Among the curiosities in the British Museum are shewn two helmets; the one Roman, found in the ground on which the battle of Cannæ was fought, 216 years before Christ, and the other made of feathers, brought from one of the South Sea Islands, by Captain Cook. On comparing these helmets, the shape will be found exactly similar, though the latter was made by an uncivilized people living at the distance of more than 2000 years since the battle of Cannæ was fought, and who had never even heard of the Roman name.
A second coincidence is found in the same collection. Two breast-plates are shewn to the visitors, exactly corresponding in uniformity of shape, though made of different materials, the one taken from the bosom of an Egyptian Mummy, which had been dissected, if I may be allowed to use the term, in the Museum, and the other brought by Captain Cook, among various other curiosities, from the South Sea Islands.
A third coincidence is the mode of cookery practised by the South Sea Islanders as described by Captain Cook, especially in roasting their hogs. This is by means of hot stones placed in a hole dug in the ground. In Ossian’s Poems the reader will find that the Caledonians of that time made use of the same method in cooking their hogs for the table.
The extinction of the Roman Empire in the West, about the year 476, by Odoacer, King of Italy, was attended by one of the most memorable coincidences in the history of mankind. The patrician Orestes had married the daughter of Count Romulus, of Petovio in Noricum; the name of Augustus, notwithstanding the jealousy of power, was known at Aquileia as a familial surname; and the appellations of the two great founders, the first of the city of Rome, and the second of the Roman monarchy, were strangely united in the last of their successors. The son of Orestes succeeded to the throne of the Western Empire, and assumed and disgraced the names of Romulus Augustus; the first was corrupted into Momyllus by the Greeks, and the second has been changed by the Latins into the contemptible diminutive Augustulus. The life of this inoffensive youth, the last Sovereign of the Roman Empire in the West, was spared by the generous clemency of Odoacer, who dismissed him, with his whole family, from the imperial palace, fixed his annual allowance at 6000 pieces of Gold, and assigned the castle of Lucullus, in Campania, for the place of his exile or retirement.
CHARLES XII. OF SWEDEN.
That Charles the twelfth did not fall by a shot from the walls of Fredericshall, as is commonly supposed, but met his death from a nearer and more secret hand, has been fully ascertained; and M. Megret, a French Engineer, who accompanied him, was, no doubt, concerned in the murder. Many years afterwards, one Cronsted, an officer, on his death bed, confessed that he had himself, at the instigation of the Prince of Hesse, brother-in-law of Charles, and whose wife was declared Queen of Sweden, fired the shot that killed the unfortunate monarch.
In the arsenal at Stockholm, the Swedes preserve, with great care, the clothes he was habited in at the time he fell. The coat is a plain blue cloth regimental one, such as every common soldier wore. Round the waist he had a broad buff leathern belt, in which hung his sword. The hat is torn only about an inch square, in that part of it which lies over the temple, and certainly would have been much more injured by a large shot. His gloves are of very fine leather, and as the left one is perfectly clean and unsoiled could only have been newly put on. Voltaire says that the instant the King received the shot, he had the force and courage to put his hand to his sword, and lay in that posture. The right hand glove is covered in the inside with blood, and the belt at that part where the hilt of his sword lay, is likewise bloody, so that it seems clear, he had previously put his hand to his head, on receiving the shot, before he attempted to draw his sword and make resistance.
In the same case that contains his clothes is preserved the cap he wore on the terrible day at Bender, when he so desperately defended himself against the Turks. It is of fur; and has one tremendous cut on the side, which must have been within a hair’s breadth of there ending the career of this wonderful man.
BRITISH PEARLS.
The River Conway in North Wales was of considerable importance, even before the Roman invasion, for the Pearl muscle, (the Mya Margaritifera of Linnæus) and Suetonius acknowledged, that one of his inducements for undertaking the subjugation of Wales, was the Pearl Fishery carried forwards in that river. According to Pliny, the muscles, called by the natives Kregindilin, were sought for with avidity by the Romans, and the pearls found within them were highly valued; in proof of which it is asserted, that Julius Cæsar, dedicated a breastplate set with British Pearls to Venus Genetrix, and placed it in her temple at Rome. A fine specimen from the Conway is said to have been presented to Catherine, consort of Charles II. by Sir Richard Wynne of Gwydir; and it is further said that it has since contributed to adorn the regal crown of England. Lady Newborough possessed a good collection of the Conway pearls, which she purchased of those who were fortunate enough to find them, as there is no regular fishery at present. The late Sir Robert Vaughan had obtained a sufficient number to appear at Court, with a button and loop to his hat, formed of these beautiful productions, about the year 1780.