1831.] [325 ] REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. History of the Northmen, or Danes and Normans, from the earliest times to the Conquest of England, by William of Normandy. By Henry Wheaton, Hon. Memb. of the Scandinavian and Icelandic Literary Societies at Copenhagen. 2 vols. 8vo. IT is customary in modern histories of countries, almost unknown before the middle ages, to pass over the early accounts of them with a superficial introduction. The result is, that our knowledge of them is often very unsatisfactory, often very erroneous, and as often very defective; e. g. we read often of swearing by the sword, but very few know that it was an ancient Sarmatian custom, because swords were worshipped as deities.* In a similar manner our author says, "The Hindus placed in that quarter [the land of the Hyperboreans, which the Greeks placed in the extreme north] their fabled mount Meru."-p. 1. Now there were at least three sets of Hyperboreans. One of Herodotus, meaning the people of Russia and part of Siberia. Another of the Romans and Arabians, the same as the country of Jagog and Magog, now the Steppe of Issim, on the banks of the Irtish, and a third of Diodorus, viz. Great Britain. Major Rennel concludes, that the term Hyperborean amongst the Greeks had different applications in different ages, according to the progress of geographical knowledge; as Thule had at a later time. Both meant the remotest tracts that they had any knowledge of, and of which the knowledge was too limited to admit of any clear or determinate application. BRITAIN, according to Diodorus, was, he says, the land of the Hyperboreans of MORE ANCIENT TIMES and after that, the remote parts of Europe and Asia, which the Greeks knew only by report. Diodorus, he says, mixes up circumstances, which evidently point to our island as the land of the Hyperboreans, with others, appertaining to the Hyperboreans, described by Hero * Ammian Marcell. L. xvii. Rennel's Geogr. of Herodot. i. 195 203. Id. 199. dotus as beyond Scythia.§ Now we shall take the liberty of presuming that the Mount Meru of the Hindus, as situate among the Hyperboreans, was Diodorus's Hyperborea, viz. Great Britain. This is a bold hypothesis, but we shall endeavour to substantiate it. Our author, after the passage quoted, says that in the fabled Mount Meru, "the deities shrouded their divine attributes in darkness and mystery. Lalona (the Night) brought forth those two lights of heaven, Apollo and Artemis, in the land of the Hyperboreans." We will not say, that as Diodorus wrote of the HYPERBOREANS OF THE MOST REMOTE TIME, that Apollo, however the Greeks of later æras may have transferred his country to Delos, was born, though not an Englishman, a Briton, if ever he was born at all. If our readers will consult our Review of Higgins's Celtic Druids (vol. XCVII. pt. ii. p. 154), they will see that Borlase mentions four stone circles adjacent, each consisting of nineteen stones, the single Metonic cycle; and they will also recollect other matters, mentioned in the same volume, p. 347, and that the Scriptural Baal, and Druidical Bel, are synonymous with Apollo, as proved by Mr. Higgins's Celtic Druids, p. 181. Now the statement of Diodorus is, that the "Hyperboreans were the nations who dwelt beyond the North wind (vπep beyond, Bopens North). There is there an isle as large as Sicily; the inhabitants believe that it is the birth-place of Latona [as in the account before given of Mount Meru], and hence it happens, that these islanders particularly worship Apollo, her son. They are all, we may say, priests of this god, for they sing continually hymns in honour of him. They have consecrated to him, in their island, a large spot of ground [presumed Salisbury plain], in the middle of which is a superb temple, of a round form [as Abury or Stonehenge], always filled with rich offerings. Even their town [seemingly Old Sarum] is consecrated to this god, and it is full of § Id. 200. 326 REVIEW.-Wheaton's History of the Northmen. [Oct. musicians and players upon instruments [the Bards], who celebrate every day his virtues and benefactions. They are persuaded that Apollo descends into their island every nineteen years, the measure of the lunar cycle [whence our circles of nineteen stones, each stone therefore signifying a year], the god himself playing upon the lyre, and dancing all night during the year of his appearance, from the vernal equinox to the rising of the Pleiades, as if he rejoiced in the honours paid to him." Now if there had not existed a Salisbury plain, an Abury and Stonehenge, an Old Sarum, stone circles of nineteen stones each, and Bards, we should doubt Diodorus; but as the circumstantial evidence is what it is, we shall only say, that men have been hanged upon far inferior testimony; and that, if it be admitted, this island of Meru confirms the allegation of Cæsar, that Britain was a university for the study of superstitions. But how came Delos to claim the honour of the birth-place of Apollo, and so to invalidate the title of the Hyperboreans? Pausanias in some measure explains this. He says, "that in Prasia [now Port Raphto in Laconia, a sea-port] is a temple of Apollo, whither the Hyperboreans were said to transmit their first fruits,* and that these the Hyperboreans entrusted to the Arimaspi [a people of the region of Altai in the Russian empire], and they to the Issedones [the Oigurs or Yugures of the Calmucks]. From thence Scythians [i. e. the nations on the other side the Danube, Scythians (modern Cossacks and Tartars) being the generic term for all Transistriani] took them to Synope [now Sinob, a sea-port of Kiutaja in Natolia, on the Black Sea], whence the Greeks took them to Prasia, and afterwards the Greeks sent them to Delos. Pausanias also notes, that the Hyperboreans were a nation beyond the north, whence Hercules imported the olive into Greece, and he adds, that any the Lycian, made a hymn concerning a certain Achaias, who came to Delos from the Hyperboreans + [by which term Pausanias certainly means the Russian Hyperboreans].He further says, that Hyperboreans first consecrated the oracle of Apollo * Συτανία της Υπερβορέας απαρχας ιέναι 2yera-Attic. p. 30, ed. Sylburg. + Id. 154, 10. at Delphi, and that Olen above mentioned, first invented the hexameter verse.‡ Now it is evident, that an island opposite Gaul, could not apply to the Scythian Hyperboreans; which term, according to Major Rennel, only denoted that country in more recent periods. Diodorus may have, as he supposes, mixed up the accounts relative to both the ancient and more modern Hyperboreans. But there might have been some connection and a similarity of customs at one time, between the Scythian and British Hyperboreans, which led to the confusion. It is certain, that the Welch call themselves Cymri, and that the Triads say that they came from the vicinity of Constantinople, called by them the " Summer Country." Now Pliny does call the Hyperborean region a Sunny Country," and such may the Crimea be justly styled. It is also certain, from Herodotus, that the Cimmerians were the earliest inhabitants of the Crimea; that Major Rennel admits that they were probably our ancestors;¶ that in the mountainous region there are remains of castles assimilating those of the Britons, that Druidesses still exist in the Caucasus, and that in other parts the fertility of the vallies, the mildness of the climate, and the production of excellent fruit, vindicate Pliny's story of the "aprica regio," the Hyperborean Paradise. Whoever has read the introduction to his first book, by Thucydides, will also see that migrations of whole nations, in consequence of expulsion by invaders, were almost daily occurrences. The Triads mention various irruptions of foreigners from the north. Diodorus, who lived about 44 B.C. might have used, like other Greeks, the term Hyperboreans for all or any nations of the North, because they knew nothing of them but by hearsay, had no idea of the just position of the Northern Ocean, and supposed all the tract to the northwest of the Baltic to have been islands. Under all the circumstances stated, therefore, viz. that the British Aborigines were Cimmerians, and that both countries were included under Id. 820, 42. § Probert's Welch Laws, 374. Regio Aprica, L. iv. c. 12, p. 66, ed. Pintion. i. 97, 98, 105. 1831.] REVIEW.-De Luc's Physical History of the Earth. the vague term Hyperboreans, we are not surprised at the similarity of customs between the Scythian and British Hyperboreans, especially as, independent of other conformities, Druidesses still exist in the Caucasean regions. We have been tempted to this digression, by the occasion presented to us by our author, whose first paragraphs we have used for a thesis. In our next, we shall confine ourselves to the more appropriate subject. Letters on the Physical History of the Earth, addressed to Professor Blumenbach; containing Geological and Historical proofs of the Divine Mission of Moses, by the late J. A. de Luc, F.R.S. Professor of Philosophy and Geology at Gottingen. To which are prefixed Introductory remarks and illustrations; together with a vindication of the Author's claim to original views respecting fundamental points in Geology. By the Rev. Henry de la Fite, A.M. of Trinity College, Oxford, M.R.S.L. 8vo, pp. 284. SAUSSURE and De Luc are consiIdered to be the first theorists of the earth who acted according to Bacon's experimental philosophy; viz. by deductions from actual existing phoenomena. Since that time, the geological world was long perplexed with Volcanists and Neptunists, or those who respectively assign an igneous or aqueous origin to these phenomena. For our parts, we think (though our opinion is worth little) that both causes have been in operation. The great object of De Luc's writings was" (says Mr. Lyell *) "to disprove the high antiquity attributed by Hutton to our present continent." We cannot however enter into the whole subject. The common cause of the present aspect of the earth has been presumed to be the deluge of Noah:-to that we shall confine ourselves. A controversy long ago arose, whether this was universal or partial. Bishop Clayton declared that the deluge could not be literally true, save in respect to that part where Noah lived before the flood. Calcott, who opposed that prelate, could bring no evidence that the catastrophes which he adduces to prove the universality, were simultaneous. De Luc maintains the Bishop's hypothesis, and proves from Scripture itself, that the Deluge *Principles of Geology, i. 69. 327 referred only to the parts of the globe which were then inhabited by the human race. In proof, he states (i.) that the prediction of God to Noah, "I will destroy them with the earth," as given in our translation, is ambiguous, whereas Michaelis renders the passage by I will destroy them, and the earth with them;" (ii.) that "the olive leaf could not have been plucked off by the dove from a tree that floated on the surface of the waters: it must have been taken from a tree which grew on an island that had not been submerged. Mr. Faber is therefore in error when he thinks that a contithe bottom of the waters would not nuance of a hundred and fifty days at have destroyed the olive trees: ten or fifteen days would have sufficed for that purpose. Besides, the violent motion of the waters would have suffered nothing to subsist at the surface of the earth; all vegetation would have been destroyed or swept away” (p. 29); (iii.) that the term "earth" does not here signify the whole terrestrial globe, but the land inhabited by man. Our author, in his valuable notes, proves from Le Clerc, that the Deluge was so far universal as to extend to the whole humanly inhabited world; and Bishop Stillingfleet observes : "It is evident, that the flood was universal as to mankind; but from thence follows no necessity at all of asserting the universality of it as to the globe of the earth, unless it be sufficiently proved that the whole earth was peopled before the flood."—p. 37. De Luc himself further observes, that when God said " every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have I given you all things," it must have been absurd had the deluge been universal, for Noah could have found nothing but mud anywhere (p. 243); and that "when Noah began to be a husbandman and planted a vineyard," we are informed of two important facts, "that Noah found the vine on the same mountain, whence the dove had brought the olive leaf; a mountain also represented as covered with verdure; the other, that he, immediately after his landing, applied himself to husbandry, one of the first acts of which was to transplant the vine" (p. 244). one The method by which, according to De Luc, the Deluge was effected, was 328 REVIEW.-De Luc's Physical History of the Earth. [Oct. subsidence of the ancient lands, whereupon the sea rushing over them to occupy their place, all the organized beings necessarily perished (p. 37). The next natural question is, in what part of the globe was the destroyed continent situated. Our au thor says, "It has been supposed, that there formerly existed (between Africa, a portion of Europe, and America,) a large continent, of which the Madeiras, the Canaries, the Azores, and the islands of Cape Verd, may be considered as the wrecks. The sunken continent has been identified with the Atlantis of Plato, and BAUDELOT (Hist. de l'Acad. des Inscript. 1721) has no doubt that the overwhelmed island, which is described as situated opposite the strait, called the Columns of Hercules, and is larger than Lybia and Asia, existed in the Atlantic ocean. KIRCHER, in his Mundus Subterraneus, and BECKMAN, in his History of Iceland, assigns the same place to the subsided land; and Buffon inclines to a similar opinion. It has been thought that the shallowness of the Atlantic sea, as far as the Canaries, constituted a proof of the submersion of the Atlantis by the ocean. The Madeiras, however, the Canaries, and the Azores, cannot be the fragments of a great continent. They are volcanic islauds, the products of eruptions, and have been elevated from the bottom of the sea."-p. 63. If so, these islands must either be composed of the antediluvian soil, which overlaid the original bottom, or of that bottom itself. As many of our readers may not know what was the Atlantis of Plato (the presumed antediluvian land), we think it right to say, that in his Thymaus or Critias, he acquaints the Athenians, "that, according to tradition, their city had formerly resisted an innumerable host of enemies, who having come from the Atlantic ocean, besieged nearly all Europe and Asia. For then the strait of the Pillars of Hercules [i. e. of Gibraltar] was navigable, having at its mouth, and as it were vestibule, an island larger than Lybia and Asia together, by which there was access to other neighbouring islands, sea. and from them to all the Continent lying out of sight but adjacent to the That sea was real sea, and that land real continent. But after these things, through a great earthquake and unceasing deluge of one day and night, the earth opened, swallowed up all these warlike men, and submerged the island; so that that sea became unnavigable on account of the mud of the absorbed island." Plato himself confesses that he derived this story from songs of the boy Critias, which stated that the submersion happened nine thousand years before Plato's æra; that there was a large temple full of riches, a hill divided into five circles, &c. Pliny, Strabo, Diodorus, Plutarch, Ammianus Marcellinus, Tertullian and Arnobius, accredit this story. Ovid alludes to it (Metam. L. 15), and Proclus, the Platonic philosopher,* quotes a certain Marcellus, a writer of Ethiopian history, as excellently confirming the statement. shall give no opinion about it. We are indebted to Solorzano for the ac We count, and in his work will be seen a host of arguments for and against it. If it be well founded, the submersion must have occasioned a vast rise of the displaced water, which might have carried Noah through the Mediterranean and Hellespont, to Ararat, because it lies between the Black and Caspian seas; and such MIGHT have been also an old tradition; for the Welch legends state that the first occupiers of our island came by the seas mentioned. The disruptions of Sicily from Italy, and of Great Britain from Gaul, might have ensued from a similar rush of the waters. We repeat, that we give no opinion about this story, and only add physical circumstances, which under admission of it, might however in the tradition, which bears have ensued. There is something upon a reminiscence of the great Cata clysm, and we prefer it, without having any confidence, to Mr. J. A. Luc's conjectures that the antediluvian con tinent was situated where is now the great Indian ocean, and on the eastward of Africa, as that sea is near Armenia and Mesopotamia, the countries in which dwelt the descendants of Noah. But the shallowness of the Atlantic, as far as the Canaries (see p. 63), supports the hypothesis, which therefore, of mammoths, hyenas, &c. we have preferred. The discoveries, must, according to De Luc's theory, prove no more than that the countries where they are found, were not inhabited by the human species. We have not room to add more. *Apud Marsil. Ficin. in Comment. Thimæi. + De Iudiar. Jure, L. i. c. 4, p. 23 seq. 1831.] REVIEW.-Essay on Church Establishment, &c. We think that our author's work deserves most sincere respect. We have been cautious of committing ourselves, because we think it likely to produce much controversy; but, according to Mr. Lyell, no standard theory of geology as yet exists. Mr. De Luc was certainly a most meritorious man. Essay on the subjects of Church Establishment, Toleration, and the Carelessness of the Clergy, as productive of Grievances and Complaints. By a Licentiate of the Church of Scotland. 8vo. pp. 57. THIS well-written pamphlet is full of demonstrative proofs of the necessity and utility of an Established Church. The author observes, that it is inconsistent for persons to talk of a divine right in the people to choose their own pastors, "while there is not a whisper heard from them of their divine right to maintain them." (p. 11.) And he adds, that there is a very extensive class of indigent persons, who can no more afford to pay for a clergyman than they can for a physician, and who no less depend on an established and independent source of spiritual comfort, than they do on the public medical charities. (p. 12.) Accordingly he proceeds thus: "Judging from these circumstances, it may well be supposed, that were the maintenance of the Clergy thrown on the shoulders of the people at large, and intrusted to their pleasure, the cause of religion could not fail to suffer; and indeed, wherever the Church has been unsupported by Law, the morals of the people have soon, by assuming a dissolute and depraved character, sufficiently marked the change. "The page of history will be found to testify abundantly to this fact. In Maryland, in 1649, an Act had given freedom and protection to every sect of Christians, but special privileges to none; the consequence was that an universal immorality overspread the province which was the subject of a complaint preferred against Lord Baltimore, the proprietary, to the Committee of Plantations, by the prelates of England. (Grahanie, ii. p. 146.) To such a pitch had the licentious and irreligious spirit arrived, that it became necessary to pass a law in the assembly of the colonial government for a more strict observance of the Sabbath. (Grahame, ib.) "Again, Chalmers (p. 362) tells us, that in 1676 a clergyman of the Church of England, in some observations on the state of that part of North America, in which he was then residing, in a letter to the primate GENT. MAG. October, 1831. 329 of England, describes the country as having fallen, in consequence of the absence of a national Church, into a most deplorable condition, and become a pesthouse of iniquity,' in which the Lord's Day was openly profaned, although Catholics, Quakers, and members of the Church of England, existed amid complete toleration; and as a remedy the writer suggested an endowment of the Church of England at the public expense; the historiau adds, that the remedy was tried and proved effectual." All this is very true; but, alas! confiscation of church property is the object of revolutionary politicians. Collier's Annals of the Stage. (Concluded from p. 235.) WE know not what success this excellent work will find, for there seems now to be no taste left for any amusements, only for studying the newspapers about Reform. That is the giant in Guildhall, who has, according to the nursery jest, actually heard the clock strike one, come down and stalked about without fear of Jack the killer of his species; and we labour under great apprehensions lest ere long his companion may hear some similar clock strike not one only but two, three, &c. &c. jump down in ecstasy, and set off on the long trot wielding his club like a madman, in a most alarming manner. Seriously speaking, it is probable that for a few years to come, we shall be so stunned with politics, and blinded with burning glasses, that sight and hearing will ultimately be destroyed. Certain we are, that already Reason has become hard of hearing, and Common monde, but we are among those who Sense short-sighted. Ainsi va le do not like to be alarmed, through the revival of torture, as to their pecuniary security; and we believe that there are many of the same feelings. While, therefore, journalists and their public are playing at battledore and shuttlecock with persons and property, quietly disposed people may find agreeable relief in the curious and amusing copious volumes. The work which is archæologicals of these elaborate and most analogous to them is Warton's History of English Poetry; and so far as Mr. Collier's more limited subject permits, the two authors are "Arcades ambo." |