may in imagination view a solemn sacrifice of magnanimous Britons, the Druids and other priests, the kings and people assembled: we may follow them imitating the course of the Sun, and, like the ancient Greeks at their solemn games, celebrating splendidly, in honour of their Gods, upon the winding banks of the rivers. The temple at Diospolis in Egypt, described by Strabo, XVII. is not unlike our Celtic ones, having a _dromos_, or circ, before it, with stones cut like _sphynges_ to mark out the _route_, and a _portico_ quite round. The walls, says he, are as high as the temple, which is without roof, and covered over with sculpture of large figures. There is one part composed of abundance of huge pillars set in very many rows, having nothing painted or elegant, but seems like an empty labour, as he expresses it; and this was, because the Grecian temples of his country were covered over, and the walls adorned with painting and carving, and all sorts of curiosities in art. In this temple (he proceeds) were formerly great houses for the priests, men given to philosophy and astronomy: but now that order and discipline is failed, and only some sorry fellows left, that take care of the sacrifices, and show the things to strangers. Eudoxus and Plato went hither, and lived thirteen years to learn of them. These priests knew the minute excess of the year above 365 days, and many more like things; for, says he, the Greeks were ignorant of the year at that time. Thus far Strabo. It is notorious from the foregoing particulars, how near a resemblance these had to our Celtic temples, and likewise to the famous ruins at Persepolis, which I always looked upon as a great temple of the Persians. Those that think it the ruins of a royal palace, run away content with the report of the ignorant people living thereabouts. This temple of the Egyptians, which Strabo describes, had no roof; and therefore it would be absurd to place paintings in it, and fine carvings of ivory, gold and marble, from the hand of Phidias, or Praxiteles, as was the usage of the Greeks; whence Strabo takes occasion to throw a sarcasm upon people that he would not have thought so elegant as his countrymen. It is certain the Egyptians, as well as our Celts, studied greatness and astonishment, beyond the nice and curious; as is visible in all their works, such as the pyramids, the obelisks, Pompey’s pillar, the monstrous _colossi_ and _sphynges_, of which we have many accounts in writers, and many of their prodigious works still left, which defy time by their magnitude, like our Celtic: