1

opposite Estuaries of the Forth and Clyde

CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE REVIEW DE flow so far into the country as to leave only

PARTMENT OF THE LITERARY PANORAMA.

a narrow Isthmus between them. This Isth mus was begun to be fortified*, and all the hither (or eastern bay, nearest to the Frith of Tay, of which he had just been speaking, and on the coast nearest to the Roman Empire on the Continent) was in possession of the

were, into another island." The southern and eastern coast of Fife might be included in the possession of the Frith of Forth. The possession of a river, or arm of the sea, implies the possession of its coasts, or the districts situated on its coasts. Thus we speak at this day of the Confederation of the Rhine.

In our review of Mr. Chalmers's Caledonia we hinted that not all of its contents could be admitted as unquestionable; and that they would not be entitled to our entire confidence till after they had stood the test of examina-conquerors, the enemy being removed, as it tion. We did not doubt but that some of his countrymen would engage in that duty; and having been favoured with remarks on this subject by an eminent northern critic, we lay before our readers such of them as bear on the main supports of Mr. C.'s hypothesis," -We advise our readers to lay open before them the map of Scotland, which we annexed to our account of the Caledonations hitherto unknown, defeated them in nian Canal. Vol. III. p. 237.—After an Introduction of which our limits forbid the insertion, our correspondent proceeds

to observe that,

.....Tacitus, from the memorandums no doubt of his father-in-law, does not relate and describe the campaigns of Agricola, in that remote and unexplored region, Caledonia, but only mentions, and that in a summary manner, their results.

From Fife Agricola passed over in the fifth year of his expeditions, nuve prima, the ship that led the van of his fleet, to

a series of many successful battles, and occupied with his troops that part of Great Britain peninsula or wing of Scotland lying between which looks toward Ireland; that is, into that the Solway and the Clyde, and separated by a range of high and rugged territory from the Merse and the Lothians on the east, which he had already overrun and secured. In the summer of the sixth year he invaded the ample states situated to the north of the Forth, exploring his route beforehand by the In the 3d year of the expeditions in Britain, aid of his fleet. The Caledonians attacked A. D. 80, Agricola overran, and ravaged the the chain of posts by which he had fortified country as far as the Tay: id nomen estuario the Isthumus, and in the night surprised the est. The Britons, struck with terror at the ninth legion, which would have been cut off if appearance of the Roman fleet, durst not to timely succours had not been sent to its relief attack it, though struggling with severe by the vigilant Roman commander. This storms. Troops landed from his fleet in dif-legion formed one of the three divisions into ferent places. It might be fairly presumed, if which Agricola had been induced to dispose we were not expressly told, that toot soldiers, his army; being apprehensive lest, if they horsemen, and marines, were often mingled should remain together in one closely comtogether in the same camp. Forts were erect-pacted body, his enemies might take advantage ed, for bridling the country. The fourth summer was employed in taking firm and secure possession of it, no doubt, by the construction of roads, as well as of additional fortresses, and the usual modes of the Romans for conciliating and gaining the confidence of the natives.

There is nothing in all this hard to be understood. Agricola marched troops in his progress northward by land. His fleet cooperated with him by sea, in carrying troops, as occasion required, from one place to another, and disembarking the marines usually on board, to join the land forces. He had proceeded as far as the ESTUARY OF FRITH of the Tay, that is, he had penetrated into that part of Fife that lies between the Friths of the Tay and the Forth.

And now, says Tacitus, "could any limits have been set to the valour of the Romans, or the glory of the Roman name, they would have found a boundary in Britain. For the

of the superiority of their numbers, and their local knowledge, to surround him.-The routes that were followed by these three divi-. sions of the Roman army are not described. We only know that they had advanced beyond the fortified Isthmus, and entered the great plain that intersects the whole of Scotland, iu a line parallel to the Grampian mountains, from Dumbarton and Loch Lomond, to the eastern extremity of that ridge of the which dies away in the German Ocean between Stonehaven and Aberdeen.

At what place he crossed the Forth, and how he employed the three divisions of his army, if they were ever parted into different divisions after the attack on one of them, viz. the ninth legion, is not stated by Tacitus, and can only be a matter of conjecture. It is reasonable to suppose, however, that the military eye of the Roman general would direct * Firmabatur.

ern entrance into the pass, on the Moor of Ardoch.

But Mr. Chalmers, though he admits that the battle was fought on the inoor of Ardoch, rising by a gentle elevation into the south castern slope of Benvoirloch, gives a very different account of the operations of Agricola in North Britain prior to that engagement. His system is briefly this, "there is no evi dence that Agricola ever reached the Tay. The Tau of Tacitus was the Solway Frith, To this Tau, or Frith, Agricola' pushed his ravages in his third campaign.

of Clyde and Forth. In the fifth, Agricola set out from the fortified Isthmus on his expedition beyond the Forth. He directed his course to the narrowest strait of the Forth at Inchgarvey, where he was no doubt met by a part of his fleet, which would speedily waft him over this contracted part of the Frith, to the advancing point in Fife, which is now known by the appropriate name of the North Ferry.-Agricola was now arrived among the Horestii, in whose country, Fife, it was that the Caledonian Britons attacked the ninth legion.

him to the same route which in subsequent times was followed by all the English invaders from the Northumbrian Egfridˇdown to the Duke of Cumberland in 1740. There was & co-operation between the Roman, as well as between the English fleets and armies. The Roman, as well as the English general, would take care not to entangle himself among Mountains, or morasses, but to have the country through which he passed, clear on both his right and left. It was only in such plains also that he could receive constant Supplies of forage and provisions, or that roads could be well constructed for waggons and In his fourth campaign, A. D. 81. Agrimachines of war There can be no doubt cola explored and overran the mountainous herefore that Agricola, like Edward I., Ed-region extending from the Solway to the Friths Ward III., General Monk, and the Duke of Cumberland, crossed the Forth near, or a little above Stirling. An easy march of one day brought him to the Moor of Ardoch, where the great valley or plain of Strathmore' is farrowed to about two miles, by the approxination of the Ochills, to a spur, or elbow of the Grampians, rising by degrees into the lofty summit of BENVOIRLOCH. This is beyond all doubt, the Mons Grumpus of Tacitus. Here the Grampian mountains advance more Boldly and prominently than any where else into the plain country, and this was the fittest place in the whole of the great plain for the Caledonians to oppose the progress of the invading Romans. That the battle was fought here is attested by the striking remains of the great Roman camp and fort at Ardoch, and other military remains in its near neighbour hood, particularly those near Comie, the VICTORIA of Richard of Cirencester. At the distance of eight miles from the Moor of Ardoch, where the battle was fought between Agricola and Galgacus, a vast ditch or entrenchment, may still be traced, for the space of two miles, and immense cairns of stones, in -height, breadth, and length, almost surpassing belief,-the monuments of the Caledonians, who fell in the action. The station at Comrie, now called Dealginross, received the name of Victoria, from the Romans, in consequence of their decisive victory over the Caledonians.-The remains of a vicinal road between Ardoch and the plain of Comrie, on the Erne, are still to be traced in Glenartney,

in old books and MSS. written Glen Britney.

Agricola marched from Fife, the hostile land of the Horestii, in the summer of 84 (the 7th of the expeditions or campaigns), with an army equipped for expedition. He in the mean time dispatched his fleet around the coast with design to spread distraction. He was probably directed in his route by the natural positions of the country, as it was shewn to his intelligent eyes by the course of the Devon. He turned from the right to Glen-Devon, through the opening of the Ochill-hills, along the course of the rivulet which forms Glen-Eagles, leaving the 'bracs of Ogilvie on his left. He now passed between Blackford and Auchterarder, towards the Grampian hills, which he saw at a distance before him as he defiled from the Ochills. CALEDONIA, Book I. chap. 3.

This system of Mr. Chalmers is founded partly in a gross mistake of the Latin tongue; the plainest military maxims. The Solit is inconsistent with itself, as well as withi way Frith, he says, answers remarkably to the plain meaning of the British Tau, which There is nothing in this account of mat signifies any thing spread out, any extended ters, that is not natural, agreeable to the brief water, or astuary; as Tacitus indeed informs statement of Tacitus, and altogether credible. 115, "Vastatis usque ad Taum (Estuario noThe popular and commonly received opinion men est) nationibus." p. 104.-But Tacitns is that the battle was fought on the moor of does not inform us of any such thing; he tells Dealginross at the north end of the pass of us, not that Tau is the British word for an Glenartney. But this narrow could not have estuary, in general, but the proper name of been the scene of a contest between so many that individual river to which, (or the bay of combatants. All judicions enquirers therefore the sea into which it falls,) in his third camafe agreed that it was fought near the south-paign, or more properly expedition, as Taci

"do.

tus indeed calls it, he pushed his ravages.
Mr. C. confounds a proper name with an ap-
pellatice. When the Latin writers speak of
a thing as coming under any class of general
terms, or term's common to whole classes of
things, they use the words, vox, voco, voca-
bulum, or appello:-nomen, and nomino, de-
note an individual belonging to a common
class, genus, or species; an individual, of which
it is the proper and peculiar name. For exam
ple, the appellative by which the character or
profession of a bard is distinguished: "Quem
Barditum vocant," Tacit. Germ. Cap. 3.
"Manet adhuc Boicmi nomen,'
,"do. cap.
"Ejus numinis nomen lcis,'
cap. 43. Peucini, quos quidam Bastar-
Idque apud im-
pas vocant," do. 46.
peritos humanitas vocabatur," Tacit. Agric.
cap. 22.-When Tacitus means to tell us
that such or such a thing was called by the
Barbarians so and so, he tells us so in pro-
per Latin. For example, vel ipsorum vo-
caluto Trameas," Tacit. Germ. cap. 6. In
like manner had he meant to express that he
came to an estuary, which was, by the Britons,
called a Tau, he would have said, ad æstuarium
(vel ipsorum vocabulo Taum), or he would
have used some other phrase of the same im-
port.

28.

unnecessary to say any thing more than that he caine to certain Friths, or if Mr. C. pleases, Taus, why did he mention the proper name in two instances, and omit it in one?

The great line, or points of support, for the basis of the triangle in which the Roman generals conducted their operations in Britain, was, not the western but the south and east coasts. This was called proxima pars Britanniæ; for the same reason that the Frith of Forth is called, as above observed, propior sinus. At a very early period of the Roman government in Britain, the capital of the Romans, the grand mart of commerce, and centre of their mili tary and naval power, was London. Of the fourteen Itinera of Antoninus seven begin or end at London. In the reign of the Emperor Claudius, forts were erected on the Severn, the Avon, and the Nen; and the country south of these rivers, was reduced to a Roman province. Under Vespasian, the Roman dominion was extended to the north, from Lincolnshire, over Yorkshire, &c. inhabited by the Brigantes.-Just before the arrival of Agricola in Britain, the Ordovices, inhabiting North Wales, had thrown off the Roman yoke. The Roman commander in chief, collecting the Roman Legions dispersed in This inattention to the distinction between different quarters, marched against them and cut off the greater part of the nation. Witha proper name and an appellative, has led the indefatigable Mr. Chalmers into a maze of out giving the enemy time to recover from this overthrow, he immediately set about the reerror, in forming a military plan of opera- duction of the island of Anglesey, which had tions for Agricola; and, as it is on the explana-been lost by the revolt of Boadicea, Queen of tion of Estuario nomen est, that his system rests, it may be proper, not for convincing any Latin scholar, but for the satisfaction of Mr. .himself, to illustrate still farther the very wide difference between the terms, nomen nomino, and vox, vocabulum, voco, and appello.-Julius Caesar, speaking of an nual magistrate among the Edui,

an

says

quem Vergobretum appellant." Bell. Gall. Lib. I. cap. 18. In a note subjoined to the Delphine edition, 1706, we are informed, that the chief magistrate of Autun, was called VIERG, even at that day," Flumen Sabin quod supra nominavimus." de Bell Gall, lib. II. cap. 18. Caesar speaking of a particular town belonging to the Rhemi, says, nomine Bibrax," de Bell. Gail. lib. 1. cap. 6. But speaking of a town, or towns in general, he say's, Oppidum autem Britanni vocant, quam sylvas impeditas vallo atque fossa munierunt." Bell. Gall, lib. V. cap. 20.

the Iceni. Being destitute of ships, he de tached a chosen body of auxiliaries who knew the fords, and were accustomed to manage their armis and horses in the water. Mark the circumstance, that he was destitute of ships naves deerant, Tacit. Agricola, cap. 18. From not adverting to this circumstance, Mr. C. has all along supposed that Agricola, on the west coast, was accompanied by his fleet, and that by the aid of his fleet, he crossed the Solway Frith, which he boldly assumes to have been the Tay of Tacitus.-The detection of this fundamental error is sufficient to overturn Mr. C.'s whole system.

Agricola's fleet was stationed on the east coast of Britain, and employed in various excursions along the eastern coast; as far as the Tax. Up to that natural boundary, nations and countries were ravaged, and even beyond these new nations, were opened to his view. Vastatis usque ad Taum (æstuario From these observations Mr. C. will be nomen est) novas gentes operuit," Tacit. Agrisatisfied, that the Taum of Tacitus was not the Solway Frith, but the Tay, according to cola, Cap. 22.-Against these nations it was, the common and hitherto received interpreta-beyond the river Forth, at the point where it tion-Why should not Tacitus, or rather touches on the Ochills, that Agricola carried Agricola, be supposed to have been ignorant of his armis northward, in the 7th year of the the proper name of the Estuary of the Sol-campaigns, having first dispatched his fleet way, as of the names of the Friths of the

Forth, and the Clyde? or if he judged it to be

Tacit. Agricola, cap. 14.

* The narrowest and darkest valley of the guilty to punishment; and the other, to inAppennines.

morals of the parishioners, and by a watchful,
attention to the conduct of individuals, be
one effectual medium to the prevention of
crimes."-What is to hinder a magistrate
from being a competent, and more than com-
petent parish priest, an active, a zealous
pastor of the flock committed to his charge?
What is to hinder the two functions from
coalescing? They are not in direct contradic-
tion to each other. Mr. C. seems to confound
the constable, the beadle, or even the exe-
cutioner with the magistrate. I do not deny
but the staff, the whip, the hand-cuff or the
halter would be unseemly in the hand of a
clergyman; and so they would in the hand
of a judge; but I affirm that as there is no-
thing in the administration of justice which
can degrade the judge, so there is nothing
in it which can degrade the clergyman; the
ermine of the former is not sullied by it,
neither is the surplice of the latter defiled.-
"The office of the magistrate, (says Mr.
C.) is constituted to employ the penalties of
the law and bring the guilty to punish-
ment." And is it not also his office to protect
the innocent; to procure recompence for
"those whom the wicked mightily oppress ;"
to see that the poor man has his penny-worth
for his penny, his just measure, his just
weight; to provide for the pauper in general;
to find a nurse for infancy, a refuge for dis-
tress, and a safe retreat for decrepitude? Is it
not his office to rebuke the reprobate, to
punish the sabbath-breaker, to compel the
wretch who unthriftily spends his money in
the resorts of vice and drunkenness, and leaves
his wife and family to starve, to administer to
the necessities of her whom he vowed at the
altar to cherish, and the wants of those whom
nature itself should make dear to him? Is it
not also the magistrate's office to reclaim the
vagrant, to make the servant perform his
covenanted labour, and to oblige his employ-
er to compensate justly his toils? Is it not
likewise the magistrate's office to knit together
the raptured bands of amity, to suppress all
litigiousness, and to make friends of those
who are at variance? Is it not his office to
explain the law of the land to the ignorant,
to instruct the uninformed in the nature and
sanction of civil duties, and to shew them
how human laws attach, by the authority of
holy writ, on the consciences of men," be
subject to every ordinance of man for the
Lord's sake"? Now what is there in all this
which can be deemed inconsistent with either
the sacred character" of a clergyman, or
the holiest of his functions? Mr. C. says,
that the clergyman is to instruct, to admonish,
to console, and to improve the morals of his
parishon ers";-and does not the discharge of
a magistrate's office, afford him ample oppor-
tunity (over and above what he might find in
his clerical capacity), for instruction, for ad,

monition, for consolation, and for the improvement of the morals of his people?Give me leave to assure you, Sir, that the addresses of a clergyman from the pulpit, will not lose their effect because he sometimes speaks from the bench; nor will his exhortation within a cottage lose any of its weight or pathos, because he may sometimes shew himself the friend of the friendless in the sessions-house. Constituted as I know the world to be, the clergyman is likely to perform his peculiar functions to better purpose, when the dignity of the magistracy is superadded to his professional honours.

I know that a clergyınan who is a justice of the peace, may now and then be called to withstand even the 's pure in his own parish. This may induce the squire, perhaps, to think that the two oflices are, incompatible with each other, and to wish the parson muzzled when out of church. But which of the two is more likely to act on a principle of public spirit and impartiality? he, whose property the ale-house is, and whose tenant is the victualler himself; he who is the landholder of almost all the acres in the parish; he who is judge in many things wherein he is most essentially interested;--or he, in whose estimation the 'squire and his tenants are only respectable so far as they do their duty to God and man; he whose income is independent of either; he who has no interest in the alehouse; he who administers to the wants of the poorest of his parishioners, whilst he is not afraid to look the wealthiest in the face, and bravely, but temperately, to withstand him in any thing he may be inclined to do amiss?I wish not, however to make invidious comparisons; all I mean to add is this ;-that whilst the clergyman by education is a scholar, by habits of life a gentleman, and by profession inclined to do justly and to love mercy"; I can see nothing in clothing him with the powers of magistracy, which is beneath his education, derogatory to him as a gentleman, or injurious to the "sacred character" with which he is already invested. I think the two characters in which he occasionally acts, mutually assist, and reflect lustre upon, and give efficiency to each other,

I rely upon your candour, Sir, to take in good part what it became me to urge, feeling no acquiescence in your opinion, and combining in myself the office, at once, of both clergyman and magistrate.I am, Sir, &c.

-E. R.