THE MIRROR
OF
LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
| Vol. XII, No. 337. | SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1828 | [PRICE 2d. |
Cheese Wring.
(To the Editor of the Mirror.)
In presenting your readers with a representation of the WringCheese, I offer a few prefatory remarks connected with the earlyimportance of the county in which it stands, venerable in its age,amid the storms of elements, and the changes of religions. Itspristine glory has sunk on the horizon of Time; but its legend,like a soft twilight of its former day, still hallows it in thememories of the surrounding peasantry.
Cornwall is allowed by antiquaries to be the Capiterides; andthe Abbé de Fontenu, in the Memoires de Literature,tom. vii. p. 126, proves, according to Vallancey, that thePhoenicians traded here for tin before the Trojan war. Homerfrequently mentions this metal; and even in Scripture we haveallusions to this land under the name of Tarshish (Ezekiel, c.xxvii., v. 12-25), being the place whence the Tyrians procuredvarious metals, and among the rest, the English metal tin. Itappears that the primitive Greeks had a clearer knowledge of theseshores than those in after years; and although Homer, in his shieldof Achilles, describes the earth surrounded by water, yetHerodotus, notwithstanding his learning and research, candidlystates his ignorance in the following words:—"Neither am Ibetter acquainted with the islands called Capiterides, from whencewe are said to have our tin." The knowledge of these shoresexisted in periods so remote, that it faded. We dwindled away intoa visionary land—we lived almost in fable. The Phoenicianleft us, and the link of our history was severed. Hyde de ReligioneVet. Persarum, c. iv. p. 121, supposes Solomon to have traded withthe [pg258] Peruvians; and the analogies between the Pyramids inMexico and Egypt confirm the opinion, and sanction the belief thatthe ancients had a more extended knowledge of, and a greatertraffic over, the earth than history records. In the most earlyages, worship was paid to stone idols; and the Pagan introductionof statues into temples was of a recenter date. The ancientEtruscans, as well as the ancient Egyptians, revered the obeliscalstone, (the reason why to the obeliscal stone is given by PayneKnight, in his extraordinary work;) nor was it, according toPlutarch, till 170 years after the founding of the city that theRomans had statues in their temples, their deities being consideredinvisible. Many stone pillars exist in this country, especially inCornwall; and it is a fair inference that the Phoenician importedhis religious rites in return for his metallic exports—sincewe find mention made of stone pillars in Genesis, xxviii. v. 20;Deuteronomy, xxvii. v. 4.; Joshua, xxiv.; 2 Samuel, xx. v. 8.;Judges, ix. v. 6., &c. &c. Many are the conjectures as towhat purport these stones were used: sometimes they weresepulchral, as Jacob's pillar over Rachel, Gen. xxxv. 20. Ilus, sonof Dardanus, king of Troy, was buried in the plain before that citybeneath a column, Iliad, xi. 317. Sometimes they were erected astrop