In conclusion, permit me to cite Southey _versus_ Catlin:--"That country," says the author of _Madoc_ "has now been fully explored; and wherever Madoc may have settled, it is now certain that no Welsh Indians are to be found upon any branches of the Missouri" (Preface, note written in 1815).
Since I wrote the above, I have met with a work, by Mr. George Jones, entitled _The History of Ancient America anterior to the Time of Columbus_, vol. i.: "The Tyrian Æra." In the second, not yet published, he promises to give "The Introduction of Christianity into the Western Hemisphere by the Apostle St. Thomas."
_Mistake in Gibbon_.--Those of your readers, who are, like myself, occasional verifiers of references, will perhaps thank me for pointing out a false reference, that I have just discovered in one of Gibbon's notes:
"Capitolinus gives us the particulars of these tumultuary votes, which were moved by one senator, and repeated, or rather chanted, by the whole body."--_Hist. August._ p. 52.
See Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_, chap. 4, note { 342} under marginal lemma, "The memory of Commodus declared infamous."
These "tumultuary votes" are recorded, _not_ by Capitolinus, but by Ælius Lampridius, in his _Life of Commodus_. Vide _Historiæ Augustæ Scriptores. Ælii Lampridii Commodus Antoninus_, capita 18, 19.
Capitolinus wrote the life of his _immediate_ successor, Pertinax; hence perhaps the mistake, "Egregio in corpore nævus!" Let those who wish to know what passion really is, read the tiger-like yells of the Roman senate in _Lampridius_!
_Jew's Harp_.--The late Mr. Douce always maintained that the proper name of this instrument was the _Jaw's Harp_, and that the Jews had no special concern with either its invention or its use.
_Havior_.--The word "havior" is probably of a hybrid character; partly of Anglo-Saxo, and partly of British origin. If so, the first syllable is obvious enough, "half" being generally pronounced as if the liquid were considered an evanescent quantity, "ha'f, heif, hav'," &c., and "iwrch" is the British word for a roe-buck. Dropping the guttural termination, therefore, and writing "ior" instead of "iwrch," we have the significant designation of the animal described by Lord Braybrooke, whose flesh, like that of the capon, may afford a convenient variety among the delicacies of the season, if well cooked according to the recondite mysteries of the gastronomic art.