sneer;

They call me tyrant, breaker of my word,

Fond of a warrior's garb without his sword.

A servile courtier, saucy cavalier,

Bold as a lion when no danger's near,

They say I seek their country for myself,

To fill my bursting bags with plunder'd pelf;

They say with goose's, not with eagle's wing,

I wish to soar, and make myself a king.

Dutchmen! to you I came, I saw, I sav'd:

Where'er my staff, my bear, my banner wav'd,

The daunted Spaniard fled without a blow,

And bloodless chaplets crown'd my conquering brow.

Dutchmen! with minds more stagnant than your pools,

(But in reproachful words more knaves than fools),

You will not see, nor own the debt you owe

To him who conquers a retreating foe.

Such base ingratitude as this alloys

My triumph's glory, and my bosom's joys."

V. T.

Tunbridge Wells.

EARLY USE OF TIN.

Mr. Layard, in his work upon Nineveh and Babylon, in reference to the articles of bronze from Assyria now in the British Museum, states, that the tin used in the composition was probably obtained from Phœnicia; and, consequently, that that used in the Assyrian bronze may actually have been exported nearly three thousand years ago from the British Isles.

The Assyrians appear to have made an extensive use of this metal; and the degree of perfection which the making of bronze had then reached, clearly shows that they must have been long experienced in the use of it. They appear to have received what they used from the Phœnicians. When and by whom was tin first discovered in our island? Were the Celtic tribes acquainted with it previously to the arrival of the Phœnicians upon our shores?

It is said that the Phœnicians were indebted to the Tyrian Hercules for their trade in tin; and that this island owed them its name of Baratanac, or Britain, the land of tin. Was the Tyrian Hercules, or, as he was afterwards known and worshipped, as the Melkart of Tyre, and the Moloch of the Bible, was he the merchant-leader of the first band of Phœnicians who visited this island? When did he live?

G. W.

Stansted, Montfichet.

ST. PATRICK—MAUNE AND MAN.

Amongst the many strange derivations given of the name of Mona or Man (the island), I find one in an old unpublished MS. by an unknown author, of the date about 1658, noticed by Feltham (Tour through the Isle of Man, p. 8.), on which I venture to ground a Query. The name of the island is there said to have been derived from Maune, the name of the great apostle of the Mann, before he received that of Patricius from Pope Celestine.

Now if St. Patrick ever had the name Maune, he could not have given it to the island, which was called Mona, Monabia, and Menavia, as far back as the days of Cæsar, Tacitus, and Pliny. I have not access to any life of St. Patrick in which the name Maune occurs; but in the Penny Cyclopædia, under the head "Patrick," I find it said, "According to Nennius, St. Patrick's original name was Maur," and I find the same stated in Rose's Biographical Dictionary. But the article in the latter is evidently taken from the former, and I suspect the Maur may in both be a misprint for Maun.^[3] Can "N. & Q." set me right, or give me any information likely to solve the difficulty?

I may as well notice here that amongst the many ways in which the name of this island has been pronounced and spelt, that of Maun seems to have prevailed at the period of the Norwegian occupation. On a Runic monument at Kirk Michael, we have it very distinctly so spelt.

With regard to the name Mona, applied both to Man and Anglesea, I have little doubt we may find its root in the Sanscrit man, to know, worship, &c., whence we have Manu the son of Brahma, Menu, Menes, Minos, Moonshee, and Monk. The name Mona would seem to have been applied to both islands, as being specially the habitation of the Druids, whose name probably came either from the Celtic Trow-wys, wisemen, or the Saxon dru, a soothsayer, very close in signification to the Sanscrit mooni, a holy sage, learned person. As connected with this idea I may ground another Query: Might not these two Monas, the abode of piety and wisdom, be the true, μακαρων νησοι, the Fortunatæ Insulæ of the ancients?

J. G. Cumming.

Castletown.