By the Rev. Canon J. EL. Jackson, F.8.A. 55 
are said to have done. If I may presume to imitate a well-known 
passage in one of Cicero’s orations, in which he sums up the various 
places that competed for the glory of having been Homert’s birth- 
place, I may say that Camden, Sir Richard Hoare, and others place 
ABthandun beyond all doubt at Edington, near Westbury; Milner is 
clamorous for Heddington, near Calne; Whitaker of Manchester, 
Beke, and Thurnam, insist upon Yatton Down, near Chippenham, 
where, moreover, the late Mr. Poulett Serope actually built a tower, 
with an inscription, to put an end to all strife. Barker maintains it 
was at Edington, near Hungerford. Other Berkshire antiquaries 
vociferate for Yattenden, in Berkshire; and latest of all comes 
Bishop Clifford, of Clifton, contending, and with very strong 
argument indeed—that it was neither in Wilts, nor in Berks, but 
at Edington, near Bridgwater, in Somersetshire. Now I am sure 
that if five eminent counsel were each to take up one of these cases 
they would severally be able to produce such overwhelming reasons 
in favour of each to perplex and bewilder you that you would 
bounce out of the situation as King James I. did, after hearing 
first one and then another, by declaring that they were every 
one of them right. But as that cannot be,*‘and as only one can 
be right, though it is not for me to venture to pronounce whieh 
that is, I do feel obliged to say that: I cannot understand how 
it could possibly have been at your Edington. It would take 
a deal of time to go through all the pros and cons of this much- 
agitated question: so I will just say a few words why your Edington 
does not appear to me to fit the case. The names for Alfred’s resting- 
places in his advance from the Isle of Athelney must be conjectures 
in every one of the six competing explanations; but, in that which 
brings him to your Edington, his stages and quarters for the night 
are not only conjectures, but wholly unfitted to the circumstances. 
You all know Brixton Deverel, a little way beyond Warminster, 
and Cley Hill. Well, according to this theory, Alfred, having 
passed one night with his army at Brixton, set off as soon as it was 
light, reached Cley Hill, and passed the next night there. Now 
the distance from Brixton to Cley Hill, as the crow flies, is just 
four miles, by the road say five or six. It seems highly improbable 
