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voices of their women, pleasing effect.

had a very

The singing of the Sandwich Islanders approached so near to the style of declamation, that from the dieses or small divisions of a tone, it seemed incapable of musical notation. Very few of them, compared with the Tahitians, are able to sing an air of English psalmody, which, perhaps, ought not to be a defect, but must be ascribed to the difference between their kind of singing and that of Europeans.

No one would, from a contemplation of their musical apparatus, which seem only contrived to produce a variety of noise, be inclined to predict that upon hearing them sounded, a sympathetic thrilling would pervade the heart, yet it is nevertheless true, that when played in the rhythmical cadence of measured movement, which constitute the perfection of their instrumental music, they are capable of producing an extraordinary sensation, as I have heard it confessed, even upon those who deemed it their duty to abolish the elder native customs, lest they should awaken reminiscences of their former modes of worship.

Nepos, in his preface to the Lives of excellent Generals, puts his readers on their guard against measuring the decorum of the customs of other nations by a standard derived from their own. For though the archetypal ideas of truth and propriety be uniform, yet it requires a more than ordinary portion of philosophic research and candour to find them out, and to separate the essential from the accidental. Besides, in giving sentence, we are too apt, in the arts as well as in morals, to estimate the το κατορθωμα, or officium rectum of others, by a To PETTOV of our own framing.

I would apply this remark on our manner of judging of the arts, rites, and ceremonies of other nations, to the proneness we feel in the survey to pronounce concerning Indian music, only with reference to the technicalities of our own, and not according to the curiosity of their contrivances.

I am not about to assert that it is necessary for a man to visit Polynesia, China, and Japan, to learn what music is; yet in these excursions he might meet with many hints to put him in mind that there is something more in music, considered in general, than his philosophy had dreamed of.

[Dec.

To judge fairly of the manners of distant nations, a traveller must have acquired the habit of divesting himself of his former prepossessions, and of clothing himself in a feeling of sympathy in the humours of the people, whose general physiognomy he would faithfully delineate. For want of this preparation, the world has been abused with the major part of the accounts that travellers have given of foreign countries, which, though they please the reader at home, yet when they are read in the sight of those objects which they profess to describe, intuition reminds us every moment of the strange difference between the draught and the original, and the inaptitude of the language to convey those ideas which it is presumed the honesty of the narrator would have communicated, if he had been skilled in the art of picture writing. I have said this, that I might seem entitled to request the musician not to esteem those specimens which have been given to the world as samples of Gentile music to be really genuine; for if the traveller be competent musician enough to note the sounds, which does not always happen, the melodies being generally second hand, the tablature will not furnish signs for denoting the various inflections and modifyings of the voice with which those airs are always accompanied.

Taking the hint from the circumstance that Mr. Danneley's version has made it palpable that the Greeks were in possession of melodies endued with peculiar charms, I have set down the foregoing arguments towards proving this complex proposition, that our music, however great its powers, does not embrace the sum of universal music, but is only a certain portion of it, which, from having been as it were the focus to which the beams of many sublime geniuses have been directed during several ages, it has far transcended the boundaries of that state of improvement which its counterpart of Grecian could boast, and that there has been much music unmelodious to a modern ear, which, from the multiplex nature of its contrivance, we are warranted in believing was capable of affecting the hearers with appropriate pleasure, if custom had tuned their ears to relish it.

I have given a translation of the hymu in question, which will be found

to approach nearer to the rhyme of the original, than Mr. Henry's; and while in point of sense it differs not widely from the Greek. Those who wish to sing the piece nearer the original quantity, may do it by changing the second crotchet in the first measure into a ninim, making it in the binary measure, and writing a crotchet in the thirteenth measure, instead of the dotted quaver and semiquaver.

"Awake, loved muse, my song begin,
While sweetly breathed from thy groves
Soft gales around me circling play,
And moving maze my won soul
Caliopea divine,

Lead forth melodies and fresh delights,
Author of sage mysteries,
Latona's son, Delian supreme,
Kindly meaning, come to me.'

The reader must discharge from his mind the recollection of English prosody, for it is not intended for recitation, but to be sung.

There is nothing remarkable in the hymn, except it be the use of the word Sovata, as if poetic inspiration amazed the senses, and made the head dizzy.

The Society Islanders, owing to interdictions of the missionaries, have retained only the grosser parts of their admired dances; but I have sometimes seen them quite intoxicated with the enthusiastic enjoyment from the awakened recollection perhaps of these once enchanting exercises.

respecting the etymology of the name of the people anciently known as Celts. I merely hazard an opinion that it may have been derived from their dress. For as the part of Gallia antiqua, inhabited by the Belgians, was frequently called Gallia traccata, from the peculiar sort of breeches the inhabitants wore, why might not the name of the Celts be equally derived from their dress?

That they had a peculiar dress is certain, as well as a peculiar language; for the Celtic dress is as frequently mentioned by the ancients as their language. Thus Strabo, speaking of the Verones bordering on the Celtibrians, mentions, as a proof that they

were originally Celts, that they used the Celtic dress. (Strabo, b. iii.)

The Greeks called the Celts Κελτοι ; the Romans called them Celta; which we pronounce with the C soft: but have we not good right to presume that the Romans pronounced the C hard, thereby making it accord with the Greek? Is it not probable that the Romans pronounced their word Kella? And if so, then the word we derive from the Latin, and pronounce 'Celts' (as if written Selts'), should be pronounced as if writtenKelts.' Now, if this be so, is it not probable that the names Kλro and Cella were derived from the Celtic name for a part of the dress of the Celts, and have been applied by the Greeks and Romans to those nations who wore that description of dress called by those who wore them kelts or kills? which the Celta or Keltæ of Caledonia yet wear; and as I am convinced, notwithstanding some modern endeavours to prove the contrary, they always have done. Yours, &c.

Mr. URBAN,

T. T.

Lake House, Wills,
Nov. 10.

the Nast letter of Mr. Bowles, in AVING perused with attention reply to me on the antiquities of this county, I must observe that, in my opinion, it neither tends to establish his own theories, nor to disprove mine. He endeavours by attempted wit to disparage an opponent who has honourably met him in the open arena of the literary field, and who, I trust, has proved himself not unequal to contend with him on the subjects in dispute. He calls ridicule to his aid, in place of argument, and thus betrays a want of real strength.

In my last letter, I clearly proved that Mr. Bowles represented me to hold an opinion which I never advanced, but which indeed had been advocated by himself, and which I had opposed! I have still to complain of his want of precision, as he now declares that I derive Tan Hill (the vernacular name of St. Ann's Hill) from Diana! It must be within the full recollection of your readers, that I ever strenuously affirmed it to be an obvious corruption of St. Anne's Hill, and I have supported that opinion by analogous reference.

492

once

The renewed objections made by Mr. Bowles to my theories, are prin cipally, if not entirely, in his recent letter levelled against my hypothesis of the Wansdyke, and of Abury and Silbury. Each of these I have on former occasions developed in your Magazine most fully, and supported them severally by a connected series of arguments. My friend has never dared to grapple with them in detail; he merely, as in the present instance, contents himself with nibbling at some isolated and immaterial point. He never has arisen with the strength of a giant to demolish the structure by a vigorous attack on all its parts. My hypothesis of the Wansdyke, I hesitate not to say, is supported by a strong series of arguments, to which I could now yet add. I assert it to be the Fosse, one of four eminent British roads which passed through the kingdom from sea to sea. In its course it by no means deviates from straight ness to the degree represented by my friend. In its sinuous line, indeed, it does but assimilate itself to the numerous minor, and decidedly fosse roads so often connecting the ancient British villages on the plains; nor in its narrow base do I see the strong objection so vaunted by my friend; it is equally wide with the above-mentioned indisputable ancient roads.

The Wansdyke is traceable even now for the length of fifty or sixty miles, and could not, to this extent, have been a rampart to defend those whom Mr. Bowles calls the Cells at Abury. I admit, however, that in its more deepened part, it is of less extent; and bears more the appearance of a rampart, but I deny that even this lesser portion could have been a warlike defence. Unable to account for the lofty mound thrown up on the one side, I plead guilty to having offered the suggestion, that in a later (probably the Saxon) æra, this immense agger may have been raised on the south side of the fosse, with the intent of sheltering the fosse road meandering over very exposed heights from the storms which sweep across the deep vale below. Whether this were so or not, I little care. I only

started this idea in the absence of a better, and I say to Mr. Bowles, that the truth of my hypothesis of the Wansdyke, does not at all depend on this unimportant point, on which he

[Dec,

Mr. Bowles ap

lays so great a stress. peals to a military friend of high rank, who, he says, supports him in the opinion, that the Wansdyke was a rampart of defence, and who compares it to the works of Vauban! I know not who this gentleman may be. It appears that he is an author, and he may relate the history of wars with accuracy and with elegance. He may be, and I doubt not is, a brave man, but I trust not in his abilities as a practical engineer. The General who should throw up such a rampart as the Wansdyke, would deserve to be cashiered. Its local situation, and its extended length (even in its more deepened part), obviously prove it to be no rampart.

The worshippers at Abury are considered by Mr. Bowles to be Cells (but the correctness of this I doubt), and that they were invaded by the Belgæ, from the south. (We have nothing but surmise for the wars of the Celts and the Belgæ on the Wiltshire plains.) He considers the latter as repulsed and stopped in their progress to the north by the strong armies of the Celts, collected around Abury in defence of that their holy temple, and he supposes the Belgae to throw up the Wansdyke as a rampart against the Celts, their now superior enemy; they are presumed to do this quietly, and subsequently by day and by night to garrison its exposed banks (unassisted by the defensive wall-unaided by the flanking tower), for the length of several miles, by an army more numerous than any on record, for such an army would indeed be necessary! Nor is this all, if we presume the Wansdyke to be a rampart, we then turn the art of war topsy-turvy! Those in possession of the high ground, throw up their ramparts to prevent the ascent by those in the lands below, the rampart is then next to the defenders, the fosse next to the assailants, but here the art of war is reversed-here the Belgæ, the inhabitants of the vale, are supposed (and that in the face of a superior foe), contrary to all the rules of war, to throw up in the brow of the hills a rampart to prevent the Celts, the inhabitants of the higher ground, from descending to them! No, Sir, the Wansdyke never- -never was a rampart.

I must now, Mr. Urban, turn to the argument of Mr. Bowles against

1828.]

my

astronomical system of Abury and Silbury. My hypothesis is fully detailed in Gent. Mag. for Jan. last. May I be allowed Sir, to say, without incurring the charge of egotism, that it is an hypothesis which connects and combines the whole, and is explanatory of all its parts. Mr.B. laughingly asserts that the sun and moon never travelled "two minutes" together. I never said they did, I never meant to say they did. I explain Abury and Silbury, not what is the system of the universe, froive we, but from the developement of the plan of its founders. The presumed astronomical system, which I assign them, is not more distant from the real one than many others which have been divulged to the world. By the Platonic system, the sun and moon were supposed to move in neighbouring concentric orbits; this is not more correct than the presumed opinion of the worshippers at Abury, that the one revolved around the other in an epicycle. I beg permission to refer Mr. Bowles to the following passage in my Essay on the origin of Abury and Silbury, and I must add, that having read these lines, he ought not to have made the above observation, and that by them his sarcasın is bereft of its sting.

"Let it not be said by any fastidious critic, or astronomer of the present day, that I err in my astronomical theory, that it is manifestly wrong; let him not say this, since I am not contending that it is manifestly right. There were many prevailing systems, and I am not endeavouring to prove what is the correct system of the universe, but am only deducing the creed of the founders from the developement of their own plan'."

As to the assertion of my friend, that the temples are circular, and that the ancients ever represented the moon by an half-circle, the observation is totally inapplicable. We cannot suppose it necessary that they should assimilate the temple, dedicated in honour of that planet, to its shape, when in a less perfect state. They venerated especially the decorum os' of the full moon. The circle in ancient (as well as in modern) times was ever esteemed the most perfect and elegant of all geometrical forms, and they usually adopted it, not only in their temples, but in the tumuli generally accompanying

them.

I cannot recede from this contro

493

IN

EDWARD DUKE.

Siege of Carla perfick," recently N reading the to "The Carlaverock," edited by that industrious antiquary N. H. Nicolas, Esq. I could not avoid being struck by the apparent miscon ception of a passage in the poem, from which Dr. Meyrick has founded a conjecture relative to its author, rather hastily admitted by the editor, and without that examination such a point deserves. The paragraph I allude to is as follows: "Although the name of the author has not been decidedly ascertained, there is one line which affords strong presumptive proof of his identity. When speaking of the Earl of Warwick, he says, he has alluded to him in his rhyme of Guy:'

"De Warwick le Count Gup, Coment hen ma rime de Sup. "It may therefore be presumed, that the author of the Siege of Carlaverock' was Walter of Exeter, a Franciscan friar, who is said, on good autho rity, to have written the romantic history of Guy of Warwick, about the year 1292." Pref. p. iv. For this assertion, Warton is referred to, Hist. E. P. (vol. i. p. 91, ed. 8vo.), and it is added in a note, that the Professor of Poetry apparently follows Carew and Bale. But if we turn to Carew (Survey of Cornwall, p. 59, ed. 1769), we shall find that Warton here is the mere copier of his predecessor, with the addition of a reference to Bale; and if we again take the trouble of consulting the latter, we shall find his words to be these, "Gualterus de Excestria, Devoniensis patriæ alumnus, et cujusdam Mendicantium fraterculorum professor seciæ (Dominicanum fuisse puto), ad instantiam Baldwini cujusdam, civis Excestriensis urbis, anno 1301, apud S. Carocum in Cornubia manens, Vitam scripsit Guidonis, inclyti olim Warwicensis Comitis, libro uno." Pits and Tanner copy the same passage with scarcely any varia