"Insulæ unica civitas, olim potentia splendore et magnitudine celebris,
tantarum rerum jactura fracta in exiguos fines se contraxit et oppiduli
speciem refert, ut Jansonii Atlas docet. Arx prope portum satis valida.
Emporiis illis Pomeraniæ clarissimis Wineta et Julin pessum euntibus,
Visbya 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
maritimæ et decisiones omnium controversiarum singulariter longe
latèque observantur. Ex distructa autem Vineta Gothlandos incolas
marmor, ferrum, cuprum, stannum, argentum, et inter alia duas ænei
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