In conclusion, permit me to cite Southey versus Catlin:—"That country," says the author of Madoc "has now been fully explored; and wherever Madoc may have settled, it is now certain that no Welsh Indians are to be found upon any branches of the Missouri" (Preface, note written in 1815).
Since I wrote the above, I have met with a work, by Mr. George Jones, entitled The History of Ancient America anterior to the Time of Columbus, vol. i.: "The Tyrian Æra." In the second, not yet published, he promises to give "The Introduction of Christianity into the Western Hemisphere by the Apostle St. Thomas."
T.I.
Mistake in Gibbon.—Those of your readers, who are, like myself, occasional verifiers of references, will perhaps thank me for pointing out a false reference, that I have just discovered in one of Gibbon's notes:
"Capitolinus gives us the particulars of these tumultuary votes, which were moved by one senator, and repeated, or rather chanted, by the whole body."—Hist. August. p. 52.
See Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. 4, note under marginal lemma, "The memory of Commodus declared infamous."
These "tumultuary votes" are recorded, not by Capitolinus, but by Ælius Lampridius, in his Life of Commodus. Vide Historiæ Augustæ Scriptores. Ælii Lampridii Commodus Antoninus, capita 18, 19.
Capitolinus wrote the life of his immediate successor, Pertinax; hence perhaps the mistake, "Egregio in corpore nævus!" Let those who wish to know what passion really is, read the tiger-like yells of the Roman senate in Lampridius!
C. Forbes.
Temple, Feb. 27.