The Hill Forts, Stone Circles, and other Structural Remains of
Ancient Scotland. By Christian Maclagan. (Edmonston and Douglas.)—This very handsome volume, the materials for which have been collected with the utmost industry, must always have a value of its own, as giving in a compendious form a vast mass of information dispersed in all kinds of accessible and inaccessible places. The author has a theory about the structures that he describes which will not be accepted without questioning. He had believed, he tells us, in the theory that these remains were connected with ancient worship. Now he is convinced that they should be referred to a domestic origin. "After long and care- ful examinations, I have come to the belief that these upright stones in circle had most probably constituted an important part of the nncemented structure of the dwellings -or strongholds of our living ancestors, and were not their sepulchres,—were not even temples of worshippers." For this theory he argues with considerable ingenuity and force. Antiquarians are even more truly a genus irritabile than poets, and we shall not venture to say whether in our judgment he has proved his point or not. That every one interested in the controversy should study this book is mani- fest. It is a folio of about 150 pages, illustrated with 39 plates.—In the same connection, we may mention a work of much merit, though not executed in so sumptuous a style,—The Ecclesiastical Architecture
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