mysterious, they are not very important. Still, as they relate to an obscure portion of an obscure subject, I give the two last in full. The first is by Diogenes Periegetes, of which the third

is all but a literal translation.

"Sed summam contra sacram cognomine, dicunt
Quam caput Europe, sunt stanni pondere plenæ
Hesperides: populus tenuit quas fortis Iberi
Ast aliæ Oceani juxta Boreotidas actas

Sunt geminæ, Rhenique Britannides ostia cernunt;
Hic etenim lasso perrumpit Tethya cursu
Has tamen haut valeat spatio superare per orbem
Insula; perfulget nigro splendore gagates
Hic lapis, ardescens haustu perfusus aquarum.
Ast oleo perdens flammas, mirabile visu :
Attonitas rapit hic teneras, seu succina, frondes.
Nec spatio distant Nesidum littora longo,

In quilus uxores Amnitum Bacchica sacra
Concelebrant hederæ foliis tectæque corymbis.

Non sic Bistonides Absinthi ad flumina Thraces
Exertes celebrant clamoribus 'Espair."

There are several in the current text; but they are not of sufficient importance to delay us.

The next is as follows:

"Eminus hic aliæ gelidi prope flabra Aquilonis
Exsuperant undas et vasta cacumina tollunt.
Hæ numero geminæ, pingues sola, cespitis amplæ,
Conditur occidui qua Rhenus gurgitis unda,
Dira Britannorum sustentant agmina terris.
Hic spumosus item ponti liquor explicat æstum,
Et brevis e pelago vertex subit. His chorus ingens
Fæminei cætus pulcri colit orgia Bacchi.
Producit noctem ludus sacer: aera pulsant
Vocibus, et crebris late sola cantubus urgent.
Non sic Absynthi prope flumina Thracis alumna
Bistonides, non qua celeri ruit agmine Ganges
Indorum populi stata curant festa Lyæo."

LOCALITY OF THE ISLAND ORGIES.

427

What is the island here alluded to; for all the notices make it an island? Between the accounts there is, at the first view, hopeless confusion, to which the notice of the Rhenus (Rhine) adds. The allusion, too, of the stone, may be passed over. Whether, word for word, gagates be achates (the agate), or jet, or both, is irrelevant, except so far as it seems to be the emeril intended by Drayton, and which Camden passes over without notice; probably, because, like worse men who have come after him, he had nothing to say about it.

What, however, was the name of the island? Camden suggests that, between the Seams of Drayton and the "Aμ and Samnitæ, there may be a connection; and Seams he makes an island off the coast of Britany. "Sena, in the British sea, opposite to the coasts of the Osismii, is remarkable for the oracle of a Gaulish deity, whose priestesses, nine in number, are devoted to perpetual virginity. The Gauls call them zenæ, or lene (for so we must read with Turnebus for Gallicence), and imagine them endued with singular talents for raising storms by their songs; changing themselves into what animals they please; healing disorders incurable to others; foreseeing and foretelling futurity." This is from Pomponius Mela, who evidently alludes to the same superstition, if not to the same island. The songs and the feminine character of the singers tell us this. But the text of Mela is doubtful. What is meant by zene, lene, or anything suggested in their place? The word was a Gallic gloss, and, as such, unintelligible to the Romans as it is to us.

In the Itinerary, however, of Antoninus, we have a corrupt text which gives us the name Uxantisena = Uxantis and Sena, two islands run into one. Pliny, meanwhile, gives us Sounos, according to one reading, Siambis according to another. That these are garbled forms of Samnis or Amnis (or vice versa, that Samnis and Amnis are garbled forms of something like Sounos or Siambis), is no conjecture of the present author's, but of

Camden's, and it is a reasonable one. If so, the island is the modern Sayn, which, in its final form, emerges after a long series of transformations and false analogies in L'Isle des Saintsholy enough, perhaps; holy, perhaps, in a modern sense of the word; but originally holy as the island of the Bacchic orgies of the nearest kinsmen of the women of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark. Such is the obscure and scarcely legible page of the early Channel Island mythology, which, after Camden, we venture to reproduce.

Some of the names connected with the cromlechs are, decidedly, Keltic.

In Worcestershire, at least, the well-known Broomsgrove Licky, or Broomsgrove Rock, tells us who were the men and women that first dwelt under its shadow and on its side. The same term appears in Poque-laye; for, whatever may be our doubts as to the meaning of its first element, the second is simply a Gallicized form of the word lech stone; a word of remarkable longevity; a word, almost as indestructible as the very rocks to which it applies. In this manner, the Poque-laye is the stone connected with something or other, though what that something was is uncertain. Some have suggested that it was the stone of the hobgoblin Puck; which is anything but unlikely. The derivation, however, of the latter part of the word may be relied on.

It is safe, too, to make the Autel de Dehus, the Devils (or Deuce's) altar; notwithstanding certain differences of pronunciation, which tend to disguise its origin. In the parish of the Vale, for instance, it is pronounced du thus. Elsewhere, the is sounded so strongly, as to make it look like two words.

That the Dusii were Keltic deities, is expressly stated in a passage of St. Augustine, often quoted.

The Creux es Fées, the Chambre es Fées, and the Fontaine es Fées, tell their own story. Upon the Rocque Balan and the Trepied, there is room for a difference of opinion. None of the

EARLY CHURCH ARCHITECTURE.

429

names, however (except so far as they are French), are of Latin, and none of German origin.

Of Roman remains there are few; more, perhaps, in Alderney than the other islands put together. These, however, consist of pottery and bronze instruments, rather than fortifications. The coins, too, are few, being chiefly those of the third century, i.e., of the Antonines, the Commodus, and the Severus.

Across the isthmus of the peninsula of Jerburg is a true Cardyke, i. e., a fosse, connected with a fortification, the fortification bearing the Keltic name of Caer, as in Caernarvon, Carlisle, Caerleon, and other towns in Britain. That this word is the root of the first syllable in Jer-burg (as well as Cher-bourg), is almost certain.

In ecclesiastical architecture, if we look at it from an English point of view, the style, which, for the oldest parts of the oldest buildings is, as we anticipate, pre-eminently Norman, falls into two varieties (1) the early Norman, of the Norman of what was in England the Saxon period; and (2) the Norman of the times subsequent to the Conquest.

In the Norman of the Saxon period, we have in Guernsey the notice of eleven chapels, that of:

There is also the chapel of the Priory of Lihou, of which there are some small portions still remaining.

Of these one only remains, represented in the engraving on the next page. It is the second on the preceding list. Of rough masonry, with thick walls, unhewn stones, and mortar made from limpet shells, the chapel of St. Apolline is simply a

chamber of cyclopean architecture, twenty-seven feet by thir teen, with a round arch to its door, and a narrow window, or light, divided horizontally by a transom, consisting of a single stone, resting upon two monolithic uprights, themselves placed on a stone of similar character with the upper one. The bottom of this unambitious window, with its opening of forty-eight inches by thirteen, is but four feet from the ground. Traces of painting appear on the walls; these being of later origin than the masonry of the building itself. In the Catel church, there are three frescoes of a similar rude character. These were common. During the Reformation, however, they were either destroyed, or washed over.

In Jersey, the church of St. Brelade, of which a view is given in page 328, is the oldest. There is in the churchyard a small chapel, with frescoes, considered older than the principal building. There are many others in different parts of the island, but this is the only one in decent preservation.