Dec. 15. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



475 



the omission of divers principal matters) that there 

 is no one period therein expressed in that sort 

 and sense as he delivere<l it." This, though strong 

 language as regards Pricket's blunders, by no 

 means "bears out T. L. in his assertions, if he 

 refers to this preface. Nay, it would seem from 

 subsequent passages that Coke alluded to the 

 garbled character of his charge on Zaw? questions, 

 not on matters of fact, as related by him, for he 

 adds that, — 



" Readers learned in the laws would find not only gross 

 erroi-s and absurdities on law, but palpable mistakings on 

 the very words of art ; and the whole context of that rude 

 and ragged style wholly dissonant (the subject being 

 legal) from a lawyer's dialect." 



Any one reading the charge (which is now before 

 me), will see that all this, and much more, may be 

 very true, without the least suspicion of inaccuracy 

 being cast on the passage under dispute, which 

 merely relates a solemn statement of fact as made 

 by Coke. It may be important to bear in mind 

 that Sir Roger Twisden, who was well acquainted 

 with Coke's preface, and who quotes it in support 

 of a correction which he suggests (Pius IV. in- 

 stead of v.), adduces this very charge of Sir E. 

 Coke, and this very passage, in confirmation of the 

 proposal of Pope Pius to Queen Elizabeth. 

 Twisden adds that, — 



" I, myself, have received it (the story) from such as I 

 cannot doubt of it, they having had it from persons of 

 high relation unto them', who were actors in the managing 

 of the business." 



Courayer also, though referring to Coke's com- 

 plaints of his " speeches being published, not only 

 without his order and knowledge, but with abun- 

 dance of faults " (alluding to the above preface), 

 quotes from the charge, without the least hesita- 

 tion, the passage under discussion, and founds 

 upon it a lengthened argument of several pages. 

 I shall therefore be curious to learn the authority 

 upon which T. L. asserts that " Sir E. Coke never 

 hazarded such an assertion" and that he " repu- 

 diated" his published charge "as a forgery." On 

 one point I agree with T. L., that " it is desirable 

 that accuracy should be regarded in all state- 

 ments." E. C. Haeington. 

 The Close, Exeter. 



MONUMENT SUPPOSED TO BE DRUIDICAI< AT 

 CARNAC. 



(Vol. xii., pp. 205. 254. 349., and the errata to 

 No. 316., p. 396.) 



Want of time has hitherto prevented me from 

 replying to the assertions of J. S. s. It is not, I 

 conceive, a matter of much interest, either to 

 yourself or your readers, to learn the differing 

 views which your correspondents may take of any 

 particular subject, except so far as they contribute 



No. 320.] 



to the elucidation of truth ; and upon this ground, 

 and this only, would I ask to be permitted to 

 make a few remarks on the letter of J. S. s., 

 pp. 349—350. 



It is very true that in his former letter (p. 205.) 

 he did not expressly call the ancient monument at 

 Carnac a Cromlech, and so far it is to be admitted 

 that I have misrepresented him. But the manner 

 in which he spoke of it, and, above all, his attempt 

 to estimate the measure of the ground upon which 

 it stands — a thing, in my judgment, impossible to 

 be done with any degree of accuracy — tended to 

 mislead me. 



So far for my own error. Let me now ask how 

 J. S. s. could possibly get so far wrong as to re- 

 present Carnac to be in Normandy? You have, 

 Mr. Editor, ingeniously slipped him Into your 

 errata upon this point, as well as his blunder 

 about Divitiacus ; but Normandy certainly was no 

 printer's erratum, for it occurs twice, and rather 

 ostentatiously. I can assure him, for his greater 

 satisfaction upon the point, having myself visited 

 the spot, that Carnac is upon the sea-coast, in the 

 department of the Morbihan, which is a part of 

 the old province of Brittany. 



Let us pass over this, however, as a mere slip 

 of the pen, and come to his account of the position 

 of the stones, which you have not inserted (as you 

 ought to have done) in your table of errata with the 

 other. One of the authors quoted by him, Mons. 

 Cambry, thus describes it in p. 4. of his work: 

 " Les pierres de Carnac sont rangees sur onze 

 llgnes tirees au cordeau ; les lignes sont soparees 

 par un espace de trente a trente-trois pieds." It 

 consists of eleven straight lines of stones, says 

 your correspondent, and, moreover, prints the 

 latter words in Italics, to express them more 

 strongly. "By my faith, these are very bitter 

 words," says Dame Quickly, and they must have 

 had the effect of extinguishing me at once, but 

 for the unfortunate circumstance that they are 

 not founded upon fact — a thing which will not be 

 surprising to those who may have had occasion to 

 remark the extraordinary Inaccuracy of foreigners 

 in such descriptions. That there are eleven lines 

 of stones in the most perfect part is true ; but all 

 are set up in the figure of, and apparently in- 

 tended to represent, an enormous serpent crawling 

 along the ground, the head of which would be at 

 Locmariaker (that place which J. S. s. never read 

 of, and knows not where it may be*, to the name 

 of which I have inadvertently added the letter A) ; 

 and if there were any cella, it is supposed to have 

 been there ; and the intended resemblance of the 

 construction to a serpent is especially obvious in 

 one part, where all the lines of stones gradually 



* It appears on all good maps, and J. S. s. will find it 

 in Plate 3. to Mons. Cambry's work, No. 1., under the 

 name of " Loc maria." 



