of Zante, or the Athenians of Settines, it would be as unfair to rob Ithaca of its name, on such authority, as it would be to assert that no such island existed, because no tolerable representation of its form can be found in the Venetian surveys.

“The rare medals of the Island, of which three are represented in the title-page, might be adduced as a proof that the name of Ithaca was not lost during the reigns of the Roman emperors.  They have the head of Ulysses, recognised by the pileum, or pointed cap, while the reverse of one presents the figure of a cock, the emblem of his vigilance, with the legend [Greek:  ITHAKON].  A few of these medals are preserved in the cabinets of the curious, and one also, with the cock, found in the island, is in the possession of Signor Zavo, of Bathi.  The uppermost coin is in the collection of Dr. Hunter; the second is copied from Newman, and the third is the property of R.P.  Knight, Esq.

“Several inscriptions, which will be hereafter produced, will tend to the confirmation of the idea that Ithaca was inhabited about the time when the Romans were masters of Greece; yet there is every reason to believe that few, if any, of the present proprietors of the soil are descended from ancestors who had long resided successively in the island.  Even those who lived, at the time of Ulysses, in Ithaca, seem to have been on the point of emigrating to Argos, and no chief remained, after the second in descent from that hero, worthy of being recorded in history.  It appears that the isle has been twice colonised from Cephalonia in modern times, and I was informed that a grant had been made by the Venetians, entitling each settler in Ithaca to as much land as his circumstances would enable him to cultivate.”

Mr. Gell then proceeds to invalidate the authority of previous writers on the subject of Ithaca.  Sir George Wheeler and M. le Chevalier fall under his severe animadversion; and, indeed, according to his account, neither of these gentlemen had visited the island, and the description of the latter is “absolutely too absurd for refutation.”  In another place, he speaks of M. le C. “disgracing a work of such merit by the introduction of such fabrications;” again, of the inaccuracy of the author’s maps; and, lastly, of his inserting an island at the southern entry of the Channel between Cephalonia and Ithaca, which has no existence.  This observation very nearly approaches to the use of that monosyllable which Gibbon[1], without expressing it, so adroitly applied to some assertion of his antagonist, Mr. Davies.  In truth, our traveller’s words are rather bitter towards his brother tourist:  but we must conclude that their justice warrants their severity.

[Footnote 1:  See his Vindication of the 15th and 16th chapters of the Decline and Fall, &c.]