case, richly embossed with jewels, which contained it, and both were laid as a welcome offering before the shrine of St. Benedict, at Monte Casino. The good Fathers must have felt no little pride when strangers beheld, in their secluded and obscure retreat, a relic which a long succession of the most illustrious princes had gloried in possessing. The next place to which we can trace the Cross is Palestine, during the Crusades, to which it had doubtless been conveyed for the purpose of restoring it to its more ancient and appropriate station at Jerusalem. In that country it was exposed to frequent hazards, as the Crusaders appear to have been in the habit of bearing it in the van of their armies, when marching against the Moslem, hoping by its presence amongst them to secure the victory. One of their battles against the forces of Saladin by no means fulfilled their expectations, and in the course of it the sacred relic itself was again severed; one half of it being captured by the enemy, and most probably destroyed, This untoward accident, however, by no means impaired their veneration for the still remaining fragment, and at the commencement of the thirteenth century it is again recorded as taking the field with the King of Hungary and the Duke of Austria.2 From these it passed into the hands of their brother Crusaders the Latin Sovereigns of Constantinople; and thus, by a singular train of circumstances, a change of dynasty 1 Chronicon Casinense, lib. iii., | A.D. 1217, No. 39, and Pagi, Critic., c. 55. A.D. 1187, No. 4. 2 See Raynaldus, Annal. Eccles., restored this precious relic to the people which had so long enjoyed its possession. In the year 1238 the pressure of poverty and impending ruin compelled the Emperor Baldwin the Second to sell what the piety of St. Louis, King of France, induced him as eagerly to purchase.1 A very considerable sum was given in exchange for the holy wood, and on its arrival in Paris it was deposited by King Louis in a splendid shrine, which he built on this occasion— the celebrated Sainte Chapelle. There the Cross remained for above three hundred years, until at length, on the 20th of May, 1575, it disappeared from its station. The most anxious researches failed in tracing the robber, or recovering the spoil; and the report which accused King Henry the Third of having secretly sold it to the Venetians may be considered as a proof of the popular animosity, rather than of the royal avarice. To appease in some degree the loud and angry murmurs of his subjects, Henry, next year, on Easter day, announced that a new Cross had been prepared for their consolation, of the same shape, size, and appearance as the stolen relic. "The people of Paris," says Estoile, an eye-witness of this transaction, being very devout, and of easy faith on such subjects" (he is speaking of the sixteenth century), gratefully hailed the restoration of some tangible and immediate object for their prayers. Of the original fragment 66 1 See Dupleix, Hist. de France, vol. ii. p. 257, ed. 1634. The original authority is Nangis (Annales de St. Louis, p. 174, ed. 1761). 2 See L'Estoile, Journal de Henri III., vol. i., p. 125, 161, ed. 1744. I can discern no further authentic trace, and here then it seems to have ended its long and adventurous career. On a Fabulous Conquest of England by the Greeks. Read November 22, 1832. Archæologia, vol. xxv. A NATION fallen into disaster and disgrace will often seek consolation in the records of former glory, or even of fabulous achievements. Such was the case with the Byzantine Greeks in the last period of their history, and, amongst other extravagant fictions, we may observe with some surprise and amusement, a poem on a supposed conquest of England by themselves. The poem in question is to be found in the Royal Library at Paris, and is marked 2909 in the Catalogue of Greek Manuscripts. From its style, as well as from its characters, it is believed to have been written in the fourteenth century. It is the same in metre as the Chiliads of John Tzetzes, and selects Belisarius as the General for the conquest of England. To that island it gives the modern name of Еуêλŋтepа, and to its King the title of Png, which, it is well known, was often borrowed from the Latin by the Byzantine writers. The poem states that Belisarius, after landing in England, ordered his ships to be burnt, in order to cut off all hope of retreat from his army and inspire it with courage. After an obstinate resistance the Png is defeated, and the island entirely subdued. Belisarius then builds a fresh fleet, and sails back to Constantinople, where, we are informed, with most laudable accuracy, of the very day of his landing the 20th of September. One circumstance of the voyage homewards strongly speaks the feelings of an ignorant Byzantine, to whom his own capital and its immediate neighbourhood seemed far more important and extensive than all the rest of the world besides. He says that the fleet made a halt midway for the purpose of refreshment, and he places this midway station at the island of Mytilene, not one-twentieth part of the distance between England and Constantinople! I may take this opportunity of also remarking, that amongst nearly all the Byzantine writers England is the subject of complete ignorance or absurd legends. Thus Tzetzes, though usually accurate and well informed, tells us that Cato the Censor received an embassy from the Kings of the British (BρeTTavoi), with a present of gold and a proposal of alliance!1 Yet, at the period. when Tzetzes wrote, there was already a body-guard of Varangians at Constantinople. Procopius also, whose personal experience and powers of description place him very far at the head of all the Byzantine writers, no sooner touches British ground than the discerning historian becomes transformed into a credulous fabulist. His island of Brittia is divided by an ancient wall into two districts, one of them being the abode of departed spirits, who are ferried over from the continent by living boatmen ! 2 The latter tale has been already noticed by Gibbon; but if the people of Constantinople could admit such 1 Chil. x. v. 651. 2 Procop. Goth. lib. iv. c. 20. strange accounts of England in a grave history, we need not be surprised at any in a legendary poem. On the Number of the Lost Books of Tacitus. Read March 24, 1836. Archæologia, vol. xxvii. THE historical works of Tacitus which remain to us are, as is well known, besides the Life of Agricola, the four first books of the Annals, part of the fifth, the sixth, the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and part of the sixteenth, the four first books of the History, and part of the fifth. It is asserted by Brotier, in his excellent edition, that the total number of books must have been sixteen of Annals and fourteen of History, and this assertion has never yet, so far as I know, been doubted or called in question. I think, however, that there are strong grounds for presuming that the real number of books was eighteen of Annals and twelve of History; and, though the point be of small importance, it may perhaps not be without some interest to the admirers of the greatest of Historians. We learn from Tacitus himself that, having first written his History from the last months of Galba to the end of Domitian, he afterwards composed his Annals from the death of Augustus to the period first mentioned.1 As to the number of books, the only passage to inform us is one from St. Jerome, where he mentions Tacitus as one qui post Augustum, usque ad 1 Tacit. Hist. lib. i., c. 1; Annal. lib. i., c. 2, &c. |