ing to give them a place in their works; but our English peasantry are beginning to feel a sort of reluctance to repeat such legends to those who they think belong to a better informed class of society, and all that we can now obtain from them is that the caverns to which this is the entrance are said to have been resorted to "in the troubled times," and that it is confidently believed that a great chest full of treasure is concealed in the bottom of one of them. The accompanying sketch represents the entrance to King Arthur's Hall. It is, in fact, the entrance (or entrances) to an extensive series of chambers which have been made by the extraction of the iron ore, and which at present are much clogged up near the mouth, but they are said to extend to a very great depth underground. I am told that within the last twenty years a considerable quantity of iron "mine" has been worked at a few hundred yards from this place. The district of the Dowards lies in the bend of the river between Whitchurch and Ganarew. On the boundary where these two parishes join, in a meadow on the right hand of the road to Monmouth. where the surface presents considerable inequality, I am informed that traces of a Roman villa have been found, but it has not been explored. Nearer to Goodrich, on Copped-Wood hill, about the year 1817, a large collection of coins of the lower empire was dug up. The name of Wal ford, which is borne by the village on the river below Goodrich castle, seems to indicate the existence of perhaps Roman buildings adjacent to the ford, which in Saxon times took its name from the walls that remained. The frequent occurrence of Roman coins and pottery among the old cinders in all parts of the district we are describing, leave little doubt in our minds in ascribing them to that people. These cinders are very abundant about Whitchurch and Goodrich; they are strewed over the surface of the fields, and if we dig a very little depth we find a thick and apparently a deep bed of them. They are found in the fields on both sides of the road till we arrive at Bridstow, where they are also very abundant. The antiquity of these beds of cinders is proved not only by the coins and pottery found among them, but by the circumstance that in many instances old woods stand upon them, and in the northwest part of the parish of Bridstow two or three fields, the soil of which covers immense masses of these cinders, are called Cinder Grove, and as no wood is known to have stood there, it must have been cleared away a long time ago. Coins and pottery are not unfrequently found at this spot; I was shown two of the former, in good condition, one of which was of the Emperor Philip (A. D. 244-249). To the east of Ross, on the opposite side from Bridstow, immense masses of Roman of the river the beds of cinders extend, but they are found plentifully in the parish of Tretire, where also, to my knowledge, one Roman coin at least has been found. scoriæ are found at Weston under able to ascertain how far to the north Penyard, the site of the Roman town of Ariconium, which must have been a city of iron-workers, and surrounded by forges. I am told that the floors of some of the forges have been discovered. Many of the cinders I gathered at this spot appeared to me to be of a lighter kind than those I had observed in other places, so that it might be here that the iron went through the last process of preparation, which I believe is now called the finery. The parish of Peterstow, to the north of Bridstow, also abounds in cinders, especially in a picturesque little valley or gorge, with a small rapid stream in it, which is called the Flum; the stream appears to have been used for the purposes of the iron-workers. I have not been In the diminutive but very old church of Tretire I met with one of the most curious memorials I had yet seen of the Roman occupation of this district, perhaps one of the most remarkable monuments of its kind in the country. The sequestered village of Tretire is the residence of a wellknown and excellent antiquary, the Rev. John Webb, F.S.A., to whose care we owe the preservation of this monument, which is represented in the accompanying cut. The small parish of Tretire contains two churches, herbs. She used it in fact as a mortar. Mr. Webb imagined at first that it was the rude capital of a pillar, having a square hole cut in the top, and he thought he perceived the remains of the shaft below; but on nearer inspection he saw that it had an inscription on the front, and as he conjectured at once that it had been used as a stoup for holy-water at the entrance of the church, he caused it to be removed for security to Tretire, where it now stands in the north corner of the chancel on the right hand of the communion table. It had been broken, and the upper part only was first found, but Mr. Webb subsequently discovered the other part, and the two have been now properly joined together.* It has been hitherto supposed by those who had seen this monument, that the inscription was a Christian dedication, and they read the first words-the latter part of the first line has been chipped away-as DEO TRIVNI; but I think it would not be easy to point out an example of this formula in a Christian inscription of the middle ages. To those well acquainted with this particular class of antiquities this monument presents the unmistakeable characteristics of a Roman altar. The inscription must be read as follows: DEO TRIV... BECCICVS DON AVIT ARAM The mutilation of the name of the deity is unfortunate, but the most probable conjecture seems to me to be that which explains it as Deo Trivii, to the god of the cross-roads. There were among the ancients many deities who presided over the roads, and it is very natural that in such a district as this the roads should be placed under their protection. think I have read of an inscription to a DEO BIVII; at Mayence, as we are informed by Mr. Roach Smith in his Collectanea Antiqua, there is an altar dedicated to the Bivii, Trivii, and Quadrivii, that is, to the deities who presided over those descriptions of roads, by a centurion of the twenty-second legion; and another GENIO DEVII, to the god who presided over the bye-ways; and an altar was found at Gretabridge, in Yorkshire, dedicated DEO QVI VIAS ET SEMITAS COMMENTVS EST. Dedit aram and donavit aram, are usual forms of dedication of Roman altars; an instance is given in Gruter (vol. i. p. dexvii. No. 2), in which both are combined, dedit donavitque. Some ecclesiastic of the middle ages, in want of material for a holy-water stoup, found this altar, and caused it to be cut into its present form, and the workman, caring little for the inscription, erased the final m of the word aram, and the latter letters of the name of the divinity to whom it was dedicated, with his tool. I think it is the only instance in this country where a Roman altar has thus been adopted for any purpose connected with Christian worship; but Mr. Roach Smith, in his Collectanea, has pointed out a similar use of a Roman altar, originally dedicated to Jupiter, but since formed into a baptismal font, at Halinghen, in the Pas de Calais (France). A very slight examination of the cinders found in the localities we are describing is sufficient to convince us that the Romans smelted their ore imperfectly, and so much iron is left in them, that it has been often found more profitable in modern times to throw the old scoria into the smelting furnaces than to go through the labour and expense of getting up new ore. Till recently immense quantities of the scoriæ from Cinder Grove in Bridstow were removed to the river side to be carried down in barges to Lydford for this purpose; and we learn from the antiquary, Thomas Hearne, that at the beginning of the last_century the cinders in the forest of Dean, which were then commonly called Roman cinders, were thus committed a second time to the furnace, and he tells us they made "the best sow iron in the world." 66 And," he adds, "not only in the forest of Dean and there *The dimensions of this altar, in its present form of a stoup, are: the entire height, rather more than 29 inches; length of the shaft, 17 inches; circumference of the shaft, 30 inches; width at the top, 15 inches, by 7 inches across; width and breadth of the base, 16 inches, by 10. At the top there are two straight grooves, one on each side the basin which has been cut into the altar. abouts, but even as high [up the Severn] as Worcester there are such large and infinite quantities of these cinders, some in vast mounts above ground, as will supply the iron works some hundreds of years." In the local records, we find that these cinders at Worcester were dug up for re-smelting at least as early as the middle of the seventeenth century;* and a Worcestershire traveller and writer named Yarranton, at the end of that century, describes the floors of the Roman furnaces as having been discovered there in his time.† The neighbourhood of Worcester appears thus to have been under the Romans a district of iron works and forges subordinate to the great iron district of the Forest of Dean. We may trace the iron district still further. Å very curious early legend, which is embodied in Capgrave's life of St. Egwin, represents the town which occupied the site of the present Alchester, and which the Romans called Alauna, as being inhabited entirely by smiths and filled with smithies. A saint, he tells us, went to convert these wicked people to the light of the Gospel, but, instead of listening to him, he no sooner began to preach than they all commenced beating with their hammers on the anvils, and produced such a terrible noise that he might as well have preached to the tempest. The saint was indignant at this uncourteous reception, and, before he left them, he raised up his hands to heaven, and in bitterness of spirit invoked a curse on them and on their occupation. In an instant the town was swallowed up by the earth, and from that time, says the narrator, no one could ever exercise the calling of a smith in that place successfully or profitably. The writer tells us, as a proof of the truth of his story, that in his time when the inhabitants of Alcester dug foundations for new houses, they found underground the houses of the ancient city. The antiquities of this place have not been explored in recent times, but it appears that the curse of the preacher has ceased to weigh upon it, for I have ascertained that there are at this day four smiths in Alcester, who all appear to be flourishing. * See the interesting little volume by Mr. John Noake, of Worcester, entitled "Worcester in Olden Times," p. 196. † Mr. Yarranton's account of the cinder district, in his book, entitled, "Improvement by Sea and Land," published in 1698, is curious enough to be given entire, for it not only shows us how much these remains attracted attention in the seventeenth century, but it furnishes additional evidence of their being the work of the Romans. He says, "It is evident that iron was in England a 1000 years ago, by those great heaps of cinders formerly made of ironstone, they being the offal (or waste) thrown out of the foot blasts by the Romans; they then having no works to go by water, to drive bellowes, but all by the foot blast; and at present great oaks are growing upon the tops of these cinder heaps, and monies continually is found amongst these cinders; but such as is found is all of the Roman coyn; most of which monies is copper; very little found of late dayes that is silver; and this offal of the foot blast, by the Romans then cast by, doth at present make the best and most profitable iron in England; it being mixt with some ironstone of the forest of Dean; and there hath been, and still is, vast quantities of this sort of iron cinders, in the counties of Monmouth, Hereford, and Gloucester; and about 28 years since Mr. Yarranton found out a vast quantity of Roman cinders near the walls of the city of Worcester, from whence he and others carried away many thousand tons or loads up the river of Severn, unto their iron furnaces, to be melted down into iron, with a mixture of the forest of Dean ironstone; and within 100 yards of the walls of the city of Worcester there was dug up one of the hearths of the Roman foot blasts; it being then firm, and in order, and was 7 feet deep in the earth; and by the side of the work there was found out a pot of Roman coine, to the quantity of a peck; some of which was presented to Sir Dugdale, and part thereof is now in the king's closet; by all which circumstances it clearly appears that the Romans made iron in England, and as far up the river Severn as the city of Worcester, where as yet there are vast quantities remaining." Contra artem fabrilem castri illius Dominum imprecatus est; et ecce subito castrum ipsum terra absorbuit, ita quod novo super veteri qualitercumque reædificato usque in hodiernum diem in constructione novarum domorum in fundamentis antiqua ædificia reperiuntur. Nunquam enim postea in loco illo aliquis artem fabrilem recte exercuit, nec aliquis eam exercere volens ibi vigere potuit. Capgrave's Nova Legenda Angliæ, in the life of St. Egwin. GENT. MAG. VOL. XXXVII. G LETTER OF ADVICE ON MILITARY STUDIES, WRITTEN BY CONSIDERABLE interest has recently been manifested in various quarters respecting the life and actions of James Wolfe, the early matured and early lost commander of the British forces in the reign of George the Second. It is some years since a life of Wolfe was expected from the pen of Mr. Robert Chambers, which would have been gladly welcomed at his hand. Some useful materials for such a work have recently been communicated by various contributors to "Notes and Queries." A series of his letters to an intimate friend and brother officer was printed in Tait's Magazine for December 1849: others were published in the Naval and Military Gazette at the latter part of 1850 and the commencement of last year; and some others will be found in the Bedford Correspondence. The following, we believe, has not hitherto been printed. We are favoured with it by our kind friend, Robert Cole, esq. F.S.A.; but the manuscript in his possession is not the original autograph. Mr. Townshend, to whom it was addressed, was at the time Secretary of State for the Home Department, and afterwards the first Lord Viscount Sydney. His brother, for whose benefit it was written, was Henry Townshend, "who was killed in Germany in 1760, being then Captain of a company of Foot Guards, being confessedly, for his heroic courage, and his amiable manners, the favourite of the whole army, and of all who knew him." ** As presenting a view of the quali fications deemed requisite to military proficiency a century ago, by one himself so distinguished by his early accomplishments and success, this letter will be perused with interest. The year in which it was written was passed by Wolfe in England; in the next he was engaged in the unfortunate descent upon Rochefort; in 1758 he had the command of the expedition against Louisberg; and in 1759 he was sent against Quebec, where he was killed in September of that year, at the early age of thirty two. Lieut.-Colonel Wolfe to the Right Hon. Dear Sir, You cannot find me a more agreeable employment than to serve and oblige you, and I wish with all my heart that my inclinations and abilities were of equal force. I do not recollect what it was that I recommended to Mr. Cornwallis's nephew ; it might be the Compte de Turpine's Book, which is certainly worth looking into, as it contains a good deal of plain practice. Your brother, no doubt, is master of the Latin and French languages, and has some knowledge of the mathematics; without this last he can never become acquainted with one considerable branch of our business, the construction of fortification and the attack and defence of places; and I would advise him by all means to give up a year or two of his time now while he is young, if he has not already done it, to the study of mathematics, because it will greatly facilitate his progress in military matters. As to the books that are fittest for his purpose, he may begin with the King of Prussia's Regulations for his Horse and Foot, where the economy and good order of an army in the lower branches is extremely well established. There are the Memoirs of the Marquis de Santa Crux; Fauquin and Montecuculi; Folard's Tactiques; la Phalanxe a Poussée et Doublée, l'attaque et la de fense des Places par Le Maréchal de Vauban, Les Memoirs de Goulon; L'Engineur de Compagne; St. Remi for all that concerns artillery. Of the ancients, Vegetius, Cæsar, Thucydides, Xenophon's Life of Cyrus, and The Retreat of the 10,000 Greeks. I do not mention Polybius, because the Commentaries and the History naturally go together. Of late days, Davila, Guicciardini, Strada, and the Memoirs of the Duc de Sully. There is an abundance of military knowledge to be picked out of the lives of Gustavus Adolphus and Charles Twelfth King of Sweden and of Rusca the Bohemian; and if a tolerable account could be got of the ex ploits of Scanderberg it would be invaluable, for he excels all the officers ancient and modern in the conduct of a small defensive army. I met with him in the Turkish history, but no where else. The * Collins's Peerage, edit. 1779, vi. 47. |