291 



in the towers of Cymbeline, whether they stood at Colchester or 

 at Canierton* 



It is worthy of remark that the ghost of Taliesin is made to say, 

 " I have been in Whitehill 

 In the court of Cynvelyn." 



I do not know -whether use can be made of this Whitehill to aid 

 the advocates of either theory. The name has been explained by 

 the White Tower of London, and I can see nothing in it to help 

 Mr. Skinner. Indeed, like everthing else, the early date of this 

 Taliesin has itself come lately to be called in question. I may 

 here mention also that Mr. Thomas Leman, of Hath, whose com- 

 petence in judging of these matters equalled if it did not excel 

 that of any of his contemporaries, thought that the capital of 

 Cunobehu was at Lexden, but that on the Koman occupation it 

 ■was removed to Colchester, no great distance. 



On the announcement of the Camerton theory, Sir Richard Colt 

 Hoare, in 1827, sent to a few of his Bath friends a pamphlet of 

 which only twenty-five copies were printed at Shaftesbury, and 

 which is now one of the rarissimi of local book collectors. It was 

 a letter to the Bristol Society intended to overthrow Mr. Skinner, 

 and to suppoi*t the Colchester view. Writing to Mr. Hunter, Sir 

 Richard says, " I do not recollect if I sent you Camulodunuji, 

 Hoare verms Skinner. I could not suffer such false doctrine to be 

 disseminated in our county. But my reverend friend is still 

 pertinax propositi and will not yield. But he has not an inch of 

 ground to stand upon. Send one copy to your Institution, and 

 keep the other. Truly yours, R. C. H., Stourhead." Mr. Skinner 

 was rather warm in the controverey, and dismissed right and left as 

 interpolations, passages which did not fit his view. To Sir Richard, 

 whom he calls his patron, and whom he compliments in his pi-incipal 

 known poetical work, he writes amusing letters in a figurative style. 

 Sir Richard's friend, Mr. Meyrick, in his caricature of the Stour- 

 head topographers, speaks of 



" Verlucio's OflFqr skilled in Celtic Eunem, 

 And he the famed Seer of Camulodunum, 



• In the romantic story of Arthur there appears a Helena, daughter of 

 King Hoel, but Colchester is not, I believe, there associated with the family. 

 c 



