Many remains have I gazed on with solemn feelings; but never do I remember such arresting, mysterious solemnity being excited within me by mouldering castle, abbey, church, or priory, as that which then oppressed me. It is strange, but these stones seem embued with the spirit of by-gone ages. There they are, monuments of antiquity—huge, grand, wonderful, incomprehensible! They over-awe you as they stand, gloomily questioning, as it were, your right to approach so near their sacred enclosure. With these relics we cannot but associate the Druidical priests, who were the principal actors on all public occasions. The finger of time has long ceased to keep a calendar of their moments, or of their actions, and their dust has for ages mingled with the clods of the valley! Yet, here they once performed their idolatrous worship, and were held in great veneration by the people. Imagination takes the place of memory, and, influenced by the appalling gloom that pervades the spot, conjures up shapes of human victims reeking in sacrifice, while Druidic priests in their long white garments, the tiara, or sacred crown, their temples enwreathed with chaplets of oak-leaves, the magic wand in their hand, and on their heads a serpent’s egg, as an ensign of their order, and thus attired we see them going forth to sacrifice, sullen, cruel, implacable, standing round the crimson-stained altar, shrouded with superstition, mystery, and death. The durability or antiquity of these extraordinary relics is calculated to excite emotions of astonishment and awe in the mind:— These ancient stones, o’ergrown with bearded moss, And by the melancholy skill of time Moulded to beauty, charms the bosom more Than the palaces of princes. They must have weathered out more than 2000 years. It was about A.D. 60, and during the reign of Nero, the Roman Emperor, when _Suetonius Paulinus_, a distinguished Roman general, entered Anglesey, and cut down the groves, sacred to Druidic superstition, and placed a garrison among the conquered. And in A.D. 79, Titus Vespasian, the Roman Emperor, sent _Julius Agricola_, a general not less renowned for his military talents than for his wisdom and humanity; he arrived in Mona, or Anglesey, and permanently secured the various triumphs of the Romans. Thus the bloody rites of superstition, the most powerful that ever enchained the human mind, and after it had long established a boundless tyranny upon the ruins of human reason, was abolished throughout the island. Their sacred Isle with solemn woods were crown’d, Their woods are gone, dismantled lies the ground Of holy Druids, once the reverend shrine. It is therefore, obvious, that these cromlechs were erected long before the fatal slaughter by Suetonius; and it is nearly 1800 years since he gave a death-blow to the system.