white horses, and that such were the steeds of the twin-brothers, Castor and Pollux. They were, by the ancients, regarded as the most fleet of all horses, and such were, usually, harnessed to the triumphal chariot, as Ovid thus testifies : "Ergo erit illa dies, quâ tu, pulcherrime rerum "De Arte Amandi,” Lib. 1. l. 213. This veneration for the white horse the ancient Germans may have derived from the East, as Herodotus tells us, that Cyrus had in his army, when he marched towards Babylon, certain white horses, which the Persians accounted sacred. Witikind, the Great, the lineal descendant of Hengist, (one of the invaders of this country,) it is well known, bore the white horse on his banner. It was thus, originally, a pagan religious emblem. It appears on the arms of all the descendants of this Prince, and, amongst others, on those of our Royal Sovereign as springing from the House of Brunswick. A banner, decorated with the white horse, is supposed to have been borne before the Saxon Invaders of this country; and, from this circumstance, it is inferred, that the one pourtrayed (by the removal of the turf) on the hill in the parish of Uffington, Berks, was formed for the purpose of commemorating the victory obtained by Alfred over the Danes, which is said to have occurred at Ashdown, in that vicinity. This white horse (which is 374 feet in length, and covers in its dimensions an acre of ground) is visible at a great distance, and gives name to the fertile, and expansive, vale, which is beneath it-to the "Vale of White Horse." It is very conspicuous from the opposite side, and is, consequently, thus noticed in a descriptive poem by a former poet laureat : "Carv'd rudely on the pendant soil is seen The snow-white courser stretching o'er the green: The glorious monument of victory! There England rear'd her long-dejected head; There Alfred triumph'd, and invasion bled." Pye's "Faringdon Hill." On reference to the "Magna Britannia" of Messrs. Lysons, I find, in their History of Berks, the following passage: "Near Uffington Castle (an ancient camp) is the rude figure of a horse, which gives name to the hill, formed by cutting away the turf; this appears to be of great antiquity, and more likely to have been a work of the Britons than, as it has been usually supposed, a memorial for Alfred's victory over the Danes: the figure of a horse, a good deal resembling that above-mentioned, frequently occurs on the British coins." This is very true-the ancient Britons so venerated that noble animal, the horse, that he is generally introduced on their coins; but the Messrs. Lysons seem to me to have abandoned (in the love of novel theory) the stronger for the weaker hypothesis. The history of this gigantic horse is laboriously investigated in the following work, (and in a subsequent tract by the same author,) "A Letter to Dr. Mead concerning some Antiquities in Berkshire, particularly showing, that the White Horse, which gives name to the Vale, is a Monument of the West Saxons made in memory of a great victory obtained over the Danes, A. D. 871." By Francis Wise, B.D., Fell. of Trinity Coll., Oxon, 1738. It is a remarkable fact, that the opinion advocated by Wise,-viz., that the white horse in question does commemorate the victory of Alfred, is strongly corroborated by a similar instance, which occurs in the County of Wilts. On Bratton Hill, near Westbury, is, also, the portraiture of the white horse, and this, again, (which is the renovation of a prior, and ancient, figure,) is said to commemorate another victory obtained by Alfred over the Danes. This engagement is mentioned by Asserius" De Rebus Gestis Ælfredi," p. 34, and is well demonstrated by Sir R. C. Hoare, in his history of the "Hundred of Westbury," (forming a portion of his "Modern Wilts,") to have taken place at Edington, in the immediate vicinity-the Ethandum of Asser. It did happen, fortuitously, that these important engagements took place in that portion of the country, the subsoil of which is chalk, and that thus the ready means were afforded to the Saxons of perpetuating the remembrance of these victories by the delineation on the neighbouring hills of the white horse, under whose banner they so successfully contended. Thus did the Saxons significantly commemorate two of the most important battles fought by Alfred, the Great. I must now add, that there are other white horses pourtrayed on the sloping sides of the Wiltshire Hills, to which I cannot assign so honourable, and remote, an origin. For these the two previously mentioned served as archetypes. The white horse seen from the Bath and London Road on Cherill Hill, near Calne, is a work of, probably, a much later æra; indeed, Lewis, in his recent "Topographical Dictionary of England," says, that "it was executed, about forty years ago, under the direction, and at the expense, of Dr. Christopher Allsop, an eminent physician of Calne;" and those on the Hills near Devizes and Marlborough are of very recent origin, but these are alone the formation of the leisure hour-the offspring of the kindred spirit of the rural peasantry-zealous to attract the gaze of the distant multitudes on-the works of their own hands! Another instance of the representation of a horse, on the side of a hill, occurs at Edgehill, in the County of Warwick. From the nature of the soil this is called the red horse, and gives name to the adjoining vale. Camden conjectures it to be the work of the country people, but Wise imputes to it a specific origin. This horse faces, at a distance of nine, or ten, miles, the Castle of Warwick, the seat of Richard Neville, the great Earl of Warwick and Salisbury, (whose arms adorn the windows of the halle of John Halle,) and Wise contends, that it was the work of some retainer to that Hero, and executed in compliment to him in consequence of his having, at the battle of Towton, in Yorkshire, slain his horse in the front of his lines for the purpose of inspiriting his (subsequently victorious) army. This may be a happy, and true, guess; but, at all events, there is no reason to presume it as of Saxon Origin. On their conversion to Christianity the white horse of the Saxons was superseded by the portraiture of the Holy Cross, but the precise period of the change cannot be ascertained. The cross was, not improbably, assumed by Alfred himself; and, at first, there may have been a struggle for existing use between the pagan white horse, and the christian cross, as, in like manner, on the coins of Constantine the monogram of our Saviour contended for the possession of the field with the pagan Goddess of Victory. I introduce this remark for the purpose of observing, that, in the parish of Monks Risborough, in Buckinghamshire, may be seen on the side of a hill a gigantic cross, denominated Whiteleaf Cross. It is formed on the chalky substratum, and may be seen at a great distance. Wise, in his work, gives a well delineated view of this curious cross, and the surrounding country. He conjectures, that it was formed by the Saxons, when christianised, to commemorate some victory obtained over the pagan Danes, and, perhaps, at the neighbouring spot called Bledlow (or Bloody Hill.) I must here remark, that, in the northern and midland counties, a hill is often (per catachresin, as I presume,) called a Low. This is, however, a word of Saxon Derivation. There is no recorded incident (as in the cases of the white horses near Faringdon and Westbury) to corroborate this conjecture; and this cross may have originated solely in devotional feeling-a desire to supplant the pagan white horse by the christian white cross. I must conclude this note with the remark, that near Cerne, in Dorsetshire, another very ancient portraiture was (or is still) to be seen on the slope of a chalky hill—the figure of a giant. History has not recorded, to whom the representation is to be assigned, and tradition is, also, silent. Whatever may be its present appearance, I cannot but strongly suspect, that it was intended as the image of St. Christopher, whom the legends of Papistry represent as a gigantic man, but whose latent origin is, I confidently believe, to be found in the allegorical personification of the Holy Cross itself. I shall have occasion, in a future note, fully to discuss this novel hypothesis. If my conjecture as to this figure be correct, the same devotional feelings may have originated both the giant in the county of Dorset and the cross in that of Bucks. NOTE 3-(p. 28.) "Shields." Nothing could exceed the celebrated Shield of Achilles, in labour of design, as depicted by Homer; and there is no doubt, that Virgil had it in his mind, when he described the shield of Eneas as forged by Vulcan. It is true, that the details of these more elaborate shields are of poetic fiction; but, from thence, we may reasonably deduce the general practice. The shields of the Lacedemonians are stated by Alexander ab Alexandro to have been marked with the letter A, and those of the Messenians with the letter M. The Grecians were, also, accustomed to bear on their shields the tutelar deities of the several states, as Minerva, Neptune, &c.; but there is no reason to suppose, that such distinctions were so assumed by individuals amongst ancient nations as to constitute heraldic insignia. NOTE 4-(p, 32.) "Tabula Eliensis." It is related by Dallaway, that, "In 1087, during the vacancy occasioned by the death of Theodwyn, Prior of Ely, the King sent as many Knights and Gentlemen to take possession of the monastery as there were monks remaining in it. The portraits and arms of these, with the names on scrolls, were painted on one tablet, and set up in the great hall. A MS. in the British Museum seems to give it a very early date. Fuller places it in 1306. Mr. Cole observes, that the helmets of the Knights in the Ely tablet are round-a proof, that they were not painted till the 14th century, and that the shape of the escutcheons is still more modern.' There are, indeed, a few instances, but rather of devices than of arms, borne soon after the conquest; yet we cannot suppose, that they were used by these forty Knights, to whom they are appropriated, so early as 1087, though known to belong to their families; from which it appears, that the arms were subsequently added." NOTE 5-(p. 32.) "Bayeux Tapestry." This ancient, and curious, relique has excited much controversy in the literary world. Its appellation of tapestry, in the ordinary sense of that word, is a misnomer, as it is, in reality, a stupendous specimen of needle-work, and represents the invasion of England by William, the First, with all the preceding circumstances, which led to it, and concluding with the battle of Hastings. It was first brought into notice by Father Montfaucon and M. Lancelot in the early part of the last century, who, in their respective works,† have figured, and described, it. Dr. Ducarel, afterwards, republished Montfaucon's Plates in his "Anglo-Norman Antiquities," accompanied with a dissertation, and explanation, by Mr. Smart Lethieullier. "I had" (says Ducarel) "the satisfaction of seeing that famous piece of furniture, which with great exactness, though in barbarous needle-work, represents the history of Harold, king of * "Origin and Progress of the Science of Heraldry in England," p. 32. + The "Monumens de la Monarchie Française," and the "Memoirs de l'Academie des Inscriptions." |