and while the officers were ineffectually endeavouring to rally them, the British seamen boarded their ship, and forced them to surrender. At this juncture, Hobson descended from the shrouds with the French flag wrap ped round his arm; and, after triumphantly exhibiting his prize to the seamen on the main deck, he was ordered to the quarterdeck, where the admiral complimented him on his bravery, and assured him of his protection." In the general account of Herefordshire, advantage is very properly taken of the county agricultural report, Mr. Marshall's rural economy, and other respectable authorities, in order to furnish a curious and particular account of the two leading products of the county, apples and hops. The description of Hereford is rather proportioned to its ancient consequence as a frontier station to overawe the Welsh, than to its present importance: the relation of its siege by the Scottish army under the earl of Leven in the civil wars is interesting, as displaying the gallant loyalty of its inhabitants, and the wondrous want of skill in the besiegers. The architectural details respecting the cathedral, and various other ancient buildings, will be considered as somewhat tedious by all but professional men and thorough-paced antiquaries; nor will the general reader be greatly inclined to acquiesce in the charges of Vandalism and Gothic barbarity, which are urged with a truly ludicrous seriousness against bishop Egerton for destroying a "ruinous and useless" Saxon chapel. If an individual, or society, find it expedient to level my tottering ruin with the ground, or to covert the site of any ancient camp into a corn-field, all the deference that the most rigid etiquette can demand on such occa sions, is that due notice be sent to the antiquarian society, in order that they may have an opportunity, if they please, of making drawing and plans before the demolition takes place; and that the right of pre-emption be conceded to them, if they wish to purchase at a fair estimate any part of the rubbish. It is impossible that an inland county, which possesses no manufacture, and is simply an agricultural district, shal offer much that is very interesting to the modern statist: a paucity of information of this kind cannot therefore be reasonably urged as reflecting upon the industry of the present writers: on the contrary, they in supplying this deficiency, by enlarging are entitled to credit for their good taste more than usual on the picturesque bearties in which this county is peculiarly abundant, and thus producing an agree able intermixture of the records and re liques of past ages, with pleasing descriptions of rural scenery. ART. XVII.-The ancient Cathedral of Cornwall, historically surveyed. By Jons WHITAKER, B. D. Rector of Ruan-Langhorne, Cornwall. In Two Volumes. 4to. pp. 348, 434. THE hand which, almost half a century ago, was employed to write that extraordinary, topographical, historical, critical, and antiquarian book-the history of Manchester-has again directed the pen; and under the above strange title has produced one of those eccentric literary works, which sets at defiance every attempt at systematic analysis, or connected criticism. In both these works, as well as in some others by this learned author, the reader is often dazzled with his eloquence, astonished at his rare and profound erudition, and surprised at his palpable absurdities. The character of the former work is pretty generally known to that class of the literati, who delight in topographical and antiquarian lore; and like all works of great originality and novelty, it has provoked the unqualified censure of plodding critics; though the enlightened and discriminating have fairly appreciated its real value, and classed it among those books, that may be read with much advantage, if read with cau tion. The present work, as might be naturally expected, carries with it a fany likeness, and partakes of many peculiari ties which characterized its predecessor. 66 It must be known to many of our readers that there is no cathedral in Cornwall, and they must consequently be surprised at the appearance of two quarto voluaxs closely printed, upon a non-entity. Like the Utopia" of sir Thomas More, the subject seems therefore to be merely ima ginary, and adopted by the author as a title for a dissertation. Without preface, introduction, table of contents, or any sort of explanatory narrative, Mr. Whit aker commences the present work with a far-strained allegory, in which he compares the history of the world and of man to a colossal statue of antiquity without a head; but according to him this most es sential part of the body is provided, or "By this kind of moonlight I mean to direct my course in making my survey of the ancient cathedral of Cornwall. Yet I hope to collect the beams so carefully into one focus, as to find them combining into some degree of lustre, and lighting me with truth along the winding path to my point. In that hope, therefore, I set out; expecting, how ever, not to find my point within the petty circle of any one parish, or even the ample orbit of a whole county, but to trace it steadily across the whole island, and to pursue it occasionally into the continent." Such are the terms in which our author explains his plan; and with this explanation only we are left to conjecture the object of the work, and the intention of the writer. In section the first he takes a short review of the Saxon invasion, narrates the establishment of the heptarchy, and describes its reduction into one kingdom, when Winchester became the metropolis of England. Cornwall, however, raaintained its independance. The exploits of Athelstan are next described; his subjugation of Northumbria, his defeat of the Scots, his victories over the princes of Wales, and lastly his successes gainst the Cornish under king Howel, and the consequent annexation of Cornwall and the Sylley isles" to the kingdom of England. Hiere our author setties according to his own plan, the etymology of Cornwall, and explains the intimate connection of many names; he then narrates some historical circumstances relating to the opposite coast of Bretagne, as during the Saxon heptarchy that part of the continent was particularly connected with the British islands. * Histoire de Bretagne, i. 9. + Usher, 290. Usher, 293. § Leland's Itin. ii. 114, middle * "The Damnonian Britons of Devonshire and their region Damnonia, as called in the Dommonce in the north of Bretagne. The ages, were answered by the region' saints of Cornwall were by the Armoricans adopted for their saints, and assumed for their countrymen. Even particular appellations of places are exactly the same in both regions. The communication between Bretagne and our Cornwall, appears to have been great in the sixth century,† to have been continued for several centuries afterwards, and to have lasted as late as the middle of the sixteenth;§ even (I suppose) till the incorporation of Bretagne into the realm of France in 1532, annihilated eventually all provincial connexions, and absorbed them in the general interests of national policy. That, however,, did not (as may be presumed by those who never contemplate more than a single grain of sand at a time, who therefore do not ever consider it as in union with the whole mass) generate the identity of names in the two regions, bút continue them; did not unite with the iden tity of language, just as wonderfully preserved in Bretagne as in Cornwall, by the long detachinent of both from the rest of the country, to create, but to transmit, local appellations exactly the same in both. Just in this very manner we see at or about the concluding residence of the Romans upon the isle, Cimbri in Cornwall, Cymro in Wales, and Cumbri in Cumberland;|| Carnabii or Cornabii in Damnit in Ireland; Dumnonii, Domnonii, or Cornwall; Dumnii or Damnonii in Scotland; Damnonii in Devonshire. So clearly was all this coincidence of appellations derived, not as nodding criticism or dreaming tradition would willingly surmise, from the successive propagation of colonies, but, as all the facts unite to attest, from the same circumstances attracting the same appellations in the same language! The last name in all its existing universally among the natives; the variations originates from a circumstance still practice of fixing their houses in the bottoms, to shelter themselves from the winds, that beat with uncommon violence upon this exposed point of the island, a practice familiar to this, with other regions of the isle at first, but preserved still in this because of that violence. In the other regions, the wild elements of the isle have been tamed, by the excision of those woods or forests, and by the draining of those marshes, mosses, or fakes, which were continually engendering cold and wind; while the protrusion of the land in one lu Llavareh Hên, a bard of Cumberland, but a refugee in Powis, we have the latter com.try called Powis paraduys Gymri.' (Lhuyd, 259.) Ptolemy, Richard, and Solinus. These and other variations of the last name, as Donii, Dumani, Dumnunii, in Ravennas and Antoninus, serve to evince that Danmonii, as it has been recently affected to be read, and as Richard's map actually reads it, is only a false formation of the word. 1 long but gradually contracted prominence from Somersetshire and Dorsetshire, to meet the extended waves of the vast Atlantic, and to encounter the storms of the stormiest part of it, the bay of Biscay, is a geographical particular which must remain for ever." At the commencement of section 11, Mr. Whitaker comes to the subject which gives title to his dissertation; and begins an argument to ascertain whether the Cornish bishopric was first settled at "St. German's or Bodmin, before or under this new supremacy of England. Gross mistakes have been made upon the subject, but I hope to rectify them. The study of antiquarian literature is yet in its infancy only among us; and the manly deduction of inferences from premises judiciously stated, has been little practised hitherto by our antiquaries." Many historical facts are adduced to prove that it was not at Bodmin, in opposition to "the blunders" of Malmesbury, and to Dr. BorJase's "mass of conjectures, all pleading a false probability of reason against a positive assertion of history, all founded upon a false assumption, and all tending to a false conclusion." Even Malmesbury himself is brought as an evidence to prove, from some subsequent observations, the fallacy of his former reasoning. "The author [Malmesbury] thus shews us the original impression made upon his mind from the records of history: the obliteration made unwarily of it, by some false notices immediately before him then; and the return of his judgment at last, to what he had nearly lost in the crowd of notices which had pressed upon him since; a return as partial as his recollection, but carrying a plain tendency to his positive opinion at first. He set out on his historical journey, over an open country; saw the hill to which he was travelling, all drest out in full sunshine before him; but immediately entered a forest that intervened, lost his object in the woods around him, and when he reached it at last, had a view not half so distinct as his former one, catching only a gleam from recollection of that vision, which had shone so bright to his eyes before." Authorities are cited to prove that Bodmin, at the period in question "had no existence as a town, none even as a village, but merely as a hermitage." The sum of the evidence is that "Bodmin then could not possibly be, what it has been invariably supposed to the present, moment, the primary seat of our Cornish piscopate, and the sole seat till 981. In 614, when a new seat was formed equally for the episcopate, and for the royalty, Bodmin was only a hermitage. Bodmin continued a hermitage only to the year 936; and no episcopate could possibly be fixed at it, even so late as this very year.” tensions," sect. IV. is employed to prove, "Having divested Bodmin of its prefrom a very diffuse view of the ancient history of Cornwall, that St. Germans was the original episcopate: and the errors of other writers who differ from Mr. Whitaker in opinion are freely pointed out: the chapter concludes with a detailed account of Bodmin. In addition to the reports of history, the author proceeds [chap. II. sect. 1]," to a new kind of testimony" in favour of the same point: the "very church of St. Germans" itself. This new testimony is supported by a very minute description of the present fabric, and its constituent parts; together with an account of the various insignia of episcopacy which, according to Mr. Whitaker, are yet appa rent. These he denominates the bishop's throne--the stall of the chaplain or chaucellor-the bishop's entrance-and the tomb of the bishops. When a man zealously argues from false data, he is sure to bewilder himself, and must equally confuse his readers. This is forcibly exemplified in the portion of the book now under examination: where our learned annotator considers certain objects as only belonging to a cathedral, and then describes such objects in the present church. If he had not however been strangely bias sed in favour of his hypothesis, he might have found that many parochial churches have all the features which are said to be peculiar to this and other cathedrals. What he so minutely describes as "the bishop's throne," is merely a small niche in the wall: and "the stall of the chaplain" is another similar niche, which was formerly appropriated to a piscina, or a crucifix. Such niches of various sizes, shapes, and ornaments, are remaining in many small churches, which were never cathedrals, and which even the eloquent sophistry of this gentleman could not easily prove to have been such even in the Anglo-Saxon dynasty. A ring having been found near St. Germans church, occasions our author to write a long dissertation on the subject. He animadverts on episcopal and royal rings: and endeavours to explode the as sertion of some antiquaries, particularly dean Lyttleton, who have remarked that there were anciently parish wedding-rings kept for general use. We present the reader with a few of the author's observations on this subject: because they serve to characterize the style, manner, &c. of our zealous antiquary. "Rings are derived to us from a custom, as universal as the love of ornament among the nations of the earth, and common to the Romans, the Gauls, or the Britons; while the mode of wearing them is wholly Roman among us at present, and has always been so since the Roman conquest. This we may collect from several circumstances, little in themselves, independent of each other, but un ting in one testimony. The Romans wore rugs even so familiarly upon their thumbs, that, among many evidences of the bodily hugeness of the emperor Maximius the elder, his thumb is recorded to have been so large as to bear upon it his queen's right hand bra det for a ring.* We correspondently fid, upon rebuilding the abbey-church of St. Peter, Westminster, by king Henry III. that the sepulchre of Sebert, king of the East Angles, was opened, and therein was found part of his royal robs, and his thumbring, in which was set a ruby of great value.' We also know an alderman's thumb-ring to have been an object familiar to the eyes of Shakespeare. This practice continued among us long after the days of Shakespeare; an alderman's thumb-ring continuing to be noticed for its singularity as late as the middle of the seventeenth century. But the Romens also placed the ring upon one of their fingers, the large statues in bronze of emperors and empresses at Portici, having each of them aring upon the fourth finger; and Pliny informing us, that the custom was originally to wear it upon the finger next to the least, as we see in the statues of Numa and Servius Tullius.' The custom of the kings was thus revived by the emperors, and continued very late. But in the interval between the revived and the original custom, the ring was put by the Romans on the fore-finger; the very images of the gods,' says Pliny, carrying it Roman monument remaining, in which a man on the finger next to the thumb ||; and a appears actually putting a ring upon the forefinger of a woman, in the act of marrying her. We accordingly, use rings upon both these fingers at present. But we denominate the fourth particularly, just as the Romans and Saxons did, the ring-finger, as being that on which the ring is placed in marriages; while the native Britons, like the Gauls, wore the ring upon the middle tinger alone, the very finger which alone was excepted by the Romans. Thus, in 1012, on removing the bones of Dunstan at Canterbury by four men who had been the depositors of his body before, in what is called a mausoleum, and who now opened it; they found the bones more valuable than gold and topazes, the flesh having been consumed by length of time; and recognised that ring put upon his finger when he was committed to the grave, which he himself is reported to have made in his tender years.‡‡' The bones were then transferred to Glastonbury, and 172 years afterward again found there; the explorers coming to a coffin of wood, bound firmly with iron at all the joints,' opening this, seeing the bones within, with his ring upon a particular bone of his finger; and to take away all semblance of doubt, discovering his picture within the collin, the letter S, with a glory on the right side of the coffin, the letter D, with a glory, on the left.§§' The ring was put upon the finger of a bishop at his burial, because a bishop always wore a ring in his life; and because he wore it, as queen Elizabeth wore one through life with the same reference to her kingdom, in token of his marriage to his dio cese." &c. &c. The "riches, elegance, and dimensions" of Saxon churches, form the lead *Hist. Aug. Scriptores, 606, Capitolinus. "Pollice ita vasto, ut uxoris dextrocherio uteretur pro annulo." † Arch. iii. 390, sir Joseph Ayloffe, and Shakespeare's part 1. of Henry IV. act II. scene IV. "When I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle's talon in the waist; I could have crept into any alderman's thumb-ring." “An alderman's thumb-ring is mentioned by Brome in the Antipodes, 1640-: again in the Northern Lass, 1632-; again in Wit in a Constable, 1640." (Johnson's and Steevens's edition, 1793, vol. viii. 468.) 66 § Pliny, xxxiii. 1. Singulis primò digitis geri mos fuerat, qui sunt minimis proximi; sic in Numæ et Servii Tullii statuis videmus." Ibid. ibid. "Postea [digito] pollici proximo induêre; etiam deorum simulachris." Montfaucon, iii. part ist. ii. 17. I refer to the translation by Humphreys, 1721, as more within the reach of a country clergyman's purse, than the original, with its French and Latin expensively doubling one over the other. I so refer generally, though I occasionally cite the original as consulted by my friends for me. **"Rubric to our marriage service, directs the ring to be put upon the fourth finger of the woman's left hand." ++ Pliny, xxxiii. 1. Malmesbury, Gale 1, 302. 93 Ibid. Gale 1, 304. ing subjects of consideration and description in the third section; and are continued in the following, wherein the author endeavours to prove the church of St. Germans to be a Saxon building. This, however, he apprehends to be a difficulty, as the architectural antiquary will look for some peculiar style in the building, and those marking features which are supposed to characterise the sacred edifices of the Saxons. Mr. Whitaker anticipates some objections of this kind, and attempts to answer them. He next investigates the subject of square door-ways, which he remarks are of great antiquity. Nobody, who has studied the subject, we presume will doubt this: for all the ancient Egyptian and Grecian buildings have this characteristic. It is therefore superfluous to argue on a subject which is universally admitted. Section 1, of chapter 111, is chiefly occupied by the consideration of undercrofts or confessionals; and the sacrilegious ravages of the dissolution are reprobated in warm terms. The ancient habits of the officiating clergy, and the great antiquity of episcopal thrones, croziers, and mitres, are the subjects of section II. The next is employed to prove the antiquity of the game of chess, of tesselated or mosaic pavements, and of armorial bearings. This leads our learned author to a particular description of the celebrated historical tapestry of queen Matilda at Bayeux. An account of this curious relic with prints is to be found in Ducarel's Anglo-Norman antiquities. Chapter IV. is devoted to prove the very early establishment of christianity in Cornwall. The history of St. Germanus is next given, from his arrival in Britain where he was specially invited by the clergy to check the growth of the Pelagian heresy; though in section 11, he is said to have been brought over to convert the natives from paganism or druidism. The facts and observations of Dr. Borlace in favour of the long existence of druidism, are examined and confuted in sect. III. Historical deductions to the contrary Occupy the remainder of the chapter, which concludes with a dissertation on druidical relics. In chap. 11. sect. II. the author attempts to confute a long-established opinion concerning the antiquity of the pointed arch, * Dio lxix, 1159, Reimer.. + Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. iv. 8. Reading. but his data are completely nugatory, and his arguments are mere sophistry. The ecclesiastical architecture of this country has generally been referred to particular eras, according to the style which prevails in the most ancient part of the fabric. By this criterion antiquaries have endeavoured to identify the age of buildings; and as the style continued to vary from the Nor man invasion till the time of Henry the Eighth, this has commonly proved satisfactory evidence: Mr. Whitaker pronounces this false, "however echoed backwards and forwards by antiquaries;" and Mr. Bentham, who endeavoured to establish this point, is described as a man "who had not vigour of intellect to think freely for himself, and is only pacing therefore we may be sure, in the very harness, or with the very bells, of the common stagers on the road." The pointed arch is said by Mr. Whitaker to be of much greater antiquity than is generally supposed. He carries it back to a very remote period, and declares that it is to be found in Eg pt, Rome, and Britain. A Roman triumphal arch at Antinopolis, in Egypt, is described and represented, to substantiate this novel hypothesis. He thus urges the subject: "About the year of Christ 132," remarks an author very happily, and very judiciously, amid many assertions ingenious, but arbi trary, and some conclusions refined but er roneous, Antinous, the favorite of the em peror Adrian, was drowned in the Nile. This prince, to perpetuate his memory, founded a city in Egypt," at the point of the Nile where he was drowned," and called it after his name." As this incident is the foundation of the whole reasoning, I here establish it on the authority of Dio, who says Adrian “re-erected in Egypt that city, which was denominated testimony of a writer, nearly cotemporary from Antinous*; and again, upon the better with Adrian, who adds that Adrian built the city bearing Antinous's appellation.t This city is mentioned by Ptolemy as Avivos Пos, or Antinopolis, the capital of a district, lying along the eastern bank and has transmitted its remains under the title of Ensinck to the present times.§ Pere Bernat made drawings of its ruins, which are in the third tome of Montfaucon's antia fine old gateway formed after the usual quities; among them is the pointed arch,' in fashion of triumphal arches among the Romans, as having one lofty avenue through it |