2°«J S. No 110., Feb. 6. '68.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



103 



Britain by saying that "her inhabitants, when 

 first they became known to the Tyrian mariners, 

 were little superior to the natives of the Sandwich 

 Islands." (Hist, of England, vol. i. p. 4.) 



Beyond the fact that the Homeric Greeks were 

 acquainted with tin, with which they were pro- 

 bably supplied by Tyrian navigators, and that 

 Ezekiel describes the ships of Tarshish as bringing 

 this metal to Tyre, there is no proof that the 

 Tyrians ever sailed as far as Britain. The direct 

 intercourse of the Phoenicians with Cornwall rests 

 on merely inferential grounds, though the infer- 

 ence is not improbalale. It is possible, as has 

 been already remarked, that they may have ob- 

 tained some supplies of tin from Spain. The 

 comparison of the ancient Britons with the Sand- 

 wich islanders is apparently founded on their 

 practice of tattooing their bodies with blue : 

 but, although the state both of the Caledonians 

 and Hibernians is reported to us as savage (see 

 Dio Cass., Ixxvi. 12. ; Strabo, v. 5. § 5. ; So- 

 linus, c. 22.), yet the social condition of the 

 Southern Britons, and particularly of the inha- 

 bitants of the coast nearest to Gaul, as described 

 by Cjesar, the earliest witness on the subject, can 

 hardly be considered to have been as low as that 

 of the South Sea Islanders. (B. G., v. 12—14.) 

 Both Strabo and Diodorus speak of the compara- 

 tive gentleness of manners which the inhabitants 

 of the British tin district had acquired from their 

 intercourse with foreign traders. 



It may, lastly, be noted that an island named 

 Cassitira, in the ocean, near to India, from which 

 tin was brought, is mentioned by Stephanus of 

 Byzantium, on the authority of the Bassarica of 

 Dionysius. Whether this poetical geographer 

 considered Cassitira as a tin-island from the re- 

 semblance of sound, or whether a^y of the Malay 

 tin had reached Europe in his time, we are unable 

 to determine. L. 



QUEEN MART S GENTLE DISPOSITION. 



So much has of late been said of the wonderful 

 amiability and extraordinary goodness of the 

 Scottish Queen, that we should like some of her 

 admirers to explain what follows. 



Prince Labanoflf admitted nothing but what was 

 considered genuine into his voluminous collec- 

 tion. Now there are several rather spicy produc- 

 tions of her Majesty to be found in it : we shall 

 select a couple of instances. On Aug. 28, 1571, 

 she writes to her Counsellor the Archbishop of 

 Glasgow — who it seems had communicated to her 

 Majesty something which the Due de Guise had 

 said or done — as follows : — 



" As for what you wrote to me of my cousin, I would 

 that a creature so weak as the person in question were out 

 of the world, and I should be ivell pleased, that some one of 

 my people were the instruments, and still more that he 



were hung by the hands of the public executioner, as he de- 

 serves. You know that I have that at heart, and how 

 disagreeable to me was the convention between my undo 

 the Cardinal of Lorraine and him." 



Having disposed of her cousin, the Queen 

 touches upon another subject, — the murder of 

 her brother, the Earl of Moray : — 



" What Bothwellhaugh has done was not by my orders, 

 of which I know he is as well pleased, and better than if 

 I had been privy to it." 



She then requires "memoranda" as to her 

 jointure to make a list of pensions, " when I shall 

 not forget that of the said Bothwellhaugh." The 

 delicate conduct of Bothwellhaugh in not previ- 

 ously announcing his intention to the Queen is 

 gratefully appreciated ; and her Majesty felt it so 

 deeply, that she resolved to confer a pension on 

 the murderer for the very gentlemanly way in 

 which, without compromising her, the deed had 

 been done. 



If this letter be a forgery, we hope some of 

 your numerous readers will prove it to be so. If 

 it be genuine, then on what grounds can the 

 Queen be justified ? The hint as to the assassina- 

 tion of the Duke of Guise may be palliated on 

 the assumption that'it was the ebullition of a pas- 

 sionate woman upon hearing something said or 

 done to her disadvantage ; but assuredly such 

 language would never have been used by a tender- 

 hearted female. If the Queen wrote thus of her 

 cousin, what may she not have said in fits of pas- 

 sion of her own nobles, and what provocation may 

 not have been given by the use, or rather abuse, 

 of her tongue ? We fear the gentle Mary was a 

 bit of a scold. 



On the other hand, admit (which we do not) 

 that Moray Avas a villain, nevertheless for a sister 

 to feel gratified at the manner in which an in- 

 famous assassin murdered a brother, and to be 

 pleased at the delicacy shown in the previous con- 

 cealment, coupled with the proposal to pension 

 him, are facts which admit of no justification, — at 

 least we are unable to figure any. J. M. 



Papers Father. — Some time since we heard of 

 an old MS. journal of a London stationer — Sir 

 Theodore Janssen — in which an account was 

 opened on April 20, 1687, with Alexander Pope, 

 who was that day debited with 205 reams of 

 paper. The fact suggested the question whether 

 Pope's father had been engaged in the publishing 

 trade ? but no word has been said in reply tending 

 to show the probability of this. Is it not possible 

 that Pope's father may have been willing to aid 

 and help a publisher, without being himself, in 

 any pecuniary way, interested? or to help for- 

 ward a cause through the agency of a publisher ? 



