In the reign of Edgar, if our ships were still small, they were numerous enough. If we are to believe the monkish historians of this reign, his fleet consisted of three thousand six hundred sail, “all very stout ones;” some say four thousand, and others four thousand eight hundred. But these monkish historians were not only tempted, in gratitude to their munificent patron, to extol his power to their utmost; they were probably quite ignorant of nautical affairs. They were not likely to be much better informed on the shipping of their own country than they were of the geography of the island on which they were living; and of the singular notions on this subject sometimes entertained by these recluses, we have authentic testimony. _Here_ their ignorance can be convicted. Edgar’s fleet, “all stout ones,” as they were, have passed away, and none can tell what their number may have been; but the hills, and seas, and rivers, which they misdescribed in their maps, still remain to speak for themselves. “In some of these maps of the twelfth century,” (discovered in the monasteries at the time of their suppression by Henry VIII.,) “Scotland is represented as an island separated from England by an arm of the sea. Ireland is also divided in two by the river Boyne, which is represented as a canal connecting the Irish Channel with the Atlantic. The towns are drawn in them of a disproportionate size, and the _abbeys_, with the walls, gates, and belfreys, occupy so great a space as to leave little room for the rivers,” &c.[12] If the Anglo-Saxons had been capable of manning such a fleet as is here described, they must have been sad poltroons to have succumbed as they did to the Danes under Swain and Canute--the naval heroes who next appear in review before us. This Canute, after all his victories, is remembered chiefly, and remembered by every man, woman, and child amongst us, by the singular dialogue he is said once to have held with the sea. We must quote the story again for the sake of the commentary which is here attached to it. We are glad to find, by the way, that the story has escaped--it is a very narrow escape--from the clutches of historical criticism.