274 ^' ^' 972« 



was the method contrived by maUce and ignorance to atteft tiieir invol- 

 untary admiration of this iUuftrious charafter. 



gj2 — Tlie filver mines of Rammelfberg in Germany are foid to have 

 been difcovered at this time. They feem to have been exhauftrd in 

 about forty years. [Rimius's Mefiiui/s of the houfe of Bninfimck, p. 258.] 



973 — The monks in their great zeal to extoll their creature and pa- 

 tron, King Edgar, have turned his hiflory into romance. The fimplc 

 and unimportant facl, that he afTerabled his fleet at Chefter immediate- 

 ly after the ceremony of a coronation, or confecration, at Bath, and 

 that fix kings (mod probably all of Wales *) met him there, and enter- 

 ed into an alliance with him, [CZv. Sax. ad. (77/.] has been diftorted by 

 the grofs impudence of monkilli exaggeration for various purpofes, one 

 of which was to fliow what a prodigious fleet he had; for the different 

 writers reckon it from three to four thoufand iliips : and thence, among 

 other ridiculous pretenfions, it lias been inferred, that this founder and 

 fupporter of forty-eight monafteries, was fovereign ot the fea f . 



0)^5 — It does more real honour to Edgar that he made a law for an 

 tuiiformity of money throughout all his kingdom, and for the general 

 ufe of the Winchefter meafure. \_Edga?'i leges, c. 8.] 



9-78 — At this time the herring fifhery was very plentiful on the coafl 

 of Norway ; and it appears from feveral paffages of Snorro, the Hero- 

 dotus of the North, to have been confidered as an important object of 

 attention. But whether the Norwegians only ufed the herrings for im- 

 mediate home confumption, or falted and exported them, we are not 

 certainly informed, though the later feems very probable. One circum- 

 ftance, well deferving our attention, is, that thS abund;mce of herrings 

 an,d corn is marked as the charaderiftic of a beneficent reign, which 

 proves that the wifefl of their kings were careful to encourage the fifh- 

 eries and agriculture. [^Sjiorro, Hi/t. Olafi 'Tngv. c. 16; Hiji. Olafi Saudi, 

 c. 22.] And this, if I miftake not, is the earliefi: undoubted account of 

 a herring fiOiery. 



* Tbe apparently-real fubmifliDi) of a great trained to tlic proper management of vtflels in 



number, perliaps the wliole, of the WclHi kings to Edgar's reign. [Chron. Hax. iiiJ. ami. ico8, 



Alfred, is recorded by Afler, liimfclf a Welih- IC09.] 

 man. [K;Vrt /ElJ'rvdi, pp. 47,49, cJ. Oxoii. l'22.1 Edgar'sftnpendousflcet is completely outdone by 



f A llrong prefumplion that Edgar's fleet mull the thirty thonfand (liips, and nine million of men, 



have been very incoiiUderablc, is,, that tlic fleet, bronglit by the king of tlie Huns againll Frotlil 



which liis fou Ethelred raifed by a requilition up- hin Fredegod, an antc-hilloi ical king of Denmark, 



on all the lands of the kingdom, and which is ex- who defeated the king of the Huns, and Hew every 



prefsly fald to have been l/jc mofi niimeroui that ever one of his men. The bafikus of the Englith, and 



iiHis fccn in En^laiul, was found infufTicicnt to re- emperor of all the kings of the iflands in the 



pell the northern invaders, or even to guard the Ocean, was alfo fiupafFed in titles by Frothi hin 



entrance of the Tiiamet ; and a great part of it Fredegod, king of Denmark, Sweden, Britain, 



was dalhed to pieces in a llorm, which would not iScolland, Norway, Saxony, Frifia, Ungary, and 



have happened, at leall not to fo great an extent, if all the countries of the Eall as far as Greece, 



it had been built by carpenters acquainted with It is eafy to muller fliips and men, and even vaflal 



their bufincfs, and manned by experienced icamen, kings, upon paper ; and titles coll nothing. 



