inter omnia Regionum oppida floruit. (Olaus Magnus, l. 10. cap.
16.) Licet urbs vetustissima Visbycensis potentissima ac opulentissima
quondam fuerit _et pro minima occasione, nempe fractionis unius
fenestralis vitri vix valoris obolaris, humiliata sit_, tamen leges
maritimae et decisiones omnium controversiarum singulariter longe
lateque observantur. Ex distructa autem Vineta Gothlandos incolas
marmor, ferrum, cuprum, stannum, argentum, et inter alia duas aenei
portas grandis ponderis petiisse, et secum in Gothlandum avexisse
ferunt."

I need not remind your readers that the maritime code of Wisby even now
influences many of the most important decisions affecting our present
mercantile shipping, it having been the model of the Laws of the
Acquitanian Islands of Re and Oleron, which Richard I. ordered to be
observed in England, and which are still frequently acted on. It is,
however, to the notice which I have marked in Italics that I would call the
attention of V.,--the destruction of the city _on account of a small pane
of glass not the value of an obolus_: and as he, no doubt, has interested
himself on these northern histories, request him to explain the
circumstance more in detail. I myself have often determined on searching
Pontanus, and other ancient Danish authorities, but hitherto neglected, and
therefore know nothing about the matter.

As to the gates, which are more especially mentioned amongst the spoils of
the ruined Wineta, we find them also noticed in the same work, at its
account of Wineta:

"Urbem frequentabant Graeci aut potius Russi multarumque aliarum
nationum mercatores, quorum affluxus frequens civibus ingentes divitias
et facultates conciliavit: _adeo ut portae civitatis ex aere paratae_, et
argentum tam vulgare ibi esset ut ad communium et vilium rerum usum
adhibetur."

To go, however, completely into the history of these gates would require a
volume. It would be necessary to commence with the great veneration for
gates in general throughout the north: whether the name of their great god
Thor (a gateway) is cause or consequence would have to be considered, and
his coincidence, in this respect, with Janus and Janua, the eldest deity of
the Italians, which I have more largely discussed in an _Essay on a British
Coin with the Head of Janus_, in the 21st No. of the Journal of the British
Archaeological Association. Next, the question would arise,