2n<' S. V. 119., Armr, 10. '68.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 



301 



(1842), remained almost exactly as when Walker 

 preached in it : " the only noticeable thing in the 

 interior being Walker's pew, which js stUl lined 

 with cloth woven by his own hand — it is the only 

 pew in the chapel so distinguished." The village 

 itself also remained unchanged : " there have been 

 no new buildings, nor has anything altered the 

 external look of the place, unless it be the addi- 

 tion of the public house, and that is an old farm- 

 house." In Walker's day, " there was no public 

 house in the place, and Walker was accustomed 

 [Mr. Thorne was informed by some of the old 

 dalesmen] to supply any who required such re- 

 freshment, with ale of his own brewing, charging 

 for it a certain price, and so much per quart extra 

 if drunk in his house : the usual place for drinking 

 it being the adjacent field. The circumstance," 

 as the writer very truly remarks, " would hardly 

 be worth recording, did it not serve to illustrate 

 the singular simplicity of manners that then pre- 

 vailed"''in this secluded spot. It may be added 

 that Walker's wife, who was indeed a help-meet 

 for the guileless old man, lived to the same ripe 

 age as her husband. The plain blue slate slab, 

 wliich is placed beside the sun-dial, and not far 

 from the grand old yew-tree in Seathwaite church- 

 yard, and which bears the inscription to the me- 

 mory of Robert Walker, given in " N". & Q." (2°'^ 

 S. v. 243.) bears likewise the following record : — 



" Also of Anne his wife, who died the 28th of January, 

 1802, in the 93rd year of her age." 



J. T. E. 



MORE ABOUT THULE. 



(2"" S. iv. 389. 514.) 



Silius, who lived in the first century of our era, 

 Bays of Vespasian, alluding to his campaign in 

 Britain : — 



" Hinc pater ignotam donahit vincere Thulen, 

 Inque Caledonios primus trahet agmina lucos." 



iii. 597. 



In another place Silius uses Thule as a synonym 

 for Britain. The native custom of colouring the 

 body with blue, and the war-chariots of the Bri- 

 tons, are alluded to : — 



" Cserulus haud aliter, quum dimicat, incola Thules 

 Agmina falcifero cireumvenit arcta covino." 



xvii. 416. 



The following verses of Claudian refer to the 

 exploits of Theodosivig the elder in the Britannic 

 islands ; — 



" Quoque magis nimium pugnse inflammaret amorem. 

 Facta tui numerabat avi, quem littus adusta; 

 Horrescit Libyse, ratibusque impervia Thule." 



De tert. cons. Hon. 51 — 3. 



" Incaluit Pictorum sanguine Thule." 



De quart, cons. Hon. 32. 



In the following passages of t;he same poet it 



bears the more general meaning of a remote island 

 in the Northern Ocean : — 



"Te quo libet ire sequemur: 

 Te vel Hyperboreo damnatam sidere Thulen, 

 Te vel ad incensas Libya) comitabor arenas." 



In Riifin. ii. 239—41. 

 " Quod sedem mutare licet, quod cernere Thulen 

 Lusus, et horrendos quondam penetrare recessus." 

 In secund. cons. Stilich. 156. 



" Famaque, nigrantes succincta pavoribus alas, 

 Secum cuncta trahens, a Gadibus usque Britannum 

 Terruit Oceanum, et nostro procul axe remotam 

 Insolito belli tremefecit murmure Thulen." 



De Bell. Get. 201—4, 



Stephanus of Byzantium, in v. &ov\ri, says that 

 Thule is a large island in the Hyperborean re- 

 gions, where in summer the day is of twenty hours, 

 and the night of four, and" in winter the reverse. 



Probus, in his commentary on Virg. Georg. i. 

 30., designates Thule as the furthest of the Or- 

 cades (vol. ii. p. 358., ed. Lion). According to 

 Servius on the same passage, Thule ia an island 

 in the ocean, to the north-west, beyond Britain, 

 near the Orcades and Hibernia : in this island, 

 when the sun is in Cancer, the days are said to be 

 continuous without nights. Various marvels are 

 related of it, both by Greek and Latin writers, by 

 Ctesias and Diogenes among the former, and by 

 Sammonicus among the latter. 



The Ctesias referred to in this passage, if the 

 name be not corrupt, is an author unknown to us. 

 Sammonicus is Sammonicus Serenus, a learned 

 writer, who was murdered by the command of 

 Caracalla in 212 a.d, (See Smith's Diet, of Anc. 

 Biog. in " Serenus.") 



Antonius Diogenes is the author of rd &Trep @o6- 

 \7}v &iri<TTa, " The Marvels of the Parts North of 

 Thule," in 24 books, an abridgement of whicli 

 work is preserved in Photius, Biblioth. Cod. 166. 



This romance, which Photius declares to have 

 been highly amusing, and full of wonderful stories 

 related in a plausible manner, belonged to the 

 class of Voyages Imaginaires. Dinias and his son 

 Demochares were described in it as travelling by 

 the Black Sea and the Caspian to the Rhipaean 

 Mountains and the river Tanais, until, on account 

 of the severe cold, they made for the Scythian 

 Ocean. Here they wandered a long time, and 

 first navigated the Eastern Sea, and reached the 

 rising of the sun ;• afterwards they visited the 

 island of Thule, which they used as a station 

 during their peregrinations in the North. 



At Thule, Dinias meets a noble Tyrian woman 

 named Dercyllis, with whom he falls in love ; 

 her adventures, and those of other persons, were 

 related at length, so that the first 23 books, says 

 Photius, contained little or nothing about Thule. 

 In the 24th book was an account of the visit of 

 Dinias, with two companions, named Carmanes 

 and Meniscus, to the regions north of Thule, 

 where they find plenty of marvels, and at last 



