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The East Drawing Room, Wolfeton House 268

William Barnes 280

Thomas Hardy 284

Came Rectory 291

HISTORIC DORSET

The physical features due to the geological formation of the district now called Dorset have had such an influence on the inhabitants and their history that it seems necessary to point out briefly what series of stratified rocks may be seen in Dorset, and the lines of their outcrop.

There are no igneous rocks, nor any of those classed as primary, but, beginning with the Rhaetic beds, we find every division of the secondary formations, with the possible exception of the Lower Greensand, represented, and in the south-eastern part of the district several of the tertiary beds may be met with on the surface.

The dip of the strata is generally towards the east; hence the earlier formations are found in the west. Nowhere else in England could a traveller in a journey of a little under fifty miles--which is about the distance from Lyme to the eastern boundary of Dorset--cross the outcrop of so many strata. A glance at a geological map of England will show that the Lias, starting from Lyme Regis, sweeps along a curve slightly concave towards the west, almost due north, until it reaches the sea again at Redcar, while the southern boundary of the chalk starting within about ten miles of Lyme runs out eastward to Beechy Head. Hence it is seen that the outcrops of the various strata are wider the further away they are from Lyme Regis.

Dorset has given names to three well-known formations and to one less well known: The Portland beds, first quarried for building stone about 1660; the Purbeck beds, which supplied the Early English church builders with marble for their ornamental shafts; Kimmeridge clay; and the Punfield beds.

The great variety of the formation coming to the surface in the area under consideration has given a striking variety to the character of the landscape: the chalk downs of the North and centre, with their rounded outlines; the abrupt escarpments of the greensand in the neighbourhood of Shaftesbury; the rich grazing land of Blackmore Vale on the Oxford clay; and the great Heath stretching from near Dorchester out to the east across Woolwich, Reading, and Bagshot beds, with their layers of gravel, sand, and clay. The chalk heights are destitute of water; the streams and rivers are those of the level valleys and plains of Oolitic clays--hence they are slow and shallow, and are not navigable, even by small craft, far from their mouths.

The only sides from which in early days invaders were likely to come were the south and east; and both of these boundaries were well protected by natural defences, the former by its wall of cliffs and the deadly line of the Chesil beach. The only opening in the wall was Poole Harbour, a land-locked bay, across which small craft might indeed be rowed, but whose shores were no doubt a swamp entangled by vegetation. Swanage Bay and Lulworth Cove could have been easily defended. Weymouth Bay was the most vulnerable point. Dense forests protected the eastern boundary. These natural defences had a marked effect, as we shall see, on the history of the people. Dorset for many centuries was an isolated district, and is so to a certain extent now, though great changes have taken place during the last fifty or sixty years, due to the two railways that carry passengers from the East to Weymouth and the one that brings them from the North to Poole and on to Bournemouth. This isolation has conduced to the survival not only of old modes of speech, but also of old customs, modes of thought, and superstitions.

It may be well, before speaking of this history, to state that the county with which this volume deals should always be spoken of as "Dorset," never as "Dorsetshire"; for in no sense of the word is Dorset a shire, as will be explained further on.

We find within the boundaries of the district very few traces of Palaeolithic man: the earliest inhabitants, who have left well-marked memorials of themselves, were Iberians, a non-Aryan race, still represented by the Basques of the Pyrenees and by certain inhabitants of Wales. They were short of stature, swarthy of skin, dark of hair, long-skulled. Their characteristic weapon or implement was a stone axe, ground, not chipped, to a sharp edge; they buried their dead in a crouching attitude in the long barrows which are still to be seen in certain parts of Dorset, chiefly to the north-east of the Stour Valley. When and how they came into Britain we cannot tell for certain; it was undoubtedly after the glacial epoch, and probably at a time when the Straits of Dover had not come into being and the Thames was still a tributary of the Rhine. They were in what is known as the Neolithic stage of civilisation; but in course of time, after this country had become an island, invaders broke in upon them, Aryans of the Celtic race, probably of the Goidelic branch. These men were tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed, round-skulled, and were in a more advanced stage of civilisation than the Iberians, using bronze weapons, and burying their dead, sometimes after cremation, in the round barrows that exist in such large numbers on the Dorset downs. Their better arms and greater strength told in the warfare that ensued: whether the earlier inhabitants were altogether destroyed, or expelled or lived on in diminished numbers in a state of slavery, we have no means of ascertaining. But certain it is that the Celts became masters of the land. These men were some of those who are called in school history books "Ancient Britons"; the Wessex folk in after days called them "Welsh"--that is, "foreigners"--the word that in their language answered to ???????? and "barbari" of the Greeks and Romans. What they called themselves we do not know. Ptolemy speaks of them as "Durotriges," the name by which they were known to the Romans. Despite various conjectures, the etymology of this word is uncertain. The land which they inhabited was, as already pointed out, much isolated. The lofty cliffs from the entrance to Poole Harbour to Portland formed a natural defence; beyond this, the long line of the Chesil beach, and further west, more cliffs right on to the mouth of the Axe. Most of the lowlands of the interior were occupied by impenetrable forests, and the slow-running rivers, which even now in rainy seasons overflow their banks, and must then, when the rainfall was much heavier than now, have spread out into swamps, rendered unnavigable by their thick tangle of vegetation. The inhabitants dwelt on the sloping sides of the downs, getting the water they needed from the valleys, and retiring for safety to the almost innumerable encampments that crowned the crests of the hills, many of which remain easily to be distinguished to this day. Nowhere else in England in an equal area can so many Celtic earthworks be found as in Dorset. The Romans came in due course, landing we know not where, and established themselves in certain towns not far from the coasts.

The southern part of Dorset, especially in the neighbourhood of Poole Harbour, suffered much during the time that the Danes were harrying the coast of England. There were fights at sea in Swanage Bay, there were fights on land round the walls of Wareham, there were burnings of religious houses at Wimborne and Wareham. Then followed the victories of AElfred, and for a time Dorset had rest. But after Eadward was murdered at "Corfes-geat" by his stepmother AElfthryth's order, and the weak King AEthelred was crowned, the Danes gave trouble again. The King first bribed them to land alone; and afterwards, when, trusting to a treaty he had made with them, many Danes had settled peacefully in the country, he gave orders for a general massacre--men, women and children--on St. Brice's Day , 1002. Among those who perished was a sister of Swegen, the Danish King, Christian though she was. This treacherous and cruel deed brought the old Dane across the seas in hot haste to take terrible vengeance on the perpetrator of the dastardly outrage. All southern England, including Dorset, was soon ablaze with burning towns. The walls of Dorchester were demolished, the Abbey of Cerne was pillaged and destroyed, Wareham was reduced to ashes. Swegen became King, but reigned only a short time, and his greater son, Cnut, succeeded him. When he had been recognised as King by the English, and had got rid of all probable rivals, he governed well and justly, and the land had rest. Dorset had peace until Harold had fallen on the hill of Battle, and the south-eastern and southern parts of England had acknowledged William as King. The men of the west still remained independent, Exeter being the chief city to assert its independence. In 1088 William resolved to set about to subdue these western rebels, as he called them. He demanded that they should accept him as King, take oaths of allegiance to him, and receive him within their walls. To this the men of Exeter made answer that they would pay tribute to him as overlord of England as they had paid to the previous King, but that they would not take oaths of allegiance, nor would they allow him to enter the city. William's answer was an immediate march westward. Professor Freeman says that there is no record of the details of his march; but naturally it would lie through Dorset, the towns of which were in sympathy with Exeter. Knowing what harsh and cruel things William could do when it suited his purpose, we cannot for a moment doubt that he fearfully harried all the Dorset towns on the line of his march, seeking by severity to them to overawe the city of Exeter.

In the wars between Stephen and Maud, Dorset was often the battle-ground of the rival claimants for the throne. Wareham, unfortunate then, as usual, was taken and re-taken more than once, first by one party, then by the other; but lack of space prevents the telling of this piece of local history.

King John evidently had a liking for Dorset. He often visited it, having houses of his own at Bere Regis, Canford, Corfe, Cranborne, Gillingham, and Dorchester. In the sixteenth year of his reign he put strong garrisons into Corfe Castle and Wareham as a defence against his discontented barons.

Like all the rest of England, Dorset had to see its religious houses suppressed and despoiled; its abbots and abbesses, with all their subordinate officers, as well as their monks and nuns, turned out of their old homes, though let it in fairness be stated, not unprovided for, for all those who surrendered their ecclesiastical property to the King received pensions sufficient to keep them in moderate comfort, if not in affluence. Dorset accepted the dissolution of the monasteries and the new services without any manifest dissatisfaction. There was no rioting or fighting as in the neighbouring county of Devon.

Dorset did not escape so easily in the days of the Civil War. Lyme, holden for the Parliament by Governor Creely and some 500 men, held out from April 20th to June 16th, 1644, against Prince Maurice with 4,000 men, when the Earl of Essex came to its relief. Corfe Castle and Sherborne Castle were each besieged twice. Abbotsbury was taken by Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper in September, 1644. Wareham, also, was more than once the scene of fighting. In the north of Dorset a band of about 5,000 rustics, known as "Clubmen," assembled. These men knew little and cared less for the rival causes of King and Parliament which divided the rest of England; but one thing they did know and greatly cared for: they found that ever and again bands of armed horsemen came riding through the villages, some singing rollicking songs and with oaths on their lips, others chanting psalms and quoting the Bible, but all alike treading down their crops, demanding food, and sometimes their horses, often forgetting to pay for them; so they resolved to arm themselves and keep off Cavaliers and Roundheads alike. At one time they encamped at Shaftesbury, but could not keep the Roundheads from occupying the Hill Town; so they, to the number of 4,000, betook themselves to the old Celtic camp of Hambledon, some seven or eight miles to the south. Cromwell himself, in a letter to Fairfax, dated August 4th, 1645, tells what befell them there:

We marched on to Shaftesbury, when we heard a great body of them was drawn up together about Hambledon Hill. I sent up a forlorn hope of about 50 horse, who coming very civilly to them, they fired upon them; and ours desiring some of them to come to me were refused with disdain. They were drawn into one of the old camps upon a very high hill. They refused to submit, and fired at us. I sent a second time to let them know that if they would lay down their arms no wrong should be done them. They still--through the animation of their leaders, and especially two vile ministers--refused. When we came near they let fly at us, killed about two of our men, and at least four horses. The passage not being for above three abreast kept us out, whereupon Major Desborow wheeled about, got in the rear of them, beat them from the work, and did some small execution upon them, I believe killed not twelve of them, but cut very many, and put them all to flight. We have taken about 300, many of whom are poor silly creatures, whom, if you please to let me send home, they promise to be very dutiful for time to come, and will be hanged before they come out again.

From which we see that "Grim old Oliver," who could be severe enough when policy demanded it, yet could show mercy at times, for throughout this episode his dealings with the Clubmen were marked with much forbearance.

Dorset was the stage on which were acted the first and one of the concluding scenes of the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion in 1685. On June 11th the inhabitants of Lyme Regis were sorely perplexed when they saw three foreign-looking ships, which bore no colours, at anchor in the bay; and their anxiety was not lessened when they saw the custom house officers, who had rowed out, as their habit was, to overhaul the cargo of any vessel arriving at the port, reach the vessels but return not again. Then from seven boats landed some eighty armed men, whose leader knelt down on the shore to offer up thanksgiving for his safe voyage, and to pray for God's blessing on his enterprise. When it was known that this leader was the Duke of Monmouth the people welcomed him, his blue flag was set up in the market place, and Monmouth's undignified Declaration--the composition of Ferguson--was read. That same evening the Mayor, who approved of none of these things, set off to rouse the West in the King's favour, and from Honiton sent a letter giving information of the landing. On June 14th, the first blood was shed in a skirmish near Bridport . Monmouth's men, however, came back to Lyme, the infantry in good order, the cavalry helter-skelter; and little wonder, seeing that the horses, most of them taken from the plough, had never before heard the sound of firearms.

Then Monmouth and his men pass off our stage. It is not for the local Dorset historian to trace his marches up and down Somerset, or to describe the battle that was fought in the early hours of the morning of July 6th under the light of the full moon, amid the sheet of thick mist, which clung like a pall over the swampy surface of the level stretch of Sedgemoor. Once again Dorset received Monmouth, no longer at the head of an enthusiastic and brave, though a badly armed and undisciplined multitude, but a lonely, hungry, haggard, heartbroken fugitive. On the morning of July 8th he was found in a field near Horton, which still bears the name of Monmouth's Close, hiding in a ditch. He was brought before Anthony Etricke of Holt, the Recorder of Poole, and by him sent under escort to London, there to meet his ghastly end on Tower Hill, and to be laid to rest in what Macaulay calls the saddest spot on earth, St. Peter's in the Tower, the last resting-place of the unsuccessfully ambitious, of those guilty of treason, and also of some whose only fault it was that they were too near akin to a fallen dynasty, and so roused the fears and jealousy of the reigning monarch.

Everyone has heard of the Bloody Assize which followed, but the names and the number of those who perished were not accurately known till a manuscript of forty-seven pages, of folio size, was offered for sale among a mass of waste paper in an auction room at Dorchester, December, 1875. It was bought by Mr. W. B. Barrett, and he found that it was a copy of the presentment of rebels at the Autumn Assizes of 1685, probably made for the use of some official of the Assize Court, as no doubt the list that Jeffreys had would have been written on parchment, and this was on paper. It gives the names of 2,611 persons presented at Dorchester, Exeter, and Taunton, as having been implicated in the rebellion, the parishes where they lived, and the nature of their callings. Of these, 312 were charged at Dorchester, and only about one-sixth escaped punishment. Seventy-four were executed, 175 were transported, nine were whipped or fined, and 54 were acquitted or were not captured. It is worth notice that the percentage of those punished at Exeter and Taunton was far less than at Dorchester. Out of 488 charged at Exeter, 455 escaped; and at Taunton, out of 1,811, 1,378 did not suffer. It is possible that the Devon and Somerset rebels, having heard of Jeffreys' severity at Dorchester, found means of escape. No doubt many of the country folk who had not sympathized with the rebellion would yet help to conceal those who were suspected, when they knew that if they were taken they would in all probability be condemned to death or slavery--for those "transported" were really handed over to Court favourites as slaves for work on their West Indian plantations. It is gratifying to know that it has been discovered, since Macaulay's time, that such of the transported as were living when William and Mary came to the throne were pardoned and set at liberty on the application of Sir William Young.

In the wild October night time, when the wind raved round the land, And the back-sea met the front-sea, and our doors were blocked with sand, And we heard the drub of Dead-man's Bay, where bones of thousands are, knew not what that day had done for us at Trafalgar.

The isolation of Dorset, which has been before spoken of, has had much to do with preserving from extinction the old dialect spoken in the days of the Wessex kings. Within its boundaries, especially in "outstep placen," as the people call them, the old speech may be heard in comparative purity. Let it not be supposed that Dorset is an illiterate corruption of literary English. It is an older form of English; it possesses many words that elsewhere have become obsolete, and a grammar with rules as precise as those of any recognised language. No one not to the manner born can successfully imitate the speech of the rustics who, from father to son, through many generations have lived in the same village. A stranger may pick up a few Dorset words, only, in all probability, to use them incorrectly. For instance, he may hear the expression "thic tree" for "that tree," and go away with the idea that "thic" is the Dorset equivalent of "that," and so say "thic grass"--an expression which no true son of the Dorset soil would use; for, as the late William Barnes pointed out, things in Dorset are of two classes: The personal class of formed things, as a man, a tree, a boot; the impersonal class of unformed quantities of things, as a quantity of hair, or wood, or water. "He" is the personal pronoun for class ; "it" for class . Similarly, "th?ase" and "thic" are the demonstratives of class ; "this" and "that" of class . A book is "he"; some water is "it." We say in Dorset: "Th?ase tree by this water," "Thic cow in that grass." Again, a curious distinction is made in the infinitive mood: when it is not followed by an object, it ends in "y"; when an object follows, the "y" is omitted:--"Can you mowy?" but "Can you mow this grass for me?" The common use of "do" and "did" as auxiliary verbs, and not only when emphasis is intended, is noteworthy . "How do you manage about threading your needles?" asked a lady of an old woman engaged in sewing, whose sight was very dim from cataract. The answer came: "Oh, he" "d? dread 'em for me." In Dorset we say not only "to-day" and "to-morrow," but also "to-week," "to-year." "Tar'ble" is often used for "very," in a good as well as a bad sense. There are many words bearing no resemblance to English in Dorset speech. What modern Englishman would recognise a "mole hill" in a "wont-heave," or "cantankerous" in "thirtover"? But too much space would be occupied were this fascinating subject to be pursued further.

National schools, however, are corrupting Wessex speech, and the niceties of Wessex grammar are often neglected by the children. Probably the true Dorset will soon be a thing of the past. William Barnes' poems and Thomas Hardy's Wessex novels, especially the latter, will then become invaluable to the philologist. In some instances Mr. Barnes' spelling seems hardly to represent the sound of words as they are uttered by Dorset, or, as they say here, "Darset" lips.

THE BARROWS OF DORSET

BY C. S. PRIDEAUX

The County of Dorset is exceedingly rich in the prehistoric burial-places commonly called barrows. At the present time considerably over a thousand are marked on the one-inch Ordnance Map, and, considering the numbers which have been destroyed, we may surely claim that Dorset was a populous centre in prehistoric times, owing probably to its proximity to the Continent and its safe harbours, as well as to its high and dry downs and wooded valleys.

The long barrow is the earliest form of sepulchral mound, being the burial-place of the people of the Neolithic or Late Stone Age, a period when men were quite ignorant of the use of metals, with the possible exception of gold, using flint or stone weapons and implements, but who cultivated cereals, domesticated animals, and manufactured a rude kind of hand-made pottery. Previous to this, stone implements and weapons were of a rather rude type; but now not only were they more finely chipped, but often polished.

The round barrows are the burial-places of the Goidels, a branch of the Celtic family, who were taller than the Neolithic men and had rounder heads. They belong to the Bronze Age, a period when that metal was first introduced into Britain; and although comparatively little is found in the round barrows of Dorset, still less has been discovered in the North of England, probably owing to the greater distance from the Continent.

Hand-made pottery abounds, artistically decorated with diagonal lines and dots, which are combined to form such a variety of patterns that probably no two vessels are found alike. Stone and flint implements were still in common use, and may be found almost anywhere in Dorset, especially on ploughed uplands after a storm of rain, when the freshly-turned-up flints have been washed clear of earth.

In discussing different periods, we must never lose sight of the fact that there is much overlapping; and although it is known that the long-barrow men had long heads and were a short race, averaging 5 ft. 4 in. in height, and that the round-barrow men had round heads and averaged 5 ft. 8 in., we sometimes find fairly long-shaped skulls in the round barrows, showing that the physical peculiarities of the two races became blended.

Long barrows are not common in Dorset, and little has been done in examining their contents. This is probably due to their large size, and the consequent difficulty in opening them. They are generally found inland, and singly, with their long diameter east and west; and the primary interments, at any rate in Dorset, are unburnt, and usually placed nearer the east end. Some are chambered, especially where large flat stones were easily obtainable, but more often they are simply formed of mould and chalk rubble. Their great size cannot fail to impress us, and we may well wonder how such huge mounds were constructed with the primitive implements at the disposal of Neolithic man. One near Pimperne, measured by Mr. Charles Warne, is 110 yards long, and there are others near Bere Regis, Cranborne, Gussage, and Kingston Russell; and within a couple of miles of the latter place, besides the huge long barrow, are dozens of round barrows, the remains of British villages, hut circles, stone circles, and a monolith.

The late Lieut.-General Pitt-Rivers, in 1893, removed the whole of Wor Barrow, on Handley Down, and made a very exhaustive examination of its contents, which presented many features of peculiar interest. This barrow, with ditch, was about 175 feet long, 125 feet wide, and 13 1/2 feet high; inside the mound on the ground level was an oblong space, 93 ft. by 34 ft., surrounded by a trench filled with flints. The earth above the trench bore traces of wooden piles, which were, no doubt, originally stuck into the trench with the flints packed around to keep them in place, thus forming a palisade; the wooden piles in this case taking the place of the stone slabs found in the stone-chambered long barrows of Gloucestershire and elsewhere.

Six primary interments by inhumation were discovered at the south-east part of the enclosure, with a fragment of coarse British pottery. Three of the bodies were in a crouched position. The remaining three had been deposited as bones, not in sequence, the long bones being laid out by the side of the skulls; and careful measurement of these bones shows that their owners were the short people of the long-headed or Neolithic race, which confirms the first part of Dr. Thurnam's axiom: "Long barrows long skulls, round barrows round skulls." Nineteen secondary interments of a later date were found in the upper part of the barrow and in the surrounding ditch, with numerous pieces of pottery, flint implements, fragments of bronze and iron, and coins, proving that the barrow was used as a place of burial down to Roman times.

In Dorset the round barrows are generally found on the summits of the hills which run through the county, more particularly on the Ridgeway, which roughly follows the coast line from near Bridport to Swanage, where may be seen some hundreds of all sizes, from huge barrows over 100 feet in diameter and 15 feet in height to small mounds, so little raised above the surface that only the tell-tale shadows cast by the rising or setting sun show where a former inhabitant lies buried.

In the western part of the county they may be traced from Kingston Russell to Agger-Dun, through Sydling and Cerne Abbas to Bulbarrow, and in the east, from Swanage Bay to Bere Regis; and also near Dorchester, Wimborne, Blandford, and other places.

In the Bronze Age cremation and inhumation were both practised; but in Dorset burials by cremation are the more common. The cremated remains were sometimes placed in a hole or on the surface line, with nothing to protect them from the weight of the barrow above; at other times they were covered by flat slabs of stone, built in the form of a small closed chamber or cist. Often they were placed on a flat piece of stone, and covered with an inverted urn, or put in an urn, with a covering slab over them; and they have been found wrapped in an animal's skin, or in a bag of some woven material, or even in a wooden coffin.

The inhumed bodies are nearly always found in a contracted posture, with the knees drawn up towards the chin; and a larger number face either east, south or west, than north. In the case of an inhumation, when the body was deposited below the old surface level, the grave was often neatly hewn and sometimes lined with slabs of stone, and it was the common custom to pile a heap of flints over it, affording a protection from wild animals; above the flints was heaped the main portion of the mound, which consisted of mould and chalk rubble.

A ditch, with or without a causeway, usually surrounds each barrow, but is so often silted up that no trace of it can be seen on the surface; it probably helped to supply the chalk rubble of the barrow.

Bronze Age sepulchral pottery, which is hand-made, often imperfectly baked and unglazed, has been divided into four classes: the beaker or drinking vessel, the food vessel, the incense cup, and the cinerary urn. The two former are usually associated with inhumations; the two latter with cremations.

As a type of prehistoric ceramic art in Britain, the Hon. J. Abercromby says that the beaker is the earliest, and the cinerary urn the latest.

There can be no doubt as to the use of the cinerary urn, which always either contains or covers cremated remains. The urn is from the celebrated Deverel Barrow, which was opened in 1825 by Mr. W. A. Miles. The shape of this urn is particularly common in Dorset, as well as another variety which has handles, or, rather, perforated projections or knobs. A third and prettier variety is also met with, having a small base, and a thick overhanging rim or band at the mouth, generally ornamented.

It is rare to find curved lines in the ornamentation of Bronze Age pottery, but sometimes concentric circles and spiral ornaments are met with on rock-surfaces and sculptured stones. Mr. Charles Warne found in tumulus 12, Came Down, Dorchester, two flat stones covering two cairns with incised concentric circles cut on their surfaces.

Bronze pins, glass beads, amber and Kimmeridge shell objects, bone tweezers and pins, slingstones and whetstones, are occasionally met with; but by far the most common objects are the flint and stone implements, weapons, and flakes.

In making a trench through a barrow near Martinstown, more than 1,200 flakes or chips of flints were found, besides some beautifully-formed scrapers, a fabricator, a flint saw, most skilfully notched, and a borer with a gimlet-like point.

Arrow-heads are not common in Dorset, but six were found in a barrow in Fordington Field, Dorchester. They are beautiful specimens, barbed and tongued; the heaviest only weighs twenty-five grains, and the lightest sixteen grains. Mr. Warne mentions the finding of arrow-heads, and also a stone battle-axe, from a barrow on Steepleton Down.

Charred wood is a conspicuous feature, and animal bones are also met with in the county, and in such positions as to prove that they were placed there at the time of the primary interment. Stags' horns, often with the tips worn as though they had been used as picks, are found, both in the barrows and in the ditches.

Most Dorset people will remember the late curator of the County Museum, Mr. Henry Moule, and perhaps some may have heard him tell this story, but it will bear repeating. A labourer had brought a piece of pottery to the Museum, and Mr. Moule explained to him that it not only came from a barrow, but that it was most interesting, and that he would like to keep it for the Museum. The man looked surprised, and said, "Well, Me?ster, I've a-knocked up scores o' the?sem things. I used to level them there hipes an' drawed awa? the vlints vor to mend the roads; an' I must ha' broke up dozens o' the?se here wold pots; but they niver had no cwoins inzide 'em." Those who knew Mr. Moule can imagine his horror.

If the Dorsetshire barrows cannot be placed in comparison with many of those of Wiltshire ... or Derbyshire, they may, nevertheless, be regarded with intense interest, as their examination has satisfactorily established the fact that they constitute the earliest series of tumuli in any part of the kingdom; whilst they identify Dorset as one of the earliest colonised portions of Britain.

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