King. I differ from preceding inquirers thus far only, in maintaining that the earlier battles of Arthur were fought with other antagonists, and at a preceding period. It is but reasonable to conclude that on the one hand Cerdic had already firmly established his power before he encountered Arthur in Wessex, and on the other, that the military reputation of Arthur was acknowledged and pre-eminent before he was invested with the chief command against such an opponent. At the time of Hengist's death, another Saxon colony existed in the North of Britain, which, although unnoticed by nearly all our historians, and never dignified with the apellation of a kingdom, must have been considerable in power and population; and here we shall find appropriate objects of the early hostilities of Arthur. To Nennius again we are indebted for our intelligence on this subject, corroborated as his narrative is in essential particulars by the authority of Bede. When the services of Hengist in repelling the hostile incursions of the Picts and Scots were rewarded by Vortigern, with a grant of the Isle of Thanet, the magnitude of the recompense attracted others of his countrymen, who tendered their assistance to the Britons, and arrived in still greater numbers. These also received a ready welcome, and lands were assigned to them, on condition that they should fight for the peace and safety of the country against its enemies, receiving in return a stipulated payment.' Bede who mentions (Eccles. Hist. I. 15,) the terms of their contract does not specify the position of their settlement; but that their services should be available, it must obviously have been on the Northern frontier. That such was the case we learn from Nennius, who places them in the rich province of Lothian, near the Wall which is called Guane." Their leaders were Octa and Ebissa, both distinguished warriors, who arrived with a fleet of forty sail, having in the course of their voyage laid waste the Orkney Islands, and circumnavigated the country of the Picts. So far there is no reason to question the accuracy of our author (Section 38); but some of his further particulars are little to be depended upon. We are told that Vortigern, being enamoured of the daughter of Hengist, sought and obtained her hand in marriage; that, in consequence of this alliance, Hengist received a grant of this Northern territory for Octa and Ebissa, who are represented as his son and nephew ; and lastly that Octa on the death of his father succeeded him in the kingdom which he had founded in Kent. Now the son of Hengist who succeeded to his crown was Esca, Octa being his grandson. To identify the colonist of Lothian who formed his settlement about A.D. 450, with the grandson of Hengist whose reign in Kent extended to A.D. 542, was manifestly absurd. The coincidence of names, however, has induced Nennius to transpose the succession of Octa and his father Esca. But, even assuming that Octa was the son and not the grandson of Hengist, he cannot with any appearance of probability be identified with the associate of Ebissa. Hengist must have been in the prime of life when he arrived in Britain, for his reign extended over forty years; and yet we are told that he had at that time a son who had already acquired reputation as a warrior. The same objection applies, though in a less degree, to the assertion that he had a marriageable daughter. Neither is it credible that, if there were any truth in the story, so material a circumstance as the nuptials of the British king with a daughter of the Saxon leader, would have escaped the notice of the chroniclers of the latter people. Neither is it likely that the military occupation of Lothian, however transient, would have been unrecorded, if the leader of the colonists had been the son of the celebrated Hengist. Jeffrey of Monmouth has, after his fashion, amplified and embellished the meagre narrative of Nennius. He gives to the daughter of Hengist the name of Rowena, and so implicitly has he been followed by our modern historians, that her fame is as widely spread and her existence as little doubted, as that of Boadicea herself. He has added a third leader, Cherdic, as a companion to Octa and Ebissa, and has increased their fleet from forty to three hundred sail. He relates also the submission of Octa to Aurelius, his capture by Uther, his subsequent escape, his renewal of the war, and finally his defeat and death, with other particulars equally apocryphal. In receiving the statements of Nennius, we must exercise due caution. What. ever is added by Jeffrey we may unhesitatingly reject. In this inquiry nothing has been admitted which is not supported by its own inherent probability, and consistent with the testimony of Bede. From that historian, we learn that at an early period the Saxons, in alliance with the Picts, turned their arms against the Britons. This can hardly be the case of the colonists of Kent, who were separated from the Picts by the intervention of numerous hostile states, and a wide tract of country. On the other hand, nothing is more probable than that the Saxons of Lothian, the immediate neighbours of the Picts, should seek the support of their former antagonists, when they drew their swords against their benefactors. We shall presently see that the battles of Arthur were not the commencement of the wars between the Britons and the Saxons, and we shall also trace the final retreat of the occupiers of Lothian, within the territories of their new allies. Again, though we have no other independent authority which makes mention of Octa and Ebissa by name, we cannot doubt that they werereal characters; for, had their names not been already known to tradition, our author might at once have introduced Esca as his hero, instead of transposing his name with that of Octa in the genealogy of the Kentish kings. Nennius appears to have received the current traditions of his day with little of critical caution, and to have attributed to one individual, whatever he found memorable relative to persons of the same name. That the occupation of Lothian was effected with the full consent of the British superiors of the country there is no reason to doubt. Of the miserable condition of the frontier provinces we have evidence in the forcible language of Gildas, (c. 19). The Britons, "having abandoned their cities and their lofty wall, sought safety in flight, but their condition was rendered still more de. plorable by their dispersion." The level and indefensible country of Lothian was doubtless abandoned, situated as it was in the immediate vicinity of the Picts. They naturally rejoiced that a district which they were themselves unable to maintain, and which separated them from these ferocious barbarians, should be held by a warlike and friendly power, on whose ready cooperation they relied in times of danger. Thus then it has been shown that at an early period after the arrival of the first Saxon colonists in Britain, a considerable force of that people was located at the extreme north of that portion of the island which had been subject to the Romans, and that, whilst the original armament of Hengist had been brought over in three vessels, the followers of Octa and Ebissa were conveyed in forty ships. That this colony still existed in the reign of Arthur scarcely admits of doubt, unless indeed we not only believe with Nennius that Octa himself deserted Lothian for Kent, but that he took with him the whole of his colonists, a circumstance which could not have escaped the notice of historians, doubling as it must at once have done the population of the territories of Hengist. Nor is the circumstance of the apparent absence of a Saxon population in Bernicia in the succeeding century, any impeachment of the reality of Octa's settlement, but it is on the other hand a singular confirmation of the complete success of Arthur's arms, and the utter extermination of his opponents. At the same time the country which they had occupied was left without any sufficient British force, exposed to the first attack of a marauding expedition, when no longer protected by the vigilance and energy which had effected its emancipation. name does not necessarily import sameness of person; and it still remains for him to shew that the Wycliffe of Mayfield was the same person with the Wycliffe of Canterbury Hall. Can he produce an atom of evidence in proof of their identity? With respect to Wycliffe the warden, we have official documents in abundance. 1st. We have the appointment itself. But to whom is it given? To John de Wycliffe, vicar of Mayfield? (As I still contend it ought to have been in the hypothesis of W. C:) No: "to our beloved son, Master John de Wyclyve," in whom the mastership in arts is dignified by the regularity of his conduct, and his proficiency in learning; a description which perfectly corresponds with the character of Wycliffe the reformer, at that period. 2nd. We learn from the register of Archbishop Langham, that in 1367 a mandate was sent to the same Wycliffe and the other scholars of the hall to obey Wodehall as their warden. If, then, he was one of the scholars or fellows of the hall, could he at the same time be the vicar of Mayfield? 3rd. From the answer of the same archbishop to Wycliffe's appeal, it appears that even at the date of his appointment by Archbishop Islip, he was living as one of the scholars in the hall. 4th. In the final judgment pronounced in the papal court, he is described as a clerk of the diocese of York. Would that description have applied to him, had he held the living of Mayfield in another diocese ? 5th. In the royal confirmation of that judgment he is described as a certain clerical scholar, appointed at the foundation of the hall, and continuing so to the time when the judgment was given. Thus then the case stands on the one hand. There is no ancient testimony whatever to countenance the notion that the Wycliffe of Mayfield was the warden of Canterbury Hall; on the other there are five official documents-the only ones now extant-all of them describing the warden in terms which apply to Wy cliffe the reformer. He is eminent as master of arts, he is a scholar or fellow of the hall, he is a clerk of the diocese of York, but nowhere is he by any chance vicar of Mayfield. It is for the reader to draw the inference. It would be no difficult task to shew that Wycliffe's treatise, "the last age of the Church," published in 1356, was in reality a pious tract written by him, not against the covetous exactions of the Popes, but under the notion that the last day was at hand: or that his controversy with the friars in the university was not of a nature to render him obnoxious to the court of Rome; or that the author of the narrative in Archæol. xxii. 205, was a contemporary, whatever may be the age of the manuscript from which it was published. But the discussion of these subjects would serve only to perplex and prolong the present controversy, and to withdraw attention from the real question, which is, does there exist any evidence to prove that Wycliffe, the vicar of Mayfield, was the same person with Wycliffe the warden of Canterbury Hall? Yours, &c. L. 1. Park Square, Regent's Park, MR. URBAN, Feb. 18. BELIEVING that Mr. Dyke's remarks in your January number on the custom said to prevail in the neighround a horse's head under the name bourhood of Monmouth, of carrying of the Merry Lewid, may admit of a simple explanation, I venture to offer the following observations. of a white horse, with zebra-like stripes of black. This mixture of black and white may have been originally intended for the grey colour, Lewid); and the word March (prowhich in Welsh is Llwyd (pronounced nounced Markh) signifying a male horse, seems to me very easily corrupted into Marry or Merry; and thus the words correspond with the fact of its being a representation of a horse's head, &c. grey It is described as the head and neck With regard to the origin of the custom, it must remain, I suppose, a doubtful question; but I suspect it takes its rise in a source of heraldic chivalry, based upon the mythology of very ancient date. Three white horse's heads erased, two and one, on a sable shield, were borne by Cadell Deyrnllug first king of Powys, as his family arms, (for the arms of the state, according to Warrington, were a lion rampant); and I believe are borne by some of his descendants to this day. Now, it is very possible that some may have borne reins on these horse's necks, which may have misled some heraldic painters to represent them as striped, till they got blazoned as bendy sinister argent and sable, which would have just the effect of these zebra heads. As to the adoption of the white horse for his bearing by the king of Powys, I might, perhaps, account for it by pointing out his descent as one of the Cymry, (pronounced Kumry) from Gomer the eldest son of Japhet, who is always identified with Neptune, to whom the horse was sacred, or at least considered as his creation. The reason of this may be that most of the sons of Japhet had in the first instance to travel over the steppes of Tartary or the extensive lands of the north of Europe, as a nomade race, in which circumstances the horse was found best suited to their wants, as the cow in Hindostan is sacred for a similar reason. The white horse of the arms of Hanover and of some Saxon tribes, are further illustrations of this point; and its prevalence among the Carthaginians and others, probably not descendants of Japhet, may have arisen from the disposition to imitative idolatry in all who had intercourse with the Isles of the Gentiles. If the horse was the first animal which bore man on his back, it would be a sequel to be expected that the first ship which bore man over the waves after Noah's ark, would have a horse's head for its prow, and be the origin of the sea horses which are placed under Neptune's control. But I will not take up more time at present with such speculations, being fearful of encroaching on space appropriated to more important communications. Yours, &c. WM. HORTON LLOYD. which Ben Jonson is known not to have been. "It cannot have failed to strike every one who has read this production of Kyd, (among whom I do not reckon Mr. Malone,) that the author trusted for a great part of the effect of his tragedy to the contrast between the diminutive size of the Marshal (Jeronimo,) and the strutting of his language and action. In a word so many allusions of the most direct kind, are made to this circumstance in every part of the play, that no tall or bulky figure could attempt the character without devoting it to utter ridicule." Memoirs of Ben Jonson, pp. xvii. xviii. The laxity in Gifford's reasoning lies in this. His extracts are taken from the First Part of Jeronimo only. Hence the note signed C, in the last edition of Dodsley's Old Plays, is correct. "It seems probable from this, (the lines first quoted,) and several other passages in the play, that the part of Jeronimo was performed by an actor of low stature. Decker in two distinct scenes of his Satiromastix says, that Ben Jonson had supported the character of Jeronimo; but the assertion most likely applies to the Spanish Tragedy, or what was meant for the Second Part of Jeronimo, from which he introduces a quotation." C. man Now this Second Part of Jeronimo I have read, with the especial object of determining whether there were also any reasons against a of Ben Jonson's stature, playing the part of Jeronimo. I have found that there are none; the allusions to the shortness of the actor being limited to the First Part only. More than this, the forthcoming extract converts the negative evidence into positive; since it indicates that the actor, who, in the First Part performed Jeronimo, in the Second Part performed a different character, viz. Pedringano, so leaving the part of Jeronimo open to Ben Jonson, or to any one else. Pedringano.-Dost thou mock me, hangman? Pray God I be not preserved to break your knave's pate for this. Hangman.-Alas, sir, you are a foot too low to reach it; and I hope you will never grow so high, while I am in this office. The note of Gifford is equally exceptionable with the text. The captain (the character Tucca in Decker's Satiromastix,) says, in another place, "When thou rann'st mad for the death of Horatio, thou borrowed'st a gown of Roscius the stager, and sent'st it home lowsy," upon which the editor (Hawkins) wisely remarks, "Ben Jonson played the part of Jeronymo, as appears from this passage." p. xvii. The word wisely is ironical. Now, since from what has been shown above, Gifford's remarks apply to the First Part of Jeronimo only, Hawkins writes illogically, only on the assumption that the death of Horatio, and the madness of Jeronimo, take place in Part I. This, however, they do not do. the contrary, they occur in the Second Part. In respect to the fact of allusions being applied to the actor, rather to the character, no reader of our old plays need be reminded that there is in it nothing whatever uncommon or remarkable. The current example of this fact is the play called "Greenes Tu Quoque," Green being the name of the actor, who personated Bubble. Geraldine.-Why, then, we'll go to the Red Bull: they say Green 's a good clown. Bubble.-Green! Green 's an ass. Scattergood.-Wherefore do you say so? Bubble.-Indeed, I have no reason: for they say he's as like me as ever he can look. Hamlet's complaint that he is fat and scant of breath, must be understood of the actor, not the character. Changing the subject, I may be allowed to state, that, as a matter of private opinion founded upon the comparison of style, the First and Second Parts of Jeronimo are not the work of one hand. I may also add, that the First Part, although far inferior to the Second, contains several vigorous lines and noble sentiments; e. g. A melancholy discontented courtier, Upon whose eyebrows hang damnation ; bold; Him with a golden bait will I allure (For courtiers will do any thing for gold,) To be Andrea's death at his return. 2. As many ways as there are paths to Hell; |