he matter of Cretan Labyrinth, as connected by Virgil with the
Ludus Trojae, or equestrian game of winding and turning, continued in
England from twelfth century; and having for last relic the maze[BI]
called 'Troy Town,' at Troy Farm, near Somerton, Oxfordshire, which
itself resembles the circular labyrinth on a coin of Cnossus in Fors
Clavigera. (Letter 23, p. 12.)

"The connecting quotation from Virg., AEn., V. 588, is as follows:

'Ut quondam Creta fertur Labyrinthus in alta
Parietibus textum caecis iter, ancipitemque
Mille viis habuisse dolum, qua signa sequendi
Falleret indeprensus et inremeabilis error.
Haud alio Teucruen nati vestigia cursu
Impediunt, texuntque fagas et proelia ludo,
Delphinum similes.'"

Labyrinth of Ariadne, as cut on the Downs by shepherds from time
immemorial,--

Shakespeare, 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' Act ii., sc. 2:

"_Oberon._ The nine-men's morris[BJ] is filled up with mud;
And the quaint mazes in the wanton green
By lack of tread are undistinguishable."

The following passage, 'Merchant of Venice,' Act iii., sc. 2, confuses
(to all appearance) the Athenian tribute to Crete, with the story of
Hesione: and may point to general confusion in the Elizabethan mind
about the myths:

"_Portia._ ... with much more love
Than young Alcides, when he did reduce
The virgin-tribute paid by howling Troy
To the sea monster."[BK]

Theseus is the Attic Hercules, however; and Troy may have been a sort of
house of call for mythical monsters, in the view of midland shepherds.

FOOTNOTES:

[BH] "Would not the design have looked better, to us, on the plate than
on the print? On the plate, the reins would be in the left hand; and the
whole movement be from the left to the right? The two different forms
that the radiance takes would symbolize respectively heat and light,
would they not?"

[BI] Strutt, pp. 97-8, ed. 1801.

[BJ] Explained as "a game still played by the shepherds, cowkeepers,"
etc., in the midland counties.

[BK] See Iliad, 20, 145.

[Illustration: XI.

"Obediente Domino voci hominis."]

APPENDIX.

ARTICLE I.

NOTES ON THE PRESENT STATE OF ENGRAVING IN ENGLAND.

229. I have long deferred the completion of this book, because I had
hoped to find time to show, in some fullness, the grounds for my
conviction that engraving, and