ment at Dover Castle is so precisely similar in its oval configuration and in dimensions to that at Wissant that I do not hesitate to believe them both the work of the same hands and of the same era. They are totally different from the quadrilateral style adopted by the Romans in their encampments, and the absence of masonry proclaims them distinct from the fortresses of the Anglo-Normans. At the Portus Itius Cæsar's army would have occupied an encampment on a very large scale, but intended for temporary pur poses only. It stood in all probability on the site of the present village as the most convenient situation in the valley, and its outlines in that sandy soil would have quickly disappeared. Although it would have been most satisfactory to have found an unquestionable "Camp de César" at Wissant, yet the absence of so interesting an object does not in any degree prejuIdice the claim of Wissant to be considered the Portus Itius of the Roman conqueror. Impressed with this belief we stood on the mound, and figured to ourselves the spectacle once presented by the valley below, when it was thronged with the legions of Cæsar, and all their various auxiliaries and attendants, the Gaulish and German cavalry, the Numidian light-horsemen, the Spanish infantry, the Cretan archers, and the slingers from the Balearic islands, besides the crowd of sutlers and followers, the "calones" and "mercatores," and all the various costumes and callings connected with the naval portion of the expedition, all destined for the subjugation of an island remote, obscure, and barbarous, but over whose swamps and forests there was then brooding in expectancy the genius of an empire wiler and mightier than that of the Cæsars. Cæsar had previously taken the precaution of sending the energetic Volusenus in a swift galley to make a reconnaissance of the British coast. He must have been the first civilized being that ever approached our shores, an event not unworthy to have been the subject of a cartoon for the parliamentary palace. The Roman warrior, grouped with a few attendants and Gaulish boatmen, might have been represented gazing carnestly at the cliffs covered with the hostile Britons.

But his galley, as well as the fleet of Cæsar which followed, doubtless rode at anchor in that part of the bay of Dover now converted into terra firma, and covered with marine-parades, crescents, and esplanades: "Cujus loci hæc erat natura; adeo montibus angustis mare continebatur uti ex locis superioribus in litus telum adjici posset." These were the heights and the dangers, the anticipation of which produced such uneasiness in the minds of their friends at Rome, while the army lay encamped at Wissant. "Britannici belli exitus expectatur," says Cicero in one of his letters, "constat enim aditus insulæ munitos esse mirificis molibus ;" and, writing to his brother Quintus, then one of Cæsar's lieutenants, "O! jucundas mihi tuas ex Britanniâ literas! timebam oceanum, timebam litus insulæ !" "Quintus frater" was then meditating an epic poem, the subject of which was to have been the war in Britain. Had this work been completed, and had it descended to our times, what a treat it might have afforded to us! The project met with Cicero's approval, "Quos tu situs! quas naturas rerum et locorum! quos mores! quas gentes! quem vero ipsum imperatorem habes!" Nor are the jokes of the day without their interest; as, when he laughs at Trebatius, another of Cæsar's lieutenants, "homo studiosissimus natandi," for shirking the expedition and remaining in Gaul, "Neque in oceano natare voluisti." This was some of the by-play of the moment, while for the great leader himself a domestic calamity was approaching which gave him the deepest affliction, and was one of the causes of all the miseries of the civil warfare which so soon followed. When in Britain he received the intelligence of the death of his beloved daughter Julia, the wife of Pompey, and was overcome with grief. On the third day he rallied, and resumed his imperatorial duties; but the bond which united the rivals and bound them to peace was broken;

❝ tu sola furentem Inde virum poteras atque hinc retinere parentem." Such were some of the emotions which agitated the hearts of a few individuals of the hundred thousand who filled the valley of Wissant. No doubt

each man had his share, but for such minor incidents history has no spare space. The few that have been recorded, and have accidentally reached us, acquire additional interest from their rarity, and form agreeable materials for reflection to those who, like us, may delight to repeople the lonely plains of the Portus Itius with the Cæsarean soldiers, whose dust must now be mingling with the soil of France, Spain, and Italy, of Thessaly, Mauritania, and Egypt.

On the occasion of his first expedition, Cæsar had collected at Wissant, besides war gallies, a fleet of eighty transports, enough for the conveyance of the two legions destined for the subjugation of Britain; eighteen other vessels were wind-bound at a port eight miles distant, which is named the " ulterior portus," and which is not unlikely to have been the little "marina" of Sangate, on the north of Cape Blanc-nez, according to Walckenaer, who states Calais to have been a port of recent creation, besides being beyond the assigned distance, which agrees well enough with the position of Sangate. As a port, in our acceptation of the term, Sangate has fewer pretensions to the appellation than even Wissant; but still it is, and always has been, a small station, and is possessed of convenient sands, and enjoys some protection from the promontory of Blancnez. Cæsar sailed from Wissant at the third watch, or at about half-past two o'clock in the morning, and accomplished his voyage in safety; no adverse fortune attended his return, except in the little episode which he records, of two of his transports having been unable to make Wissant, and being carried a little to the southward, "paulo infra." The troops conveyed in them, 300 in number, disembarked, and were marching towards the camp when they were surrounded by the natives, who suddenly collected to the amount of 6,000 men: throwing themselves into an orb, the Romans fought bravely for four hours, when at length they were rescued by the whole of the cavalry, dispatched by Cæsar to their assistance. The scene of this event must lie to the south of Cape Grisnez; they would have been concealed by that headland from their comrades in the camp, so long as they were in the

valley of Ambleteuse, where they must have landed.

Cæsar's preparations for his second expedition were on a much larger scale, and conducted with a care which evinced the respect he had learnt to entertain for his enemy; the whole winter was spent in the construction of a fleet of transports, and he sent even to Spain for naval stores. All the vessels were ordered to rendezvous "ad Portum Itium, quo ex portu commodissimum in Britanniam trajectum esse cognoverat." These words prove him to have availed himself of the same port on the preceding year, although on that occasion he had not named it. For five and twenty days he was detained by a contrary wind, called Corus, which blew from the north-west; but having at length obtained favourable weather, he crossed the channel with a fleet of more than 800 sail, and an army of about 40,000 men. Deal, which has often been the point of the departure or the return of our expeditionary armaments, has rarely, if ever, witnessed so formidable a force assembled on its shore. The good fortune of Cæsar attended him; some accidents occurred, but they were overcome by his dauntless energy, and he again returned to Gaul in safety. "Sic accidit, uti ex tanto navium numero, tot navigationibus, neque hoc, neque superiore anno, ulla omnino navis quæ milites portaret desideratur."

It formed no part of our business to investigate Cæsar's military operations in Britain, nor will I further advert to them than merely to record my protest against the Coway Stakes theory, and all the hypothetical passages of the Thames at that fanciful locality. Cæsar undoubtedly followed the usual and most obvious road,--the famous Watling-street of after times; this would have conducted him to the banks of the Thames at London, where a ford, although a difficult and perhaps only an occasional one, was to be found, but which before the existence of the bridges might have been more practicable than we are at present disposed to believe. We know that this passage of the Thames by the Cæsarean forces occurred in the second of two extremely dry summers, of which the droughts (siccitates) are especially noted in the Commentaries; and even

now in similar seasons the river becomes fordable at Westminster, as it was on the 19th of this very month, July, 1846.

On quitting Wissant we drove along the sands as far as Sangate, under the cliffs of Cape Blanc-nez. In the rolling ocean here, and in its opponent sides of white chalk-rock, we may behold, without any great stretch of the imagination, the “Ωκεανόν τε ῥοὰς και λevκáða пéтρη" of Homer-the peculiar features which marked the way to the gates of the descending sun, to the gloom of the northern ocean, and to the country of the Kimmerians or Cimbri, so miserable in the estimation of an inhabitant of the Levant. These scenes and stories, picked up no doubt by the poet from "long yarns spun" by Phenician adventurers, and admirably interwoven into the mysterious voyage of his hero, were afterwards transferred, inappropriately enough, except for the convenience of Greek and Roman visitors, to the sunny regions of Campania; but Homer unquestionably means to conduct Ulysses from the Mediterranean sea into the ocean, and then to the most remote and melancholy parts of its shores; and, true to this meaning of the poet, the philosophic Tacitus does not altogether discountenance the tale that "Ulyssem longo illo et fabuloso errore in hunc oceanum delatum, adesse Germaniæ terras."

The expeditions of Cæsar first dispelled the darkness and ignorance

which enveloped the geography of Gaul and Britain, but only to remove them a little further north in the map of Europe. (Tacit. Mor. Germ. 45, and Agric. X.) Again driven further by the progress of European civilization, they took refuge in "Nova Zembla, and the Lord knows where ;" until our own days, when Parry

Insuetum per iter gelidas enavit ad arctos, and has stripped the north pole itself of half its terrors.

The day succeeding this excursion we left the luxuries of Dessin's hotel at Calais, and, embarking in the Onyx, darted across the Channel in an hour and thirty-six minutes; a rapidity which would have astonished the "monstrum activitatis," as Cicero calls Cæsar, and which one of these fine days may contrive to astonish us, unless we look well to our harbours of refuge and defence. Caligula collected his army for the invasion of Britain at Boulogne, built his tower and retired. Following his example to the very letter, Napoleon performed a similar exploit: the Armée d'Angleterre was organized, and a column erected, but he disappeared, re infectâ, and his statue upon the summit, turning its back to the ocean, would seem designedly to commemorate his failure; but neither of these potentates, however masters of the continent, had the powers of steam at their command to control the ocean.

Yours, &c. H. L. L.

site of the battle-field, however, even those authors are not agreed, whilst Dr. Milner removes it to Heddington near Roundaway hill, Lysons to Heddington near Hungerford, and Whitaker to Slaughtenford near Yatton. Sir R. C. Hoare's dissertation on this subject will be found in his Ancient Wiltshire, Southern Division, p. 56, and some remarks dissenting there from in the Beauties of England and Wales, for Wiltshire, 8vo. 1814, pp. 453-456.

In the next place Edington is me

2 L