expence of the whole would, no doubt, be soon repaid by the additional conveyance of carriages with so much ease. The cost of a horse or carriage ferry-boat over the Severn, is about seventy pounds; and of the foot-passengers' boat, between

five and ten. What the additional expense of throwing up two piers and side causeways, with the moveable bridges would be, the writer of this paper cannot say; but he is inclined to think that the sum expended would return ten per cent. interest pended from the increased transit.

What the advantage of such a plan, or of one superior, might be to the proprietors of estates in Herefordshire, it is impossible to say. The county, says Marshall, is known to be one which contains every thing desirable; but the communication is most grievously interrupted by the Wye. There are only three bridges for forty miles, from Ross to Chepstow, where for the purposes of commerce, there ought to be twenty. Humanity also prompts the erection of better modes of passage than the present. A gentleman, well acquainted with the Newcastle and a native of the county of Durnavigation, ham, about Sunderland and Shields, assured the Author that, notwithstanding the immense number of hands employed in the coal trade, there were more lives annually lost in the Wye, than in the Tyne. Tourists who see the river only in the summer, when it is a mere pellucid brook, know nothing of its character in winter, or when it is swelled by a fresh from the rivers of supply. It is then a tremendous torrent, eddying like the Thames at London Bridge; and the bottom is full of immense rocks upon the sides, and some of which, called salmon-holes, deep holes, are from thirty to forty feet in depth. Immersion at such a period is, even to excellent swimmers, almost certain death. The rapidity of the current prevents their making a short cut across to the bank; and the cold of the water in the winter season, mostly produces the cramp. If a horse is unaccustomed to enter the boat, he is sometimes so restive, as to jerk his rider overboard by a sudden pull of the bridle, as he is being driven from

GENT. MAG. October, 1819. 3

foot passengers and ferrymen, they the bank into the boat; and, as to forcing the boat from the rope. Loss are often drowned by the stream of life among the bargemen is an occurrence of enormous frequency. In want of bridges, is hurtful to life and short, the river as it now is, through property, which it ill becomes an entiently; and therefore it is hoped, lightened age like this to endure paphilanthropically and humbly only, Ferries on the Wye and elsewhere, that gentlemen who have property in upon the ideas suggested in this rude will take the opinion of Engineers sketch. If the untimely decease of a descendant of the Man of Ross's family should fortunately, though unexpected by the writer, suggest any thing which would not have failed to produce the approbation of that illustrious character, the loss of a fine young man, however deplorable, may become a providential good.

Yours, &c. A CONSTANT READER.

B. L.
HERO-

Gravi destringunt alios contumelia,
Et sibi nocivum concitant dicterium!!"

Mr. URBAN, Liverpool, Oct. 9. AM certain you subscribe and give publicity to the opinion that truth is the first and most desirable object in all antiquarian research; and inasmuch as we are afforded help and guidance towards this rare attainment, by the authors of antiquity, so our regard for them ought to be in proportion to the advantage we desire. We should ourselves abstain from all incautious censure of their character, and defend them against the unjust attacks of others. This duty is incumbent in common justice to them as fellow men, in gratitude to them as literary benefactors, in charity from the consideration of their limited means of information, compared with the advantages and experience of the present day.

Their writings are the torches, by the aid of which we may see our way, and trace events down from the gloom which surrounded primeval

man.

The antient writers often prove most persuasive collateral evidence to the truth of the Holy Scriptures, and in this point of view deserve our especial regard.

These reflections are excited by the perusal of an article in your Number for June last, page 529. Your Correspondent A. H. in his own extract, and the observations and quotations of the Rev. G. S. Faber's remarks on the Pyramid of Cephrenes, affirms that the recent discovery of the bones of a bull in the sarcophagus of this pyramid, "has awakened the surprise of the chronologer, that Herodotus has now met with another testimony to contradict his idle tale, and that " Diodorus corroborates the same." With these antient historians, your Correspondent connects the celebrated Rollin, and even Denon, as dupes to the same credulity. When your Readers see the extracts from these two historians, which it is indispensibly requisite to furnish them, it will appear that A. H. and even the Rev. Mr. Faber, had not perused them, or that these passages had escaped their memories. I am very reluctant to suppose that they join the common cry

and erroneous sentiment raised and entertained against the credit and veracity of these historians. Illiberal Fame ascribes to them as their own belief, and declared opinion, what is expressly told by themselves to be the tradition, belief, or information, of others. They are pointedly guarded in expressing this distinction.

On opening the History of Herodotus, we observe his relation of the Trojan war, and the causes of the early hostilities of Persia and Greece. All this history he plainly states as resting for the most part on tradition. He emphatically says (Lib. 1, 5,);

"So affirm the Persians and Phœni

cians; for my part, I shall not say with regard to these affairs, whether they so happened or otherwise; but having pointed out the individual whom I know to have been the first aggressor against the Greeks, I shall go on with my history," &c.

Not only this, but numerous similar passages might be quoted from this author to show, that while he confidently states what he considers truth, he is careful to discriminate between fact and fiction.

In Book 7, 152, he writes,—

" I engage to report what is said, but I do not engage my belief in all; and let this observation apply to my entire History."

This is not the language of one anxious to propagate "idle tales." He had at hand abundant materials for a general History, in the detached historical labours of his predecessors; nevertheless, he deemed as indispensible, a tour through the different countries, the history of which he intended to write. This personal visit certainly manifests a desire of originality, and attainment of truth.Much of his history bears the features of geographical relation, in which it is always considered incumbent to describe what is seen, and report local information, as to the face of the country, inhabitants, manners, customs, and traditions, however ridiculous or incredible they may appear.

As well, on the score of apparent probability, may we call in question the veracity of Captain Ross, in his relation of the late Voyage towards the Pole, when he details the ridiculous, and almost incredible, notions and manners of the inhabitants of those unexplored regions, as, on the

mere consideration of novelty, to withhold our credence from Herodotus.

Let us suppose time about a dozen centuries in advance from the present æra, let us picture to ourselves this interval marked by a second inundation of vandalism over the literary world; among the few precious relics destined to float over to a succeeding age of learning, imagine the lately-published, and to us well and really authenticated Arctic Voyage, which reports the phenomenon of Red Snow :-lastly, at this supposed juncture, let us have Herodotus on the earth again, and the Arctic Voyage in Greek before him, in this supposed state of the world, deprived of all contemporary proof or evidence, on the perusal of this Voyage, might not he, too, think the Red Snow, the formerly authenticated fact, an "idle