throughout his essay, I conceive, has in no way been depreciated. The French term Cicero Ciceron, Julius Cæsar Jules Cæsar, Titus Livius Tite Live, Otho Othon, a name identically in point, &c. &c. Odon is not conformable with the English historic style; and when we begin to speak in this page of our annals of Odon of Bayeux, we must discard his conquering brother William, and reform him to Guillaume.

For the error into which I inadvertently fell of styling Mr. Corney, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, if it were really mine, I sincerely apologise. I cannot, however, but conceive his reading and acquirements fully merit that distinction; he has sufficiently displayed in the pro. gress of his essay his acquaintance with the early Norman writers to entitle him to a degree at Somerset House; but he has done nothing more, and he will pardon my "boldness" if I maintain that none of the ancient authors he has cited, and which assume such imposing attitudes in the margin of his communications, attired in folio, quarto, or octavo, have any direct or indirect bearing in support of his imputations against the antiquity of the Bayeux Tapestry. The whole of his attack, divested of the host of writers which he has thus forcibly enlisted to cover his advance, may indeed be reduced to the simple ground that the Tapestry is not described as the gift of the Conqueror's queen, in the inventory of ornaments belonging to the cathedral at Bayeux made in the 15th century. His authorities, so from courtesy to term them, are like the skirmishers thrown out in front, to mask the movement of an army by the diversion which their numbers, noise, and smoke may occasion, however inefficient their fire.

In the description of the battle of Hastings no one of those venerable chroniclers gives the minutiae of the event* as detailed in the pictorial record. They deal for the most part in poetic generalities and exaggerations.

Thus we find, in William of Poictou, the statement that the army of Harold was so numerous that it drank up rivers and rooted up whole forests in its march! "In ejus transitu flumina epotata, silvas in planum redactas fuisse." How different this from the matter-of-fact style of the tapestry, where the Norman army on its march to the field of battle is represented as burning a single house. "Hic domus incenditur," (see the inscription). May I ask whether this circumstance, related with such plainness and natural simplicity, was likely to be dictated by the learned fabricator of the Tapestry to his "operatives" one hundred and fifty years after the event?

No serious objection was taken by me to Mr. Corney's proposed constitution of a jury of antiquaries to try the claims of the Bayeux Tapestry to canonical authority. I fear I have, nevertheless, in the faithful discharge of my office of reviewer, exposed myself to challenge when the court may be assembled. I hesitate not, however, to maintain an opinion which has been sanc. tioned by a Stothard, a Meyrick, and an Amyot. The flattering terms in which Mr. Corney has recognised me as the author of the review, if I were "much in love with vanity," might be supposed the motive for abandoning any degree of incognito under which I might yet remain. I have had, however, no other desire, but firmly and courteously (not fiercely as my opponent insinuates) to establish the just pretensions of a noble, historical, and I may say, in reference to events, national record. The task has not, I think, been difficult, resting chiefly on the irrefragable and stubborn testimony of the monument itself. Truth, not controversial display, often to lettered men a great temptation, has been my object. For the sake of shewing their skill in argument such persons will stem the tide of rational conviction, catch at every insignificant twig by the torrent's side, or blow up airy bubbles to support them

"distinguish and divide A hair 'twixt south and south-west side

dispute, Confute, change hands, and still confute." Talents are frequently thus misapplied, and dissipate themselves in subtleties when they might have achieved far nobler and more useful aims.

I leave, Mr. Urban, the Bayeux Tapestry as an original coeval testimony-not, in my view, trembling

uncertain in the balance before the judge, but as one on which the accomplished judges cited have already made up their minds-safely to the reasonable acceptance of the present age and of posterity.

Yours, &c., A. J. K.

MR. URBAN,

Dorchester, June 18. AS I believe the question of Phonician intercourse with the British Islands, which must afford many important historical deductions, can be decided only by circumstantial evidence, which has not yet been brought to it in sufficient strength to settle it in the mind of every scholar, I have collected all the evidence within my reach, to try it myself; and, I may possibly be doing some little service to literature by offering you the result of my labour. I take the liberty of doing so now, as Sir W. Betham has given his opinion on the subject, as it is connected with the Gaelic controversy, in your Magazine for last month. The Phoenicians are remarkable among ancient nations for their early eminence in navigation and the use of letters, Φοινικικα σηματα Καδμου. The early use of letters in Canaan is shewn by two facts. The first lines of the book of Sanchoniatho were read in the mysteries of Isis and Ceres, and he consulted a priest, Jerombal, and the archives and annals which had been kept in the temples before his time; and Debir near Hebron in the tribe of Judd was called Kirjath Sepher,

'p, the land or city of records or books, before Joshua went into Canaan (Joshuac. xv. v. 15 and Judges c. i. v. 11,) a fact which I think fatal to the theory of the Divine origin of writing at the promulgation of the law on Mount Sinai.

The greatness of the Tyrian commerce and wealth is frequently dwelt

upon in the Bible; and Homer speaks of their traffic and precious wares as things well known in his time; and as Sanchoniatho (who was a Phoenician and wrote, before the siege of Troy, the history of which Eusebius has quoted) tells us that the Phoenicians had long sacrificed to the elements, and especially to the winds, they seem to have been a navigating people in the most remote antiquity. We also know that they made long voyages, such as that from Ezion-geber Chron. C. vii. v. 17) whether Ophir was to Ophir (1 Kings c. x. v. 23-2

India, as some think it to have been, or equatorial Africa, as others make it; so it cannot be upheld that the British Islands were too distant for them to reach, though it may be said that in their long voyages they sailed by the shore, and therefore could not reach an island in the open ocean.

Their colony of Cadiz,—which, most likely, followed those they settled on the coast of Granada and Andalusia— was founded according to Velleius Paterculus in the time of Codras, more than 1000 years before Christ; but Cadiz, as Depping says in his "Histoire Générale de l'Espagne," b.2, "leur servit de point de départ pour de plus grandes navigations dans l'océan," served them as a starting place for greater voyages on the ocean.

We know also that the Phoenicians cultivated those sciences from which oceanic navigation is derived—geometry, astronomy, and astronomical geography; as Thales, the Milesian, for example, who foretold to the Romans the solar eclipse that happened at a battle between the Medes and Lydians (Herod. Clio. 73) was of Phoenician blood, and travelled into Phoenicia as well as Egypt for the sake of study.

Quintus Curtius, in B. 4, c. 19, De Rebus gestis Alexandri Magni, speaks of Tyre as a city insignis vetustate originis, celebrated for the antiquity of its origin; stating that it was founded by Agenor; that it reduced under its power not only the neighbouring sea (mare vicinum), but whatever (quodcunque) their fleets went into; and that, if report could be believed, the Tyrian nation first taught or invented (didicit) letters. Their colonies, he says, were certainly scattered over almost the whole globe (orbe toto),

sea

and he names as some of them, Carthage in Africa, Thebes in Boeotia, and Cadiz on the Atlantic Ocean (Gades ad oceanum).* "I believe," he adds, "that, wandering on the open sea (libero mare), and more commonly going to lands unknown to others, (ceteris incognitas terras), they have chosen settlements for their young people, of whom they had then a great number."

The coming of Agenor into Phoenicia must have been nearly coincident with that of the Israelites into Canaan; since Cadmus, his son, is considered to have migrated into Greece in the time of Joshua, when Sidon was so large-as we see in Josh. c. xix. v. 29-as to be called

.עידין וכה,Sidon the Great

As it is not easy to decide exactly what Q. Curtius means by the mare vicinum; so we cannot say whether he intends by his mare quodcunque, the western part of the Mediterranean sea, or the Atlantic ocean; but the lands unknown to other nations, which the Phoenicians found by wandering on the open sea, could hardly be within the pillars of Hercules, though it is not clear whether they were the coasts of Spain or Portugal, or the British Islands, or neither.

We have a full proof that the Phoenicians went out into the Atlantic ocean in the existence of their settlement of Cadiz; called by the Romans Gades, and by themselves Gadir, the Fort; from 1 to build a wall, or to be girt.

One of their articles of commerce was amber, and another was tin; both of which the Greeks got from them in very early times. Homer (Iliad, B. xi. 25)† and Pliny (lib. xxxiv.) give us to understand that tin was in use among the Greeks at the time of the siege of Troy; and Homer speaks of wrought amber in one place in the Odyss. B. 1. 78.

Now, if the Phoenicians traded in

amber, they got it where it was to be had; and if they collected it in large quantities, they went to those shores where much of it was produced. In the Penny Cyclopædia it is stated, on the authority of Berselius, Traité de Chimie, vi. 215, that amber is a carbonacious mineral, which occurs in beds of lignite in Greenland, Prussia, France, Switzerland, and some other countries; and that the greater portion of it comes from the southern coasts of the Baltic sea, where it is thrown up between Königsberg and Memel; and it is quoted from Ann. de Chimie, xvi. 215, that it is obtained by mining at a distance of two hundred feet from the sea, and about one hundred feet deep; and from Aiken's Dict. of Chemistry, that it is occasionally met with in the gravel beds near London; but, as it is not so likely that the Phoenicians mined in England or elsewhere for their amber, as that they got it from the sea shore, we have only to decide on what shore they found it.

But I find this question so well treated by Depping, in his Histoire Générale de l'Espagne, B. 2. that I cannot do better than translate his reasoning on it.

"What was still more mysterious," he says, "than the trade in tin, was that in amber. It has been thought that the Phoenicians, following up the coast of Western Europe, penetrated the Baltic sea, and traded with the coasts of Prussia, where they got their amber. That article must have come from a great distance, since it yielded its weight in gold. We see also, in this case, why pillars of Hercules have been found on the coasts of Friesland, because the Phoenicians had placed stations on the coasts of the north, as they did in Spain No country has hitherto been found where amber is in so great quantity as in Prussia. It has been

found on the coasts of Shonen, Norway, Jutland, and there is some even in Asturia, and in Portugal; but nowhere enough to form a branch of trade; while the sea throws it up in such quantities on the coast of Samland in Prussia, that the sale of it yields yearly to the Chambre des domaines,' from 72,000 to 96,000 livres. Where then could the Phoenicians obtain this article, so precious to the eastern nations, but on the only shore where it has

been abundant at all times?

"This commerce implies great expeditions, but it is nothing but what is likely, and agreeable to the speculating spirit

of the Phoenicians." "The ships of Tarshish," he adds as the opinion of M. Bredow, "brought back a precious stone which was called the stone of Tarshish, and which has been hitherto taken for the chrysolithe. Was it not amber? The Hebrews, among whom it was reckoned as a gem, had no particular word for amber; and therefore, might naturally call it after the place from which the Phoenicians pretended to have imported it, as we have named china, indigo (indicum), and holland."

If, therefore, we are to believe that the Phoenicians traded to the Baltic sea for amber-and it seems scarcely more incredible than that they could get much elsewhere,-we must believe, as a necessary consequence, that they found England, as they could not well go up the English Channel, without running within sight of it.

The testimony of Herodotus, which is so valuable in this question, is found in his History, Thalia, c. 115, where he says:

"But about the remote parts of Europe, towards the west, (πрòs éσπéрην) I cannot, indeed, speak positively (arpekéws) ; since I do not believe, for my own part, that there is a river called by the barbarians, Eridanus, running into the sea towards the north (πρὸς βορὴν ἄνεμον), from whence they say amber comes; nor do I know anything of the Tin Islands (Κασσιτερίδες), from which tin (κασσιTEPOs) comes to us; for, in the first place (TOUTO μEv Yap), the very name Eridanus shews itself to be Greek, and not at all Barbarian, but shaped by some poet, and secondly (TOUTO de), I am not able to find from any eye witness, though I have tried to learn, what sea it is on that side of Europe. Tin and amber, however, come from the most remote parts (ég éσxátes).

From this paragraph we learn that Herodotus had heard, though not from an eye-witness as he says-of a sea in the north of Europe, where there is such a sea; whether we take it for the North or German sea, or the Baltic sea. He had heard that amber came from that sea; and we know that amber is found in large quantities on the coast of Prussia, in the Baltic sea, and very little is found elsewhere. He had heard, but did not believe, that the Northern sea, of which he was speaking, received the waters of a river called by the Greeks the Eridanus,

a name, as he thinks, coined by themselves; and we know that between Königsberg and Memel, where so much amber is found, the river Memel falls into the sea, between the Vistula on the south-west, and the Dvina on the north-east. He had heard of Tin Islands in the remote parts of Europe towards the west, and such islands are found in the Scilly or Sorling Islands, or in a large sense in the British Islands; and the immense distance of these parts of Europe from Tyre, or at least from Greece, is implied in his assertion, that tin and amber came from the most remote parts, ég éoxaTηs; so that we must believe, on the one hand, that he had heard of a sea, a river, and islands, lying as they lie, and producing, as they always have produced, amber and tin; and all this propagated from fancy by people who knew nothing more of such places than what they had seen in a wonderfully true geographical dream ;—or on the other hand, we must conclude that some nation had reached those places, and brought amber and tin from them; and that nation could be no other, as we are told they were no other, than the navigating Phoenicians who manned the ships of Tarshish.

Aristotle talks of Keltic tin; and Strabo describes these islands, as well as Britain, to be opposite Artabri, or Gallicia, in Spain, but northward; and places them within the British climate (Geog. lib. ii.); and in another passage (lib. ii.), he states them to be beyond the pillars of Hercules, joining them with the British islands in the words καὶ κασσιτεριδες, καὶ βρεττανίκαι. He says elsewhere (lib. iii.) they are in the open sea, and north from the Artabri or Gallicia: and British tin was so celebrated in antiquity, that Polybius intended to write on the British islands, and on the preparation of tin (see Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons). From

which it has been suggested that the Scilly Islands and Cornwall were more particularly meant by the Cassiterides. Cornwall might have been taken for an island till more of the English coast became known; and so included among the Cassiterides. Strabo (lib. iii.) speaks of ten Cassiterides; and there are ten larger Scilly

islands; and he connects but not confounds them with the large British islands.

The scanty or obscure account we have of the Cassiterides, and of the Phoenician traffic with them, might be attributed, as Turner observes, to the little or false information the Phoenicians gave other nations about them, from a wish to keep all shipping, but their own from their shores. He tells us (lib. iii.),—and whether his anecdote be true or not, it proves that their conduct must have shewn it to be their object to exclude others from the tin mines-that when the Romans followed one of their vessels that they might find the tin islands, the jealous pilot stranded his ship, misleading his followers into the same state; and, saving himself from the wreck, was indemnified for his loss out of the public treasury.

Yours, &c. W. BARNES.

HISTORIC DOUBTS.-WILLIAM TELL. M. DARU, in his History of Britanny, expresses himself with some asperity on the subject of Historic Alluding to the question which has been raised concerning that interesting event, the Battle of the Thirties, he says,

Doubts.

"It would be a sad employment for learning, if it only served to shed doubts upon history, and to destroy those national traditions, which keep up among nations the love of glory and of one's country. Truth before all, without a question; but if we love truth, Pyrrhonism, which also has its negative affirmations, is destructive of science itself; and what useful purpose, for instance, can the efforts of I know not what learned person answer, who has undertaken to prove to the Swiss that WILLIAM TELL has never existed?"'*

It must be owned, the theory and the practice of this eminent Historian are at variance. While he condemns Historic Doubts in the abstract, he does not scruple to make the most of them in his narrations; for two celebrated tales, which have hitherto passed current in history, have been demolished by his pen. The first is the romantic attachment of Louis of Orleans and Anne of Britanny; the

*Hist. de Bretagne, vol. ii. p. 112.

second is the conspiracy at Venice, which St. Real and Otway have made so interesting. Why then should he complain of investigation, when his own writings derive from it so much of their value? Perhaps, if he wished to shield the exploits of William Tell from these intrusive inquiries, he would have done better to avoid alluding to the subject, than to inform the reader that any uncertainty was connected with his name.

In fact, there is an uncertainty, by no means easily cleared up, connected with the glorious name of William Tell. If any writers have argued that he never existed, they have indulged a love of paradox much beyond its legitimate limit. But it cannot be denied, that doubts hang over his history, and that they are of a very perplexing kind to such as would insist on its authenticity.

In 1715, John Peringskioeld, a Swedish antiquary, professor of antiquities at Upsal, published at Stockholm an ancient Saga (entitled Wilkina Saga), which he considers was brought from Spain into Norway, about the year 1240. It is indubitably having been brought from Spain has ancient; and the supposition of its every air of probability, as the Goths settlement in that country. At p. 64, may have carried it thither, at their an adventure is related, extremely like that which is told of William Tell. It is attributed to Egill, a Scandinavian warrior of the seventh or eighth century. A tyrant ordered him to shoot with an arrow at an apple on his own son's head; and, perceiving that he had two other shafts with him, demanded to know for what they were meant. "If (replied Egill) the first had struck my son, the second was for you, and the third for myself." The narrative is so similar, that it must strike the reader immediately, that the events are one and the same. The question then to be asked is, whether the Saga is authentic? and this must in some measure depend on the personal character of the publisher. It is allowed, that he has rendered important services to the history of the north of Europe, particularly in the publication of MSS.; but on the other hand, we must admit,