P. 172. "Cicero reporteth that it was then in use for senators that had name and opinion for general wise men, as Coruncanius, Curius, Lælius, and many others, to walk at certain hours in the Place," &c.

The passage alluded to is De Orat., iii. 83. The persons there named are Sex. Ælius, Manius Manilius, P. Crassus, Tib. Coruncanius, and Scipio.

P. 179. "We will begin, therefore, with this precept, according to the ancient opinion, that the sinews of wisdom are slowness of belief, and distrust."

The precept adverted to is the verse of Epicharmus:

"νᾶφε καὶ μέμνασ' ἀπιστεῖν· ἄρθρα ταῦτα τῶν φρενῶν."

P. 180. "Fraus sibi in parvis fidem præstruit, ut majore emolumento fallat."

Query, Where does this passage occur, as well as the expression "alimenta socordiæ," which Demosthenes, according to Bacon, applies to small favours.

ERECTION OF FORTRESS AT MICHNEE AND PYLOS

Mr. Dartnell, Surgeon of H. M. 53rd regiment, gives the following account of the building of a fort which has lately been erected at Michnee to check the incursions of the Momunds into the Peshawur Valley:

"There was little to be done, except to build a fort, and here the officers had to superintend and direct the working parties which were daily sent out.... Laborers from far and near, Cashmerees, Caboolees, men from the Hindoo Koosh, Afreedees, Khyberees, &c., all working together with hearty goodwill, and a sort of good-humoured rivalry.... It is only when working by contract, however, that the Cashmeree displays his full physical powers, and it is then perfectly refreshing, in such a physically relaxing and take-the-world-as-it-goes sort of a country as this, to observe him.... And then to see him carry a burden! On his head? No. On his back? Yes, but after a fashion of his own, perfectly natural and entirely independent of basket, or receptacle of any kind in which to place it. I have now in my garden some half-dozen of these labourers at work, removing immense masses of clay, which are nearly as hard as flint, and how do they manage? My friend Jumah Khan reverts his arms, and clasping his hands together behind his back, receives the pyramidal load, which generally overtops his head, and thus he conveys it to its destination," &c.—Colburn's United Service Magazine, December, 1852, pp. 514, 515.

Thucydides tells us that as soon as the crews of the Athenian ships, weatherbound at Pylos in the spring of the year B.C. 425, had made up their minds to kill time by fortifying their harbour of refuge,—

"They took the work in hand, and plied it briskly.... The mud that was anywhere requisite, for want of vessels, they carried on their shoulders, bending forwards as much as possible, that it might have room to stick on, and holding it up with both hands clasped fast behind that it might not slide down."—Book iv. chap. 4. (Smith's Translation.)

C. Forbes.

Temple.

HOVEDEN'S ANNALS—BOHN'S "ANTIQUARIAN LIBRARY."

Considering the cheap issue of all standard works of reference a great boon to the general student, I was predisposed to welcome heartily Mr. Bohn's Antiquarian Library. If, however, cheapness be accompanied by incorrectness, the promised boon I conceive to be worthless; even one or two glaring errors rendering the student distrustful of the entire series. I was led to form the first of these conclusions on receiving vol. i. of a translation of the Annals of Roger de Hoveden, by Henry T. Riley, Esq., barrister-at-law; who introduces the work by a flourish of trumpets in the Preface, on the multifarious errors of the London and Frankfort editions, and the labour taken to correct his own; to the second by observing, whilst cutting the leaves, the following glaring errors, put forward too as corrections:—Vol. i. p. 350., Henry II. is stated by the Annalist to have landed in Ireland, A.D. 1172, "at a place which is called Croch, distant eight miles from the city of Waterford." Here Mr. Riley, with perfect gravity, suggests Cork1 as the true reading!! Can it be, that a barrister-at-law, with an ominously Irish-sounding name, is ignorant that the city of Cork is somewhat more distant than eight miles from the urbs intacta, as Waterford loves to call herself? The fact is, however, that Hoveden and his former editors were nearly correct: on old maps of the harbour of Waterford, Crook Castle is laid down inside Creden Head, on the Waterford side of the harbour; and Crook is still the name of a place at the point indicated, somewhat more however than eight miles from Waterford.

Again, at p. 351. occurs Hoveden's well-known and valuable enumeration of the Irish episcopal sees at the same period, of which Mr. Riley observes: "Nearly all these are mis-spelt … they are in a state of almost hopeless confusion." And then, to make confusion worse confounded, his note on the Bishop of Ossory (p. 352.) says "In the text, 'Erupolensis' is perhaps a mistake for 'Ossoriensis.'" Now, Erupolensis happens to be a correct alias of Ossoriensis: the former characterising the diocese from Kilkenny, the cathedral city, which being seated on the Nore, or Neor—Hibernicè Eoir, Latinè Erus, was sometimes called Erupolis—the latter from the territory with which the see was and is co-extensive, the ancient kingdom of Ossory.

How many more errors there may be in the first volume of the work, I cannot say: but, at all events, what the reader has to complain of is, not that the translator was unable to tell all about "Croch" and "Erupolis," but that, not knowing, he has made matters worse by his hardy elucidations. Truly, at this rate, it were better that no cheap edition of Hoveden were vouchsafed to the public.

James Graves.

Kilkenny.

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