Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

126 STO>fE FORTS.
every one must have a system of his own, Spenser says
that the Danish forts are round, and the Saxon, square.
In Ireland they were called Raths. Ledwich, who must
have his separate opinion too, tries to distinguish these
from the Duns. But there is no distinction. The Dun
is that very species effort, the Dinas of Wales and Corn-
wall. But I need quote no more opinions : it is to fill
pages to no purpose. The subject being dark, it might
indeed make a volume. But it is not the more important
because antiquaries have squabbled about it. Precisely
the reverse : as you will please to observe that this
most irritable and abusive of all irritable and abusive
races, is always most particularly nettlesome, rabid, and
ill-mannered, when the matters under contention are
most flocci-nihili-pilaceous. Just as there is no spite like
that of the old maids of a country village about the qua-
lity of Mrs. Thingamy's caudle or the merits of rival
apothecaries.
Systems of this nature are the systems of antiquaries,
uot ^^ rude nations. But they are not the systems of
such antiquaries as Roy and Folard. If the Britons and
Danes had been as bad engineers as the antiquaries, they
might indeed have been ignorant of the nature of a
strong post or a defence, and persisted accordingly in
systematic error. That they did vary the places and
forms of their works according to the exigencies and
nature of the ground, is most evident to those who know
their fortification, in the field, and not in the closet. Had
they done otherwise, they would have acted like the
modern engineer who should transfer Lisle to Ehren-
breitstein, or construct a regular pentagon for the rocks
of Stirling, because it is strong on paper or on the sands
of Fort George. The variety of the Vitrified Forts alone,
and the scientific military dispositions of these, are sufii-