The use of the sepulchral urn must be regarded as in itself a proof of some degree of progress. earliest of these, however, are of the rudest possible description. They are fashioned with the hand, of coarse clay, by workmen ignorant of the turning-lathe or wheel of the potter. They are generally extremely unsymmetrical, merely dried in the sun, without any attempt at design, and devoid of ornament. Of a later period, though still accompanied only with weapons and implements of stone, the urn is found neatly fashioned into various forms, and ornamented with different patterns of lines, traced by some instrument in the soft clay, after which the vessel has been baked with fire. The great number of these urns that have been found, and the abundance of the stone and flint weapons scattered over the whole British Islands, and indeed over most parts of Europe, furnish evidence of the same rude tribes having continued with little change to occupy Europe during many generations. A change, however, of a most decided character broke in at length on the barbarous habits of this primitive British race, not improbably by the irruption of more civilised tribes from the East.

The records of the infancy of many great nations preserve some mythic or traditional allusion to the great change effected on the condition of man by the introduction of the metals. In the Sacred History we learn of the sons of Adah-Jabal, the father of such as dwell in tents, and have cattle,' and his brother Jubal,

Denmark, Norway, and in the British Isles, moulds | forests and morasses, which bade defiance to their im made both of stone and metal have been found, exactly perfect implements and simple arts. corresponding with the bronze axe-heads called celts, and with the adzes, spear-heads, daggers, and other weapons found in the barrows of the Second Period. While some of the moulds are wrought with great delicacy, others are so rude as to convey the idea to us that their possessors fashioned their own moulds and cast their weapons much in the same way that a mo-of such as handle the harp and organ'—the fathers, dern sportsman supplies himself with leaden bullets. The writings of Sir Walter Scott have sufficed to add a fictitious interest to more than one curious tradition of elder times; and in no case is this more noticeable than in the use he has made in the pages of 'Kenilworth' of the curious relic of Scandinavian mythology preserved for so many ages in the popular tradition of Wayland Smith. Although the legendary tales of the wise Smith have so long held a place among the traditions of Berkshire, and the ancient cromlech in the neighbourhood of Farringdon has for centuries borne the name of Wayland Smith's cave, these tales are no less common throughout all the branches of the Teutonic race. The story of Wayland is related at length in the Edda,' an ancient Scandinavian poem, embodying the wild and sublime conceptions of northern mythology, and forming the original sacred writings of the Norsemen. It occurs also in the earliest Icelandic sacred poems, and is frequently referred to in the great German epic poem, the Nibelungen-Lied.' In all these, different versions are given of the same story preserved by the Greek poets, and evidently a mythic record of the first introduction of the art of working in metals among the northern races.

in fact, of a pastoral life, with its peaceful but unprogressive virtues, such as may still be witnessed among the nomade tribes of Asia. But her sister Zillah bare Tubalcain, the Vulcan or Wayland of the Mosaic records, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron.' A curious custom among the ancient Egyptians preserves to us in like manner evidence of that people having passed through the same great change in the early stages of their civilisation. In preparing the mummies of the deceased for sepulture, the embalmers proceeded to extract the brain through the nostrils by means of a bronze or iron probe; but it was not permitted to use any instrument of metal in opening the body. The incision in the side, through which the intestines were extracted, could only be made with a sharp Ethiopian stone; and when they had been cleansed and replaced, the eye of Osiris, the Judge of the Dead, was placed as a mysterious seal over the sacred incision. The stone knives of the embalmers have frequently been found in the catacombs. They seem to indicate that some process of embalming had been in use among that ancient people before the introduction of metals, and that (with a feeling easily understood), while the bronze or iron knife was adopted for all common uses, the more ancient implement was retained unchanged for making the sacred incision in the dead.

This Teutonic myth may be unhesitatingly regarded as the traditionary memorial of the advent of the Bronze Period among the northern races of Europe. Milton in like manner refers to the introduction of We see in it the hero-worship of the rude Norsemen the art of working in metals in the eleventh book of deifying their Scandinavian Vulcan when he had passed the Paradise Lost,' when the Archangel Michael shows away to the rewards of the Valhalla of their wild creed, to Adam the future history of his progeny. The new and testifying their estimate of the gift he had bestowed art is there also introduced as the great source of on them by according to him divine honours. The re- transition from the pastoral state; and the picture the mote antiquity to which the wild legends of the Norse-poet presents to the mind singularly realises to us the men are referrible, show in some degree the very early period in which this great change must have taken place. In the writings of Alfred the Great a curious allusion occurs which may help to confirm this. Reflecting on the uncertainty and fleeting nature of all worldly fame and honours, the royal poet exclaims—

Who knows where the bones lie

Of the wise Weland?

Under what mound or barrow

Are they now concealed?'

From this it is obvious that even in the early times of the great Saxon, the story of the old metallurgist had become an ancient and uncertain legend.

The opportunities afforded by the more extended study of archæology for comparing the indigenous antiquities of the various countries of Europe, enable us more distinctly to demonstrate the extreme state of barbarism in which the aborigines of the Stone Period must have lived, and the immense changes effected on this by the introduction of the art of working in metals. It has been previously observed that the sepulchral monuments of the First Period, with their accompanying weapons and implements, are not peculiar to Britain, nor, indeed, are they at all so common in England as on many parts of the continent of Europe. They are of frequent occurrence on the coasts of the Baltic, and along the shores of the German Ocean. They are found in Holland, Brittany, and Portugal, and on the islands and the coasts of the mainland bordering on the Mediterranean Sea; but they are scarcely ever discovered far inland, unless in the vicinity of some large river or lake. They are, in fact, the monuments of a rude and thinly-scattered people, who subsisted by hunting and fishing, and whose imperfect implements totally incapacitated them from penetrating into the interior of these countries, encumbered as they then were by vast

idea, already referred to, of our own rude ancestors
smelting their ores, and each casting his weapons and
implements as best he might :-

In other part stood one who, at the forge
Labouring, two massy clods of iron and brass
Had melted (whether found where casual fire
Had wasted woods on mountain or in vale,
Down to the veins of earth; thence gliding hot
To some cave's mouth; or whether washed by stream
From under ground); the liquid ore he drained
Into fit moulds prepared; from which he formed
First his own tools, then what might else be wrought,
Fusil, or graven in metal.'

No wonder that the wild Norseman elevated to the
rank of a Divinity the introducer of the metals to his
race. The changes effected by the greatest of modern
inventions-by the mariner's compass, the steam-en-
gine, the railway, or even by the printing-press-are
not more remarkable than those first produced by the
introduction of the metals. It seems probable that we
owe to the Teutonic races-among whom we find the
legends of Wayland the wise Smith so widely diffused

-the introduction of this invaluable means of civilisation among the older Celta. Evidences are not wanting to suggest the inference, that we owe to a far earlier invasion than those of the Belgae, the Danes, or the Saxons, the introduction of the metallurgic arts into the British Isles. What particularly marks this change with the characteristics of invasion by a superior race, is the absence of marks of transition. Had the original Celta gradually learned to supersede their rude weapons of stone and flint by the more efficient ones of bronze, we might expect to find the latter in the same class of barrows, and even deposited together under the same tumulus. Such, however, is not the case. The long barrow is destitute of relics of the Bronze

Period; and while it is notorious that there is nothing on which changes are more slowly effected among nations than their sepulchral rites and memorials, we look in vain in the new implements of metal for any cause to account for the change in the forms of the tumuli. The conclusion may therefore be regarded as a legitimate one, that they also are characteristic distinctions, marking customs introduced by a new race. We may picture to ourselves the ancient Celtæ disturbed by the invasion of tribes armed with weapons scarcely less novel to them than those with which the Spanish discoverers astonished the natives of the New World. Once more they forsook the Eastern shores, and moved towards the north-west, while the forests rang with the woodman's axe, the quarry was wrought for building materials, and the high lands were crowned with the ancient dun, or hill fort, the refuge of a warlike, yet pastoral and partially-civilised people, who had learned to combine for mutual safety and the community of interests which civilisation gives rise to.

Cromlechs, Standing-Stones, Temples, &c.

A cromlech consists of several large upright stones, almost invariably without the slightest marks of artificial shaping, over which another large unhewn stone is laid so as to form a kind of rude chamber, as in the following illustration. Occasionally they are found

was expended on some of the vast sepulchral memorials of the civilised Egyptians.

Cromlechs are found scattered over the same countries of Europe to which we have already referred as still possessing the sepulchral mounds of this ancient race of builders. Many of them are of far larger proportions than that discovered in the Phoenix Park. Wayland Smith's Cave in Berkshire is a work of this class, and so also is Kit's Coty House in Kent. It has been attempted to establish that the latter is the monument of Catigern, the British commander who fell in the same battle in which the Saxon invader Horsa was slain, A.D. 455; but the marked character of this ancient monument evidently proves it to belong to a much earlier period in our island history.

Scattered over the British Islands, and many parts of the continent, are standing-stones, as they are termed rude blocks of stone placed upright, and evidently designed as commemorative of some remarkable event, the scene of a great victory, or the spot where a mighty chief fell. Others, of a later character, are hewn into regular forms, and decorated with a variety of sculptures. Still later, we find them bearing inscriptionssome in characters still undeciphered, some in the Icelandic and Saxon Runes (a written character, which the Norsemen are thought to have derived in part from the Phoenicians), and some in the Byzantine character, and generally decorated with the cross, the universal emblem of the changes affecting the Christian period to which they belong. Numerous stones of the same class are also found in Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, and other northern countries of Europe, sculptured with snakes, dragons, and the like figures, generally interlaced so as to form a variety of beautiful patterns. Others are covered with figures on horse and foot, and occasionally with symbolic representations, among which the elephant and other devices evidently derived from the East, furnish an additional argument in favour of the Asiatic origin of the early northern races.

The most ancient, and probably the largest, Celtic or Druidical temple of ancient times was at Avebury in Wiltshire; but unfortunately a village has been planted on its site, and only a few slight remains now attest the rude magnificence of its perfect state. It was carefully surveyed by Dr Stukely in 1720. No fewer than 650 blocks of stone were included in the circles and avenues of this vast temple, varying from 5 to 20 feet above the ground, and from 3 to 12 feet in breadth and thickness. The singular structure formed by these huge standing-stones was enclosed by a deep ditch and a lofty bank of earth, of which considerable remains may still be traced. It enclosed an area somewhat exceeding twenty-eight acres. The stones of Avebury were entirely unhewn, and must have been brought together with much labour, frequently from a great distance. On the surface of the ground, both in the neighbouring valleys and on the high lands, larger masses of stone are frequently met with; and there are still a considerable number of detached oolitic sandstones of various sizes lying scattered about at no great distance from Avebury. These are known by the name of Gray Wethers, and from among such the builders of the great Celtic temple selected the materials with which it was constructed. Stukely remarks that Avebury might be regarded as the grand national cathedral, while the smaller circles, which are met with in various parts of the island, may be compared to the parish or village churches.

enclosed by a circle of stones, thereby further assimilating them to the larger Druidical remains, such as Stonehenge. Various theories have been advanced as to the purposes for which they were constructed; the most generally received of which represented them as Druidical altars, designed, as some conceived, for human sacrifice. Careful investigation, however, has sufficed in this, as in most other cases, to show of how little value the mere theorist's labours generally are. Whenever excavations have been made in their centre, they have been found to cover remains which clearly point to their use as sepulchral memorials. Some have been found to contain calcined bones, others entire human skeletons, while both sepulchral urns, and weapons and personal ornaments, have been frequently discovered among their contents. A curious disclosure of one was made during the construction of the Phoenix Park at Dublin in the year 1838. An ancient tumulus, which measured 120 feet in circumference, and about 15 feet in perpendicular height, was ordered to be levelled. During the progress of the work, four kistvaens, or coffins formed of separate slabs of stone, each containing an urn of baked clay, filled with calcined bones, were discovered. One of these, which was preserved in a nearly perfect state, is now in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy. It is gracefully and regularly formed, and neatly decorated with a variety of zig-zag ornaments. In the centre of the mound a cromlech was disclosed, the large covering-stone of which measures 6 feet in length. Within this were found two perfect male skeletons, and the remains of another. Underneath each of the skulls a quantity of small shells were found, rudely pierced, and strung The vast Druidical temple of Stonehenge (see followtogether with vegetable fibre, so as to form necklaces; ing fig.), on Salisbury Plain, has attracted more attenand beside them lay a fibula, or brooch of bone, and a tion than any other relic of antiquity in Britain. It difweapon made of flint. From this, then, it is obvious fers from that of Avebury, as well as from all the Celtic that the cromlechs must no longer be regarded as altars monuments of the same class, in being constructed of for barbarous and bloody sacrifices; but as sepulchral hewn stones, and manifesting ideas of proportion and monuments, furnishing evidence to us of a patriarchal regular symmetry of which no other known structure government, and of the reverential honours paid by of the kind exhibits any indications. Many of the the builders to their chiefs. The labour of constructing columns have been squared or hewn by art, and the such a monument, by a people furnished with such horizontal stones which surmount the outer circle have imperfect implements, must have exceeded that which | been attached to them by mortices fitting the tenons

which have been laboriously cut on them. Readers | loops and borders on the flanges; and the bronze who have not had an opportunity of inspecting this wonderful monument of antiquity, must not assume, from the above statements, that the huge monolithic

pillars of this temple of Stonehenge are characterised by great symmetry and uniform regularity of proportion. This is not the case. They have only been rudely reduced to the necessary form, but still sufficiently so to characterise them with a most striking and important feature of difference from all other known monuments of the same class, though we may be allowed to smile at the learned essay compiled by Inigo Jones, in obedience to the commands of King James, in which the great architect undertakes to prove that Stonehenge was a Roman temple of the Tuscan order, dedicated to Cœlus!

swords, generally known as the leaf-shaped swords, are remarkable for their beautiful proportions. In this country the blade alone is usually found, the handle having apparently been made of horn or some other decaying substance. But in Denmark the leaf-shaped sword frequently occurs with a beautifully-decorated handle of bronze. But it is to the personal ornaments of the same period that we must look for evidences of the greatest taste and skill. Many of these are of pure gold, and finished with much care. In Ireland more especially, beautiful gold brooches have frequently been found of large size, and decorated with amber and fine stones. Torques, or twisted collars for the neck, armillæ, or large bracelets, and rings of various forms, designed to be worn about the head, the neck, the arms, the wrists, the ankles, and even the waist, have all been found made of pure gold, of silver, and of bronze, and frequently characterised by great beauty of form and decorations. Besides these, bodkins, hair-pins, tweezers, and various other articles, occur among the metal relics of the period, while the contents of the same tumuli frequently include glass and amber beads, and arm-rings and necklaces made of coal and jet. The ornaments on all these furnish evidence of great skill and ingenuity, and prove their constructors to have made considerable progress in the arts of civilisation.

Perhaps the most remarkable of the personal ornaments of the Bronze Period is the torque, or twisted collar worn round the neck. (See annexed illustration.) It may be regarded as the most characteristic relic of advanced Celtic art; and, like the race to whom its The origin of this singular structure has been the construction is traceable, it subject of endless speculations for centuries. The is decidedly of Eastern oriearliest-published notice of it occurs in the writings of gin. The gold collar which Nennius, who lived in the ninth century. According Pharaoh put round Joseph's to him, 460 British nobles, who had assembled on the neck, is rendered in the spot to be present at a conference between King Vor- Septuagint by the word tigern and Hengist, were murdered there; and the strepton (turned or twisted), and is supposed by some Britons afterwards erected the circles of Stonehenge to to have been a torque. The same species of permark the scene where so many of their chiefs had sonal adornment is of frequent occurrence on Persian perished. This would place its erection later than the monuments, and always under circumstances which fifth century, and is altogether untenable. The Triads imply its having been regarded as a mark of distinof the Welsh Bards' couple with King Vortigern the guished honour. It is particularly referred to in Kerr more famous Merlin; and this is further enlarged upon Porter's travels, as represented on the staircase of Perby Geoffrey of Monmouth, who wrote in the twelfth sepolis, and forming one of the most prominent gifts century. According to him, the stones were originally offered to Darius. It was familiar to the Romans, but brought from Africa, and dropped at Kildare in Ire-only as one of the barbaric spoils that adorned the proland, and from thence Merlin removed them by supernatural agency, and placed them upright on Salisbury Plain! By more recent writers all manner of vain theories have been propounded to account for the origin of this ancient British temple. It has been assigned to Phoenicians, Indians, Belgic and British Druids, Romans, and Saxons. This at least is obvious to the archæologist, that it belongs to a later period than the Great Temple of Avebury. Its hewn stones prove it to be the work of a period when the knowledge of metals had afforded the ancient Britons the means of effecting this. It is not, therefore, a work of the Stone Period-it is probably not even a work of the Bronze Period-but belongs to that later era when the art of smelting the iron ore had given to the northern races of Europe the command of weapons and implements adapted to their untiring energy and patient vigour. It is not improbable that the circle of unhewn stones which forms part of Stonehenge, may have been a lesser temple contemporary with that of Avebury; and that the great circle, and the other gigantic symmetrical features of the temple, were the work of a later age, and of a more advanced state of civilisation.

Personal Ornaments.

Many of the bronze weapons found in early tumuli are exceedingly elegant and graceful in form. The larger spear-heads are frequently decorated with open

cession of a triumphant general, or marked the foreign captive that he dragged in his reluctant train. It was recognised by the Romans as a distinguishing badge of the Gauls, and, as such, is introduced in that masterpiece of Otesilaus,' The Dying Gladiator, which Byron has inspired with such new and touching life in his poem of Childe Harold.'

III. THE IRON PERIOD.

The changes effected by the introduction of iron, to those already familiar with the use of copper and bronze, though considerable, would be slight and unimportant when compared with the radical improvements effected by the first discovery of metals. The evidence from which we may trace the first introduction of the commonest and most useful of all the metals to the races of northern Europe, is necessarily much more imperfect than that from which the previous conclusions have been deduced in relation to the Stone and Bronze Periods, owing to the rapid destruction of iron, unless under the most favourable circumstances. Nevertheless, we are possessed of abundant evidence to show that iron was in use among the races of northern Europe long before the Roman legions had subjected the Gauls and Britons to the imperial sway. The term, therefore, of the Iron Period, or Iron Age, very fitly suffices to designate the last period of heathenism, prior to the subversion of native arts and habits by the superior

prowess of Rome, and the influence of her more ad

vanced civilisation and refinement.

The Museum of the Royal Academy at Dublin contains a valuable collection of iron swords, axes, and spear-heads, found at Dunshaughlin. They undoubtedly belong to a very early period, and their fine state of preservation is ascribed to the immense quantity of bones which surrounded them, the decomposition of which, by forming a phosphate of lime, prevented the rapid corrosion of the metal. Another beautiful collection of ancient iron weapons, believed to be Danish, was dug up near Island-Bridge during the construction of the Dublin and Cashel Railway. The mountings of the swords were mostly of brass, but a few of them were richly plated with silver, and one is said to have had a hilt of solid gold. In the celebrated museum of the Northern Antiquaries at Copenhagen, ancient iron swords and other hand weapons are preserved, some of which have the hilts ornamented, and partially inlaid with silver.

Numerous relics of various kinds might be added to those already described, belonging both to the periods of bronze and iron. The above, however, will suffice to characterise these periods, and to show with considerable vividness the degree of civilisation to which the inhabitants of northern Europe had attained before the irruption of the Roman legions into the countries within which these races had been securely established for many ages.

ROMAN ARCHEOLOGY.

having learned from their conquerors the art of constructing and efficiently using the potter's kiln.

The forms of Roman weapons and implements, and of every variety of domestic utensil or personal ornament, were no less markedly distinguished from those of the native British. They were not simply superior to them they were essentially different in form and style, and superseded them as a natural consequence of the substitution of Roman for native rulers. Numerous sepulchral and commemorative inscriptions have been discovered in every part of Britain where the Romans established permanent stations. Inscribed altars are also of frequent occurrence, and all these afford valuable materials for the historian. They furnish unmistakeable evidence of the state of the arts at different periods prior to the decline of the Roman Empire, and their final abandonment of Britain. They also suffice to show the nature and extent of the Roman works executed under the various commanders who ruled the destinies of Britain at that important era of its social pupilage.

The Newcastle Museum is exceedingly rich in Roman remains, and particularly in inscribed tablets and altars, owing to its vicinity to the Wall of Hadrian and Septimius Severus. The Hunterian Museum at Glasgow is also enriched with a valuable collection of a similar nature, derived in like manner from its vicinity to the Wall of Antoninus. From both of these collections, curious and minute information has been furnished to the historian, showing what legions occupied the country and constructed the works, which still leave enduring In treating of the relics which preserve to us the evi- traces of their presence after the lapse of fourteen cendences of Roman arts and civilisation, the archeologist turies. Legionary inscriptions have also been found finds himself in an altogether new and clearer region. on tiles. At York they have been discovered in great Here literature furnishes a safe and unerring guide. numbers, stamped with the inscriptions of the sixth Inscriptions, names, and dates, fix the exact era to and ninth legions; and in London, though more rarely, which each temple or palace belongs; or, with even bearing an abbreviated inscription, which is renderedminuter accuracy of detail, furnish the names of the The First Cohort of Britain, in London. It thus appears cohorts of the Roman legions, and of the officers who that the Roman soldier was not only employed in conled them into the various districts of each country structing military works, but was engaged in useful which successive conquerors selected as the field of vic-manufactures, so that he became the instructor, as well tory. Nevertheless, the archeologist is able to add much to the previous narratives of the historian, by his interpretation of the relics which are from time to time brought to light. The revelations of Pompeii and Herculaneum have given an insight into the domestic habits and social life of the ancient Roman, such as no study of classic literature could furnish. The study of Roman antiquities, however, is still more interesting and instructive when it forms a portion of the early history of the nations subjected to imperial sway.

ROMANO-BRITISH PERIOD.

The investigation of the antiquities of the RomanoBritish Period forms a most important branch of inquiry in searching into the early history of Britain. By this means we are able to trace the first introduction of many of the arts which superseded the ruder devices of the ancient Britons, and still minister to our social comforts and personal enjoyments. To the Romans we probably owe the first manufacture of bricks and tiles, and the great step in advance of the rude habits of a people scattered amid the forests of a thinlypeopled country, consequent on their gathering into large communities, and building substantial dwellings, in imitation of their conquerors. Luxury, tempered by the disciplined hardiness of soldiers, soon created new wants, and incited many dormant faculties into action. The Roman mansion, with its baths, its flues and stoves, its mosaic paving and painted walls, its sculptures, bronzes, and furnishings, all opened up new sources of wonder and of knowledge to the intelligent barbarians who had in vain withstood the legions of Cæsar. The ancient British pottery is found to have altogether disappeared on the introduction of Roman arts. The rudest fictile vessels of the Romano-British Period may be distinguished at a glance from those of the native period. They are essentially different in form, and much superior in manufacture-the Britons

as the conqueror, of the subject Britons.

The miscellaneous remains of the Romano-British Period embrace an immense variety of articles, a mere enumeration of the names of which would answer no useful purpose. London and York have proved peculiarly fertile in the disclosure of such relics of the conquerors of the world, and, more recently, no single locality in England has furnished so interesting a variety as Colchester. In digging a foundation there in the year 1821, for enlarging the public hospital, a singularly-interesting and novel piece of Roman sculpture was discovered. It consists of a sculptured figure of a sphinx, twenty-five inches in height, seated, and holding between its forepaws the head and other remains of a human being, who has fallen victim to the wiles of this singular creation of classic fable. A considerable quantity of pottery, tiles, and fine-glazed ware were dug out of the same locality. Two fragments of Roman inscriptions were likewise found there, and a small bronze figure of the sphinx. Since then, Roman remains of various kinds have occasionally been turned up, until the present year (1849), when further extensive excavations have led to the discovery of a most valuable collection of pottery, and other relics of Roman art; which have been preserved to form the nucleus of a local museum, devoted chiefly to the antiquities of the county of Essex.

ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD.

The Anglo-Saxons succeeded to the occupation of Britain after its desertion by the Roman legions, on the decay of the Empire; and under them Britain once more underwent new and important changes. In some respects it returned to ancient manners: the classic mythology gave place to the northern deities of the Scandinavian and Teutonic creeds: the arts assumed a new form, in which the elements both of Scandinavian and Roman models are combined. Among the contents of Anglo-Saxon tumuli, glass vessels and