stone, which abounds in this part of the country. In girt it is nearly fifteen feet; in height it towers much above its sisters, being eighteen feet high, and while each of its angles corresponds with a point of the compass, one faces the circle, as if looking upon it sidewise. In that part of the round, which is nearest to the column, four large blocks form a square, seeming to indicate that they once served to support a table-stone, or else had enclosed a space more holy than the rest. On the north, east, and west, the appearance of an entrance is marked out by two large stones, with a greater interval between them than between any others in the circle. Meg herself is said to weigh about sixteen stones and a half, though Hutchinson, from whom I derive that somewhat doubtful piece of information, has forgotten to state upon what occasion her granite ladyship was put into the scales, and her weight ascertained with so much nicety. Perhaps the result was got at in the form of a geometric problem; as, thus ;-given the height and breadth of any damsel, how much will she weigh?

Sorry am I to be forced to add,—but truth demands it-that Meg and her progeny were no better than they should be. Not to mince the matter, they were witches, and hence on presuming to visit the place where they now lie, and which happened to be sacred, they were metamorphosed into granite as a punishment for their intrusion. It must, however, be confessed that no great reliance is to be placed in the numbers that I have assigned to the family on the authority of the county historian,* inasmuch as it is impossible to count them, and of the many persons who have made the trial no

* Hutchinson in his "History of Cumberland," vol. i. p. 226, gives a long account of these druidical remains.

two were ever found to agree in their reckoning. So at least say the people, and it was to illustrate their superstition in regard to numbers that I have dwelt upon the legend.

In the Isle of Man the superstition is reversed. There within Peel Castle is a vault in which are thirteen pillars supporting the church above, and the people firmly believe that the stranger who visits this cavern out of curiosity, and omits to count the pillars, will do something to occasion his being confined there.*

In regard to the qualities inherent in odd and even numbers, there seems to be some difference of opinion amongst the learned in such high mysteries. Pliny assures us that odd numbers were more effectual than even, and were a thing of the greatest consequence to be observed in fevers.† Philo Judæus, who flourished at Alexandria in the time of Caligula, tells us that nature delights in a septenary; the planets, he says, are seven; the Bear is composed of seven stars; the changes of the moon take place once in a se'nnight, that is to say, in each week she accomplishes a full quarter; children born at seven months are prosperous, while those who come into the world at eight are unlucky; the third septenary, i. e., twenty-one, is the termination of a man's growth; and many other instances he adduces of the virtue residing in

* See Waldron's Isle of Man, p. 19 12mo. 1731.

"Cur impares numeros ad omnia vehementiores credimus ; idque in febribus dierum observatione intelligitur ?" C. Plinii Sec. Nat. Hist. lib. xxviii. cap. 5. So far from doubting the truth of the dogma put thus interrogatively, Pliny uses it in confirmation of other matters, saying, "libet hanc partem singulorum quoque conscientia coarguere." It was a fact too generally known and admitted to be called in question, and might therefore be safely appealed to in corroboration of other less demonstrated opinions.

the number seven; but as those already given are quite as cogent as the remainder, it is unnecessary to repeat them.*

The Romans found as many and as valid reasons for admiring the number three, as Philo did for his eulogies on seven; indeed, they are much after the same fashion of logic; as, for instance-Jove's thunder was three-forked; Neptune's trident was three-pronged; Pluto's house-dog, Cerberus, was three-headed; the Furies were three; and Diana was of a threefold nature, being Diana upon earth, Hecate in the shades below, and Luna in the sky above. Nothing can be more convincing.

Pythagoras formed a whole system of philosophy upon numbers, and even went so far as to declare that, according to the odd or even numbers in a man's name, blindness, lameness, or any such casualties, will fall upon his left or right side.† But it is not often that the philosophy of numbers, as it was expressed both by the Greeks. and Romans, is so intelligible as this; at times they dived into depths, or soared up into heights, whither it is no easy affair to follow them; as when they tell us that the soul is united to the body by the force of numbers, and that so long as the numbers remain the union con

Χαίρει δε ἡ φύσις εβδομαδι άο” Philonis Judæi Opera, vol. i. p. 45. London. 1742. But the most sensible part of Philo's observations is on the Creation. He says, that it is idle to talk of the world having been made in seven days, according to our ideas of the words, as time could not exist till after the world was created. When however, he adds, that the phrase is to be understood as meaning a perfect senary he is not quite intelligible. Those who wish to grapple with this mystery will find it fully discussed by our author in the Sacrorum Legum Allegor. lib. i.

"E Pythagoræ inventis non temerè fallere, impositivorum nominum imparem vocalium numerum clauditates, oculive orbitatem, ac similes casus, dextris assignare partibus, parem lævis." C. Plinii Sec. Nat. Hist. lib. xxviii. cap. 6.

tinues, but on their surcease the secret power is destroyed which held soul and matter together. In this way has been explained the poet's line,

"Explebo numerum reddarque tenebris."

"I shall have fulfilled my number and be restored to darkness."**

The Romans had at least a semblance of reason for their preference of odd numbers, since they believed, as Servius tells us in his notes on Virgil's eighth eclogue, that the gods above delight in them, while the deities of the shades below rejoice in even numbers. It would seem to be somewhat contradictory of this doctrine that seven should be held particularly dangerous to males. If we may believe Pliny, they who were made to die of hunger in prison, never survived the seventh day; and Aristotle mentions several animals, who never lived beyond the seventh year. The number, sixty-three, which is a multiple of seven by nine, is particularly fatal to old men, as we learn from Aulus Gellius,† who observes that all of advanced age meet with some disease or misfortune, or the loss of life itself, at that period, whence it acquired the name of climacteric. He then goes on to give a letter from Augustus Cæsar to his grandson Caius, in which this superstitious feeling is simply yet beautifully

* Upon this Rhodiginus observes, "Ex hac item occultiore facultate scribit Aurelius Macrobius, numerorum certa costitutamque rationem animas sociare corporibus, qui numeri dum supersint, perseverat corpus animari; quum vero deficiant, arcanam illam vim solvi quâ societas ipsa constabat." Ludovici Calii Rhodigini Lectiones Antiquæ, lib. xxii. cap. 6, p. 1034, folio. 1599.

"Observatum in multâ hominum memoriâ, expertumque est in senioribus plerisque omnibus, sexagesimum tertium vitæ annum cum periculo et clade aliquâ venire, aut corporis morbique gravioris, aut vitæ interitus, aut animi ægritudinis; propterea, qui rerum verborumque istiusmodi studio tenentur, eum ætatis annum appellant Kμakтnρikóν." Auli Gellii Noctes Attica, lib. xv. cap. 7.

expressed. "Be of good cheer, my beloved Caius, whom, so help me heaven!-I ever long for when thou art absent. But more particularly do my eyes demand my Caius on days like yesterday, when I hope, wherever you were, that you celebrated in health and joy my sixty-fourth birth-day; for, as you see, I have escaped my sixty-third year, that common climacteric of old men."*

Bodin, however, assures us that this peril, belonging to seven and its multiples, affects only men, while it is six that brings danger to women; and for this excellent reason; women came to puberty in their twelfth year, whereas the same constitutional change does not take place with the male sex till two years later. The argument, as Sir Lucius in the play says of a quarrel, would be only spoiled by explanation.

As if in continuation of the same contradictory system, it was reckoned highly unlucky for thirteen people to meet at table, the odd number in this case losing its usual good character. It would seem, therefore, that the exceptions to the rule of the "gods rejoicing in odd numbers" is pretty numerous.

From the Greeks and Romans the traditional superstition in regard to numbers came down to the moderns

* "Have, mi Caii, meus ocellus jucundissimus, quem semper medius fidius desidero cum a me abes; sed præcipuè diebus talibus qualis est hodiernus oculi mei requirunt meum Caium, quem, ubicunque hoc die fuisti, spero lætum et benevalentem celebrasse quartum et sexagesimum natalem meum ; nam, ut vides, кλμaктñра communem seniorum omnium tertium et sexagesimum annum evasimus." Auli Gellii Noctes Atticæ, lib. xv. cap. 7.

"At numero Deus impare gaudet, ut ait poeta," (Virgilii Eclog. viii.) "et impares numeri maribus tribuuntur; nam quòd Seneca scribit, 'septimus quisque annus ætati notam imprimit,' de maribus tantum dictum est, nam fæminis quisque sextus ætati notam aliquam indidit, ut cum mares anno decimo quarto, fæminæ duodecimo pubescant." Bodinus, De Republicâ, lib. iv. cap. ii. p. 414. folio. Paris. 1586.