If, at least for the present moment, a disgust of history is a disqualification for the notice of such a work as this before us, the reader must be referred to the book itself at once; but there are in it so many subjects of interest, both as to customs, manners, and some characters that shine out from the dark pages of history here and there, that we venture on, not careful of the thread, but with a purpose of taking it up, wherever there may be a promise of amusement. There is little pleasure in recording how many hundreds of thousands were put to the sword by Carthaginians, Romans, and, subsequently, Vandals and Goths; nor the various tyrannies arising out of contests for the possession of the island, which have been continually inflicted upon the people by the European powers of Christian times. Mankind never did, and it may be supposed never will, let each other alone. We are willing to believe that peace and security, for any continuance, is not for man on earth, and that his nature requires this universal stirring activity of aggression and defence, for the development of his powers--and that out of this evil comes good. Where would be virtue without suffering? Yet we are not always in the humour to sit out the tragedy of human life. There are moments when the present and real troubles of our own times press too heavily on the spirits, and we shrink from the scrutiny of past results, through a dread of a similar future, and gladly seek relief from bitter truths in lighter speculations. In such a humour we confess a dislike to biography, in which kind of reading the future does cast its dark shadow before, and we are constantly haunted by the ghost of the last pages, amid the earnest pursuits and perhaps gaieties of the first. But what that last page of biography is, we find nearly every page of history to be, only far sadder, and far more cruel. The man's tale may tell us that at least he died in his bed; but history draws up the curtain at every act, presenting to the unquiet sight, scenes of wholesale tortures, poisonings, slaughters, and fields of unburied and mutilated carcases.
It is time to say something of these monuments of great antiquity, the Noraghe, and what they are, before speculating upon who built them. We extract the following account, unable to make it more concise:--