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Title: An introductory lecture on archæology : Delivered before the University of Cambridge
Author: Babington, Churchill
Language: English
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INTRODUCTORY LECTURE

ARCHÆOLOGY.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Cambridge_:
PRINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE

ARCHÆOLOGY

_Delivered before the University of Cambridge._

CHURCHILL BABINGTON, B.D., F.L.S.

DISNEY PROFESSOR OF ARCHÆOLOGY, SENIOR FELLOW OF ST JOHN’S COLLEGE,
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE, OF THE NUMISMATIC
AND SYRO-EGYPTIAN SOCIETIES, HONORARY MEMBER OF THE
HISTORICO-THEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LEIPSIC, AND OF
THE ARCHÆOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF ROME.

CAMBRIDGE:
DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO.
LONDON: BELL AND DALDY.
1865.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

PREFACE.

-------

The following Lecture was divided in the delivery into two parts;
illustrative specimens being exhibited after the conclusion of the
delivery of each portion. It has been suggested that I should add in the
form of notes a few books which may prove useful to the students of
particular branches of Archæology; my best thanks are due to the Rev. T.
G. Bonney and the Rev. W. G. Searle for their kind and valuable
assistance in drawing up certain of the lists. For ancient art and
archæology K. O. Müller’s Manual, so often referred to, will in general
sufficiently indicate the bibliography, and it is only in a few
departments, in numismatics more especially, that it has been deemed
necessary to add anything to his references. M. Labarte’s Handbook, from
which a great part of the concluding portion of this lecture is derived,
will do the same thing, though in a far less complete manner, for
medieval art.

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CONTENTS.

-------

PLAN of the Lecture, pp. 1-3.

Archæology defined, and the principal kinds of archæological monuments
specified, pp. 3-6.

Nature of the Disney Professorship of Archæology explained; its
comprehensive character; the advantages of this, pp. 6-13.

Sketch of the existing remains of Antiquity among different nations,
beginning with primeval man, pp. 13-21. The Egyptians, pp. 21-26.
The Babylonians, pp. 26, 27. The Assyrians, pp. 27, 28. The
Persians, pp. 28, 29. The Jews, pp. 29-31. The Phœnicians, pp. 31,
32. The Lycians, pp. 32, 33. The Greeks, pp. 33-41. The Etruscans,
p. 41. The Romans, pp. 42-46. The Celts, pp. 43, 44. The Byzantine
empire and the European nations during the middle ages, pp. 46-61.
Recapitulation, pp. 61, 62.

Qualifications necessary for an archæologist. He must be a collector of
facts and objects, and be able to reason on them. He must also be a
man of learning. Exact scholarship, an appreciation of art, and a
knowledge of natural history often useful or necessary for the
archæologist, pp. 63-68.

Pleasures and advantages which result from archæology. It illustrates
and is illustrated by ancient literature. Modern art aided by
archæology. Archæology deserving of cultivation for its own sake, as
an ennobling and delightful pursuit, pp. 68-74.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE

ARCHÆOLOGY.

FOLLOWING the example of my distinguished predecessor in the Disney
Professorship of Archæology, I open my first Course of Lectures with
an introductory Lecture on Archæology itself, so far as the very
limited time for preparation has allowed me to attempt one.

I cannot indeed conceal from myself, and still less can I conceal
from you, that no introductory Lecture which I could give, even if I
were to take my own time in writing it, would bear any comparison
with the compositions of his elegant and learned pen. It certainly
does not proceed from flattery, and I hope not from an undue
partiality of friendship to say of him, that in his power of
grasping a complicated subject, of presenting it in a clear light,
of illustrating it with varied learning, and of expressing himself
in relation thereto in appropriate language, I have rarely seen his
equal. To how great a disadvantage then must I necessarily appear,
when I have had only six weeks’ time in which to get ready this as
well as five other Lectures, and have been moreover compelled to
devote a considerable part even of that short time to other and not
less important duties. A great unwillingness however that the
Academical year should pass over without any Archæological Lectures
being delivered by the Disney Professor, has induced me to make the
attempt more quickly than would under other circumstances have been
desirable or even justifiable; and I venture to hope that when
allowance is made for the exigency of the case, I shall find in you,
who have honoured this Lecture by your presence, a clement and even
an indulgent audience.

In an introductory Lecture which deals with generalities, it is
hardly to be expected that I either can say or ought to try to say
much which is absolutely new to any of my hearers; and I shall not
affect to say anything peculiarly striking, but shall rather attempt
to bring before you in a plain way a view of the subject, which aims
at being concise and comprehensive; and in connexion therewith
respectfully to submit a few observations which have relation to
other Academical studies, as well as to the character of this
particular Professorship.

What I propose then to do is this, first to explain what Archæology
is; next to put in a clear light what the character of this
Professorship is; after that to attempt a general sketch of the
existing remains of Antiquity; then to point out the qualifications
necessary or desirable for an archæologist; and in conclusion, to
indicate the pleasure and advantage which flow from his pursuits.

The field of Archæology is vast, and almost boundless; the eye, even
the most experienced eye, can hardly take in the whole prospect; and
those who have most assiduously laboured in its exploration will be
most ready to admit, that there are portions, and those large
portions, which are to them either almost or altogether unknown.

For what is Archæology? It is, I conceive, the science of teaching
history by its monuments[1], of whatever character those monuments
may be. When I say history, I use the word not in the limited sense
of the history of dynasties or of governments. Archæology does
indeed concern itself with these, and splendidly does it illustrate
and illuminate them; but it also concerns itself with every kind of
monument of man which the ravages of time have spared.

Footnote 1:

Perhaps it would be more correct to say ‘by its _contemporary
sensible_ monuments,’ so as to exclude later copies of ancient
writings, or the _monumenta litterarum_, which fall more
especially to the province of the scholar. A MS. of Aristotle of
the thirteenth century is an archæological monument of that
century only; it is a literary monument of the fourth century B.C.
But a Greek epigram or epitaph which occurs on a sepulchral
monument of the same or any other century B.C. is an archæological
as well as a literary monument of that century.

Archæology concerns itself with the domestic and the social, as well
as with the religious, the commercial, and the political life of all
nations and of all tribes in the ages that have passed away. All
that men in ancient times have made, and left behind them, is the
farrago of our study.

The archæologist will consequently make observations and
speculations on the sites of ancient cities where men have dwelt; on
their walls and buildings, sacred and profane; on their altars and
their market-places; on their subterranean constructions, whether
sepulchres, treasuries, or drains. He will trace the roads and the
fosses along which men of the old world moved, and on which men
often still move; he will explore the routes of armies and the camps
where they have pitched, and will prowl about the barrows in which
they sleep;

Exesa inveniet scabra robigine pila,
Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris.

He will also collect and classify every kind of object, which man
has made for use or for ornament in his own home, or in the city; in
the fields, or on the water. He will arrange the weapons of offence
and defence according to their material and age; whether of stone,
of bronze, of iron, or of steel; among which some are so rude that a
practised eye alone distinguishes them from the broken flint stones
lying in the field, others again so elaborate as to rank among the
most beautiful productions both of classical and medieval art; he
will not disdain to preserve the bricks and the tiles, which have
once formed parts of Asiatic cities or of Roman farms; he will
excavate the villas of the ancients; unearth their mosaic pavements;
clean their lamps and candelabra; he will mend or restore their
broken crockery, and glass; he will even penetrate into the lady’s
chamber, turn over her toilet, admire her brooches and her
bracelets, examine her mirrors and her pins; and all this he will do
in addition to studying the nobler works of ancient art, such as
engraved gems and medallions; works chased, carved and embossed in
the precious metals and in ivory; frescoes and vase-paintings;
bronzes and statues. He will, likewise, familiarise himself with the
alphabets of the ancient nations, and exercise his ingenuity in
deciphering their written records, both public and private; whether
these be contained in inscriptions on stones or metal plates, or in
papyrus-rolls, or parchment books; or be scratched on walls or on
statues; or be painted on vases; or, in fine, surround the device of
a coin.

I have now mentioned some of the principal objects of archæology,
which, as I have said, embraces within its range all the monuments
of the history and life of man in times past. And this it does,
beginning with the remains of primeval man, which stretch far beyond
the records of all literary history, and descending along the stream
of time till it approaches, but does not quite reach time actually
present. No sharp line of demarcation separates the past from the
present; you may say that classical archæology terminates with the
overthrow of the Western Empire; you may conceive that medieval
archæology ceases with the reign of Henry the Seventh; but, be this
as it may, in a very few generations the objects of use or of
ornament to us will become the objects of research to the
archæologist; and, I may add, may be the subjects of lectures to my
successors.

For the founder of this Professorship, whose memory is never to be
named without honour, and the University which accepted it, together
with his valuable collection of ancient sculptures, undoubtedly
intended that any kind or class of antiquities whatever might fitly
form the theme of the Professor’s discourse. I say this, because a
misconception has undoubtedly prevailed on this subject, from which
even my learned predecessor himself was not free. “Every nation of
course,” says he, “has its own peculiar archæology. Whether
civilized or uncivilized, whether of historic fame or of obscure
barbarism, Judæa, Assyria, and Egypt; Greece and Rome; India, China,
and Mexico; Denmark, Germany, Britain, and the other nations of
modern Europe, all have their archæology. The field of inquiry,” he
continues, “is boundless, and in the multitude of objects presenting
themselves the enquirer is bewildered. It has been wisely provided
therefore by the founder of this Professorship, that we shall direct
our attention more immediately to one particular class of
Antiquities, and that the noblest and most important of them all, I
mean the Antiquities of Greece and Rome[2].” Very probably such may
have been Mr Disney’s original intention; and if so, this will
easily explain and abundantly pardon the error of my accomplished
friend; but the actual words of the declaration and agreement
between Mr Disney and the University, which is of course the only
document of binding force, are as follows: “That it shall be the
duty of the Professor to deliver in the course of each academical
year, at such days and hours as the Vice-Chancellor shall appoint,
six lectures at least on the subject of Classical, Mediæval and
other Antiquities, the Fine Arts and all matters and things
connected therewith.” Whether he would have acted wisely or not
wisely in limiting the field to classical archæology, he has in
point of fact not thus limited it. And, upon the whole, I must
confess, I am glad that he has imposed no limitation. For while
there are but few who would deny that many of the very choicest
relics of ancient art and of ancient history are to be sought for in
the Greek and Roman saloons and cabinets of the museums of Europe,
yet it must at the same time be admitted that there are other
branches of archæology, which are far too important to be neglected,
and which have an interest, and often a very high interest, of their
own.

Footnote 2:

Marsden’s _Introd. Lect._ p. 5. Cambr. 1852.

Let it be confessed, that the archæology of Greece has in many
respects the pre-eminence over every other. “It is to Greece that
the whole civilized world looks up,” says Canon Marsden, “as its
teacher in literature and in art; and it is to her productions that
we refer as the standard of all that is beautiful, noble, and
excellent. Greece excelled in all that she put her hand to. Her sons
were poets and orators and historians; they were architects and
sculptors and painters. The scantiest gleanings of her soil are
superior to that which constitutes the pride and boast of others.
Scarcely a fragment is picked up from the majestic ruin, which does
not induce a train of thought upon the marvellous grace and beauty
which must have characterized the whole!

Quale te dicat tamen
Antehac fuisse, tales cum sint relliquiæ.”

These eloquent and fervid words proceed from a passionate admirer of
Hellenic art, and a most successful cultivator of its archæology.
Nor do I dare to say that the praise is exaggerated. But at the same
time, viewed in other aspects, the archæology of our own country has
even greater interest and importance for us. What man is there, in
whose breast glows a spark of patriotism, who does not view the
monuments of his country which are everywhere spread around him, (in
this place above most places,) which connect the present with the
remote past, and with many and diverse ages of that past by a
thousand reminiscences, with feelings deeper and nobler than any
exotic remains of antiquity, how charming soever, could either
foment or engender? This love of national antiquities, seated in a
healthy patriotic feeling, has place in the speech of an apostle
himself: “Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the
patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried; and his sepulchre
is with us unto this day.” The same feeling prompted Wordsworth thus
to express himself in reference to our ancient colleges and their
former occupants:

I could not always lightly pass
Through the same gateways, sleep where they had slept,
Wake where they waked; I could not always print
Ground where the grass had yielded to the steps
Of generations of illustrious men,
Unmoved....
Their several memories here
Put on a lowly and a touching grace
Of more distinct humanity.

And not only the buildings, but the other archæological monuments of
the University (for so I think I may be permitted to call the
pictures and the busts, and the statues, and the tombs, which are
the glories of our chapels, our libraries and our halls) teach the
same great lessons. They raise up again our own worthies before our
very eyes, calling on us to strive to walk as they walked, dead
though they be and buried; for their effigies and their sepulchres
are ‘with us to this day.’ I must repeat, then, that I am glad that
the Disney Professor is not obliged to confine himself to classical
archæology, sorry as I should be if he were wholly unable to give
lectures on one or more branches of that most interesting
department, which has moreover a special connexion with the
classical studies of the University. It is manifest that the
University intended the Professor to consider no kind of human
antiquities as alien from him; and I think this in itself a very
great gain. For, if the truth must be confessed, antiquaries above
most others have been guilty of the error of despising those
branches of study which are not precisely their own. I forbear to
adduce proofs of this, though I am not unprovided with them; and
even although you would certainly be amused if I were to read them;
classicists against gothicists; gothicists against classicists.

I could wish that the learned and meritorious writers on both sides
had profited by the judicious remarks of Mr Willson, prefixed to Mr
Pugin’s _Specimens of Gothic Architecture in England_. “The
respective beauties and conveniences proper to the Grecian orders in
their pure state or as modified by the Romans and their successors
in the Palladian school may be fully allowed, without a bigoted
exclusion of the style we are accustomed to term Gothic. Nor ought
its merits to be asserted to the disadvantage of the classic style.
Each has its beauties, each has its proportions[3].” One of the most
eminent Gothic architects, Mr George Gilbert Scott, expresses
himself in a very similar spirit. “It may be asked, what influence
do we expect that the present so-called classic styles will exercise
upon the result we are imagining, (_i.e._ the developement of the
architecture of the future). Is the work of three centuries to be
unfelt in the future developements, and are its monuments to remain
among us in a state of isolation, exercising no influence upon
future art? It would, I am convinced, be as unphilosophical to wish,
as it would be unreasonable to expect this[4].” To turn from them to
the classicists. “See how much Athens gains,” says Prof. T. L.
Donaldson, “upon the affections of every people, of every age, by
her Architectural ruins. Not a traveller visits Greece whose chief
purpose is not centred in the Acropolis of Minerva.... But in thus
rendering the homage due to ancient Art it were unjust to pass
without notice those sublime edifices due to the Genius of our
Fathers. It is now unnecessary to enter upon the question, whether
the first ideas of Gothic Architecture were the result of a casual
combination of lines or a felicitous adaptation of form derived
immediately from Nature: But graceful proportion, solemnity of
effect, variety of plan, playfulness of outline and the profoundest
elements of knowledge of construction place these edifices on a par
with any of ancient times. Less pure in conception and detail, they
excel in extent of plan and of disposition, and yield not in the
mysterious effect produced on the feelings of the worshipper. The
sculptured presence of the frowning Jove or the chryselephantine
statue of Minerva were necessary to awe the Heathen into devotion.
But the presence of the Godhead appears, not materially but
spiritually, to pervade the whole atmosphere of one of our Gothic
Cathedrals[5].” The Editor of _The Museum of Classical Antiquities_,
well says, “As antiquity embraces all knowledge, so investigations
into it must be distinct and various. Each antiquary labours for his
own particular object, and each severally assists the other[6].” It
should be borne in mind moreover that archæological remains of every
kind and sort are really a part of human history; and if all parts
of history deserve to be studied, as they most assuredly do, being
parts, though not equally important parts, of the Epic unity of our
race, it will follow even with mathematical precision that all
monuments relating to all parts of that history must be worthy of
study also.

Footnote 3:

P. xix. London, 1821.

Footnote 4:

Scott’s _Remarks on Secular and Domestic Architecture, present and
future_, p. 272. London, 1857.

Footnote 5:

_Preliminary Discourse_ pronounced before the University College
of London, upon the commencement of a series of Lectures on
Architecture, pp. 17-24. London, 1842.

Footnote 6:

_Museum of Classical Antiquities_, Vol. I. p. 1. London, 1851.

I desire therefore to express in language as strong as may be
consistent with propriety, my entire disapproval of pitting one
branch of archæology against another, or indeed any study against
another study. And on this very account I rejoice that the Disney
Professor’s field of choice is as wide as the world itself, so far
as concerns its archæology. There is no country, there is no period
about which he may not occupy himself, or on which he may not
lecture, if he feel himself qualified to do so. He is in a manner
bound by the tenure of his office to treat every branch of
archæology with honourable respect; and this in itself may not be
without a wholesome influence both upon his words and sentiments. I
have been somewhat longer over this matter than I could have wished;
but I thought it desirable that the position of the Disney Professor
should be rightly understood; and I have also endeavoured to shew
the real advantage of that position.

His field then is the world itself; but as this is so (and as I
think rightly so) there is a very true and real danger lest he and
his hearers should be mazed and bewildered at the contemplation of
its magnitude. Yet in spite of that danger I will venture to invite
you to follow the outlines of the great entirety of the relics of
the ages that have for ever passed away. I say the outlines, and
even this is almost too much, for I am compelled to shade some parts
of the picture so obscurely, and to throw so much of other parts
into the background, that even of the outlines I can distinctly
present to you but a portion. Thus I will say little more of the
archæology of the New World, than that there is one which reaches
far beyond the period of Spanish conquest, comprising among many
other things ruins of Mexican cities, exquisite monuments of
bas-reliefs and other carvings in stone; I will not invite you into
the far East of the Old World, to explore the long walls and
Buddhist temples of the ancient and stationary civilisation of
China, or to dwell upon the objects of its fictile and other arts;
but leaving both this and all the adjacent countries of Thibet,
Japan and even India without further notice, or with only passing
allusions, _spatiis conclusus iniquis_, I will endeavour, so far as
my very limited knowledge permits, the delineation of the most
salient peculiarities of the various remains of the old world till
the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, and then attempt to trace
briefly the remains of successive medieval classes of antiquities,
until we arrive at almost modern times. I can name but few objects
under each division of the vast subject; but these will be selected
so as to suggest as much as possible others of a kindred kind. In
addressing myself to such an audience, I may, if anywhere, act upon
the assumption, _Verbum sapienti sat est_: a single word may suggest
a train of thought. If I cannot wholly escape the charge of
tediousness, I must still be content: for I am firmly convinced
after the most careful consideration that I can pursue no course
which is equally profitable, though I might take many others which
might be more amusing.

It would now appear probable that the earliest extant remains of
human handicraft or skill have as yet been found, not on the banks
of the Nile or the Euphrates, but in the drift and in the caverns of
Western Europe. Only yesterday, as I may say, it has been found out
that in a geological period when the reindeer was the denizen of
Southern France, and when the climate was possibly arctic, there
dwelt in the caverns of the Périgord a race of men, who were
unacquainted with the use of metals, but who made flint and bone
weapons and instruments; who lived by fishing and the chase, eating
the flesh of the reindeer, the aurochs, the wild goat and the
chamois; using their skins for clothes which they stitched with bone
needles, and their bones for weapon handles, on which they have
etched representations of the animals themselves. Specimens of these
things were placed last year in the British Museum; and a full
account of the discoveries in 1862 and 1863 may be seen in the
_Revue Archéologique_. Some distinguished antiquaries consider that
they are the earliest human remains in Western Europe. Various other
discoveries in the same regions of late years have tended towards
shewing that the time during which man has lived upon the earth is
much greater than we had commonly supposed. The geological and
archæological circumstances under which the flint implements were
found at Abbeville, and St Acheul, near Amiens, in the valley of the
Somme, left no doubt that they were anterior by many ages to the
Roman Empire. They have a few points of similarity to those found in
the caverns of the Périgord, and as they occur along with the
remains of the _Elephas Antiquus_ and the hippopotamus, Sir Charles
Lyell infers that both these animals coexisted with man; and perhaps
on the whole we may consider them rather than those of the Périgord
to be the earliest European remains of man, or of man at all.
Similar weapons have been found in the drift in this country, in
Suffolk, Bedfordshire, and elsewhere. At Brixham, near Torquay, a
cavern was examined in 1858, covered with a floor of stalagmite, in
which were imbedded bones of the reindeer and also an entire hind
leg of the extinct cave-bear, every bone of which was in its proper
place; the leg must consequently have been deposited there when the
separate bones were held together by their ligaments. Below this
floor was a mass of loam or bone-earth, varying from one to fifteen
feet in thickness, and amongst it, and the gravel lying below it,
were discovered about fifteen flint knives, recognised by practised
archæologists as artificially formed, and among them one very
perfect tool close to the leg of the bear. It thus becomes manifest
that the extinct bear lived after the flint tools were made, or at
any rate not earlier; so that man in this district was either the
contemporary of the cave-bear, or (as would seem more probable) his
predecessor. But shortness of time forbids me to do more than to
indicate that in western Europe generally, as well as in Britain, we
have an archæology beginning with the age of the extinct animals or
quaternary geological epoch and connecting itself with the age of
the Roman Empire, when the first literary notices of those
countries, with slight exceptions, commence. The antiquaries and
naturalists of Denmark conjointly (these indeed should always be
united, having much in common; and I am happy in being able to say
that a love of archæology has often been united with a love of
natural science by members of this University, among whom the late
and the present Professor of Botany may be quoted as examples)—these
Danish archæologists and naturalists I say, have made out three
distinct periods during this interval: the age of stone contemporary
with the pine forests; the age of bronze commencing with the oak
forests which lie over the pine in the peat; and the age of iron
co-extensive with the beech forests which succeeded the oak, and
which covered the country in the Roman times as they cover it now.
The skulls belonging to the oldest or stone age resemble those of
the modern Laplanders; those of the second and third are of a more
elongated type.

The refuse-heaps along the shores of the islands of the Baltic,
consisting of the remains of mollusks and vertebrated animals,
mingled with stone weapons, prove the great antiquity of the age of
stone; the oyster then flourished in places where, by reason of the
exclusion of the ocean from the brackish Baltic, it does not now
exist. None of the animals now extinct, however, occur in these
Kjökkenmödding, as they are called, except the wild bull, the _Bos
primigenius_, which was alive in Roman times; but the bones of the
auk, now, in all probability, extinct in Europe, are frequent; also
those of the capercailzie, now very rare in the southern districts
of Scandinavia, though abundant in Norway, which would find abundant
food in the buds of the pines growing in pre-historic times in the
peat bogs. Similar refuse-heaps, left in Massachusetts and in
Georgia by the North American Indians, are considered by Sir C.
Lyell, who has seen them, to have been there for centuries before
the white man arrived. They have also been found, I understand, very
recently in Scotland in Caithness. The stone weapons have now been
sharpened by rubbing, and are less rude and probably more recent
than those of the drift of the Somme valley, or of the caverns of
the Périgord. The only domestic animal belonging to the stone age,
yet found in Scandinavia, is the dog; and even this appears to have
been wanting in France. In the ages of bronze and iron various
domestic animals existed; but no cereal grains, as it would seem, in
the whole of Scandinavia. Weapons and tools belonging to these three
periods, as well as fragments of pottery and other articles, are
very widely diffused over Europe, and have been met with in great
abundance in our own country (in Ireland more especially), as well
as near the Swiss-lake habitations, built on piles, to which
attention has only been called since 1853. It is strange that all
the Lake settlements of the bronze period are confined to West and
Central Switzerland: in the more Eastern Lakes those of the stone
period alone have been discovered.

Similar habitations of a Pæonian tribe dwelling in Lake Prasias, in
modern Roumelia, are mentioned by Herodotus, and they may be
compared, in some degree, with the Irish Lake-dwellings or
Crannoges, _i.e._ artificial islands, and more especially with the
stockaded islands, occurring in various parts of the country: and
which are accompanied by the weapons and instruments and pottery of
the three aforesaid periods. Even in England slight traces of
similar dwellings have been found near Thetford, not accompanied by
any antiquities, but by the bones of various animals, the goat, the
pig, the red deer, and the extinct ox, the _Bos longifrons_, the
skulls of which last were in almost all instances fractured by the
butcher.

As to the chronology and duration of the three periods I shall say
nothing, though not ignorant that some attempts have been made to
determine them. They must have comprehended several thousand years,
but how many seems at present extremely uncertain. I should perhaps
say that Greek coins of Marseilles, which would probably be of the
age of the Roman Republic, have been found in Switzerland in some
few aquatic stations, and in tumuli among bronze and iron implements
mixed. The cereals wanting in Scandinavia appear in Switzerland from
the most remote period; and domestic animals, the ox, sheep, and
goat, as well as the dog, even in the earliest stone-settlements.
Among the ancient mounds of the valley of the Ohio, in North
America, have been found (besides pottery and sculpture and various
articles in silver and copper) stone weapons much resembling those
discovered in France and other places in Europe. Before passing from
these pre-historic remains, as they are badly called, to the
historic, let me beg you to observe a striking illustration of the
relation of archæology to history. Archæology is not the handmaid of
history; she occupies a far higher position than that: archæology
is, as I said at the outset, the science of teaching history by its
monuments. Now for all western and northern Europe nearly the whole
of its early history must be deduced, so far as it can be deduced at
all, from the monuments themselves; for the so-called monuments of
literature afford scanty aid, and for that reason our knowledge of
these early ages is necessarily very incomplete. Doubtless, many a
brave Hector and many a brave Agamemnon lived, fought, and died in
the ages of stone and of bronze; but they are oppressed in eternal
night, unwept and unknown, because no Scandinavian Homer has
recorded their illustrious deeds. Still, we must be thankful for
what we can get; and if archæological remains (on which not a letter
of an alphabet is inscribed) cannot tell us everything, yet, at
least, everything that we do know about these ages, or very nearly
so, is deduced by archæology alone.

We must now take a few rapid glances at the remains of the great
civilised nations of the ancient world. Mr Kenrick observes that the
seats of its earliest civilisation extend across southern Asia in a
chain, of which China forms the Eastern, and Egypt the Western
extremity; Syria, Mesopotamia, Assyria, and India, are the
intermediate links. In all these countries, when they become known
to us, we find the people cultivating the soil, dwelling in cities,
and practising the mechanical arts, while their neighbours lie in
barbarism and ignorance. We cannot, he thinks, fix by direct
historical evidence the transmission of this earliest civilisation
from one country to another. But we may determine with which of them
ancient history and archæology must begin. The monuments of Egypt
surpass those of all the rest, as it would appear, by many
centuries. None of the others exercised much influence on European
civilisation till a later period, some exception being made for the
Phœnician commerce; but the connection of European with Egyptian
civilisation is both direct and important. “From Egypt,” he remarks,
“it came to Greece, from Greece to Rome, from Rome to the remoter
nations of the West, by whom it has been carried throughout the
globe[7].” As regards its archæology, which is very peculiar and
indeed in some respects unique, I must now say a few words. The
present remains of Memphis, the earliest capital, said to have been
founded by Athothis, the son of Menes, the first king of the first
dynasty, are not great; but so late as the fourteenth century they
were very considerable. Temples and gateways, colossal statues and
colossal lions then existed, which are now no more. Whether any of
them approached the date of the foundation it is useless to enquire.
Now, the most remarkable relic is a colossal statue of Rameses II.,
which, when perfect, must have been about forty-three feet high.
This monarch is of the XVIIIth dynasty, which embraces the most
splendid and flourishing period of Egyptian history; and though much
uncertainty still prevails for the early Egyptian chronology, it
appears to be well made out and agreed that this dynasty began to
reign about fifteen centuries before the Christian era. But the
pyramids and tombs of Ghizeh, and of several other places at no
great distance from Memphis, are of a much earlier date; and the
great pyramid is securely referred to a king of the fourth dynasty.
“Probably at no place in the entire history of Egypt,” says Mr
Osburn, “do the lists and the Greek authors harmonize better with
the historical notices on the monuments than at the commencement of
this dynasty[8].” The system of hieroglyphic writing was the same
(according to Mr Kenrick) in all its leading peculiarities, as it
continued to the end of the monarchy. I regret to say that some
eminent men have tried to throw discredit, and even ridicule, on the
attempts which, I think, have been most laudably made with great
patience, great acuteness, and great learning, to decipher and
interpret the Egyptian and other ancient languages. Many of us,
doubtless, have seen a piece of pleasantry in which
_Heigh-diddle-diddle, The cat and the fiddle_ is treated as an
unknown language; the letters are divided into words—all wrongly, of
course—these words are analysed with a great show of erudition, and
a literal Latin version accompanies the whole. If I remember (for I
have mislaid the amusing production) it proves to be an invocation
of the gods, to be used at a sacrifice. Now, a joke is a good thing
in its place; only do not let it be made too much of. Every
archæologist, beginning with Jonathan Oldbuck, must sometimes fall
into blunders, when he takes inscriptions in hand, even if the
language be a known one; and, of course, _à fortiori_, when but
little known. My own opinion on hieroglyphics would be of no value
whatever, as I know nothing beyond what I have read in a few modern
authors, and have never studied the subject; but, allow me to
observe, that I had a conversation very lately with my learned and
excellent friend, Dr Birch, of the British Museum, who is now
engaged in making a dictionary of hieroglyphics, and he assured me
that a real progress has been made in the study of them, that a
great deal of certainty has been attained to; while there is still
much that requires further elucidation. To the judgment of such a
man, who has spent a great part of his life in the study of Egyptian
antiquities, though he has splendidly illustrated other antiquities
also, I must think that greater weight should be attached than to
the judgment of others, eminent as they may be in some branches of
learning, who have never studied this as a specialty.

Footnote 7:

_Ancient Egypt_, Vol. I. p. 3. London, 1850.

Footnote 8:

_Monumental History of Egypt_, Vol. I. p. 262. London, 1854.

The relation of archæology to Egyptian history deserves especial
notice. We have not here, as in pre-historic Europe, a mere
multitude of uninscribed and inconsiderable remains; but we have
colossal monuments of all kinds—temples, gateways, obelisks,
statues, rock sculptures—more or less over-written with
hieroglyphics; also sepulchral-chambers, in many instances covered
with paintings, in addition to a variety of smaller works, mummy
cases, jewelry, scarabæi, pottery, &c., upon many of which are
inscriptions. By aid of these monuments mostly, but by no means
exclusively, the history of the Pharaohs and the manners and customs
of their people are recovered. The _monumenta litterarum_ themselves
are frequently preserved on the monuments of stone and other
materials.

For the pyramids of Ghizeh and the adjoining districts, for the
glorious temples of Dendera, of Karnak, the grandest of all the
remains of the Pharaohs, as well as for those of Luxor, with its now
one obelisk, of Thebes, of Edfou, of Philæ, likewise for the
grottoes of Benihassan, I must leave you to your own imagination or
recollection, which may be aided in some degree by a few of the
beautiful photographs by Bedford, which are now before your eyes.
They extend along the banks and region of the Nile—for this is
Egypt—from the earliest times down to the age of the Ptolemies and
of Cleopatra herself, and even of the Roman empire, in the case of
Dendera, where the portico was added by Tiberius to Cleopatra’s
temple. Before quitting these regions I would remark, that the
extraordinary rock-hewn temple of Aboo-Simbel in Nubia, which
includes the most beautiful colossal statues yet found—their height
as they sit is more than fifty feet—bears some similarity to certain
Indian temples, especially to the temple of Siva at Tinnevelly, and
the Kylas at Ellora, which last has excited the astonishment of all
travellers. “Undoubtedly,” says Mr Fergusson, “there are many very
striking points of resemblance ... but, on the other hand, the two
styles differ so widely in details and in purpose, that we cannot
positively assert the actual connexion between them, which at first
sight seems unquestionable[9].”

Footnote 9:

_Handbook of Architecture_, p. 101. London, 1859.

The archæology of the Babylonian empire need only occupy a few
moments. The antiquity of Babylon is proved to be as remote as the
fifteenth century B.C., by the occurrence of the name on a monument
of Thothmes III., an Egyptian monarch of the XVIIIth dynasty. It may
be much older than that; but the archæological remains of the Birs
Nimroud (which was long imagined to be the tower of Babel) hitherto
found are not older than the age of Nebuchadnezzar. This palatial
structure consisted, in Mr Layard’s opinion, of successive
horizontal terraces, rising one above another like steps in a
staircase. Every inscribed brick taken from it,—and there are
thousands and tens of thousands of these,—bears the name of
Nebuchadnezzar. It is indeed possible that he may have added to an
older structure, or rebuilt it; and if so we may one day find more
ancient relics in the Birs. But at a place called Mujelibé (the
Overturned) are remains of a Babylonian palace not covered by soil,
also abounding with Nebuchadnezzar’s bricks, where Mr Layard found
one solitary fragment of a sculptured slab, having representations
of gods in head-dresses of the Assyrian fashion, and indicating that
the Babylonian palaces were probably similarly ornamented. A very
curious tablet was also brought from Bagdad of the age of
Nebuchadnezzar, giving, according to Dr Hincks, an account of the
temples which he built. Besides these, “a few inscribed tablets of
stone and baked clay, figures in bronze and terra cotta, metal
objects of various kinds, and many engraved cylinders and gems are
almost the only undoubted Babylonian antiquities hitherto brought to
Europe.” Babylonia abounds in remains, but they are so
mixed—Babylonian, Greek, Roman, Arsacian, Sassanian, and
Christian—that it is hard to separate them. Scarcely more than one
or two stone figures or slabs have been dug out of the vast mass of
débris; and, as Isaiah has said, “Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and
all the graven images of her gods hath Jehovah broken unto the
ground[10].”

Footnote 10:

See Layard’s _Nineveh and Babylon_, chapters xxii, xxiii.,
especially pp. 504, 528, 532. London, 1853.

The most splendid archæological discovery of our age is the
disinterment of the various palaces and other monuments of the
Assyrian Empire. The labours of Mr Layard and M. Botta have made
ancient Assyria rise before our eyes in all its grandeur and in all
its atrocity. In visiting the British Museum we seem to live again
in ancient Nineveh. We behold the sculptured slabs of its palaces,
on which the history of the nation is both represented and written;
we wonder at its strange compound divinities, its obelisks, its
elegant productions in metal, in ivory, and in terra cotta. By
patient and laborious attention to the cuneiform inscriptions, aided
by the notices in ancient authors, sacred and profane, men like Sir
H. Rawlinson and Dr Hincks have recovered something like a
succession of Assyrian kings, ranging from about 1250 B.C. to about
600 B.C., and many particulars of their reigns, some of which bring
out in a distinct manner the accurate knowledge of the writers of
the Old Testament.

The remains of ancient Persia are too considerable to be passed
over. Among other monuments at Pasargadæ, a city of the early
Persians, is a great monolith, on which is a bas-relief, and a
cuneiform inscription above, “I am Cyrus the king, the Achæmenian.”
Here is the tomb of the founder of the empire.

At Susa, the winter seat of the Persian kings from the time of
Cyrus, Mr Loftus and Sir W. F. Williams have found noble marble
structures raised by Darius, the son of Hystaspes (424—405 B.C.),
whose great palace was here: commenced by himself and completed by
Artaxerxes II. or Mnemon (405—359 B.C.). Both here and at
Persepolis, the richest city after Susa (destroyed, as we all
remember from Dryden’s ode, by Alexander), are ruins of magnificent
columns of the most elaborate ornamentation, and many cuneiform
inscriptions, deciphered by Lassen and Rawlinson. Mr Loftus remarks
on the great similarity of the buildings of Persepolis and Susa,
which form a distinct style of architecture. This is the salient
feature of Persian archæology, and to him I refer you upon it[11]. I
cannot dwell upon other ruins in these regions, or on the minor
objects, coins, cylinders, and vases of the ancient Persian empire;
and still less on the very numerous coins of the Arsacidæ, and
Sassanidæ, who afterwards succeeded to it.

Footnote 11:

See his _Travels and Researches in Chaldæa and Susiana_, ch.
xxviii. London, 1857; also Smith’s _Dict. of Greek and Roman
Geography_, s. v. Pasargadæ, Persepolis, Susa; and Vaux’s _Nineveh
and Persepolis_, London, 1850.

Of ancient Judæa we possess as yet very scanty archæological
monuments indeed before the fall of the monarchy. The so-called
Tombs of the Kings are now, I believe, generally considered to
belong to the Herodian period. Of the Temple of Jerusalem, the holy
place of the Tabernacle of the Most Highest, not one stone is left
upon another. And we may well conceive that nothing less than its
destruction would effectually convince the world of the great truth
that an hour had arrived in which neither that holy mountain on
which it was built, nor any other in the whole world, was to be the
scene of the exclusive worship of the Father. The sites of the Holy
Places, however, have naturally excited much attention, and have
been well illustrated by several distinguished resident members of
our University, and also by a foreign gentleman who for some time
resided among us. Dr Pierotti had the singular good fortune to
discover the subterranean drains by which the blood of the victims,
slaughtered in the Temple, was carried off; and this discovery
afforded valuable aid in determining various previously disputed
matters in connexion with the Temple. He likewise came upon some
masonry in the form of bevelled stones below the surface, which was
not unreasonably supposed to belong to Solomon’s Temple; but it now
appears that this opinion is doubtful. Besides these, we have the
sepulchres of the patriarchs at Hebron, guarded with scrupulous
jealousy; and tanks at the same place, which may be as old as the
time of David, and perhaps one or two things more of a similar kind.
We may well hope that the explorations which are now being set on
foot for bringing to light the antiquities of Palestine may add to
their number.

In the relation of Jewish archæology to Jewish history we have a
case quite different to all those that have gone before it: there
the native archæology was more or less extensive, the independent
native literature scanty or non-existent; here, where the archæology
is almost blotted out, is it precisely the reverse. We have in the
sacred books of the Old Testament an ample literary history: we have
scarcely any monumental remains of regal Judæa at all. With regard
to the New Testament the matter is otherwise; archæological
illustrations, as well as literary, exist in abundance, and some
very striking proofs from archæology have been adduced of the
veracity and trustworthiness of its authors. My predecessor bestowed
great attention on the numismatic and other monumental illustrations
of Scripture, and herein set a good example to all that should come
after him. Archæology is worthily employed in illustrating every
kind of ancient literature; most worthily of all does she occupy
herself in the illustration and explanation and confirmation of the
sacred writings, of the Book of books.

The antiquities of Phœnicia need not detain us long. Opposite to
Aradus is an open quadrangular enclosure, excavated in rock, with a
throne in the centre for the worship of Astarte and Melkarth; this
is the only Phœnician temple discovered in Phœnicia, except a small
monolithal temple at Ornithopolis, about nine miles from Tyre, of
high antiquity, dedicated apparently to Astarte. I wish however to
direct your attention to the characteristic feature of Phœnician
architecture, its enormous blocks of stone bevelled at the joints.
You have them in the walls of Aradus and in other places in
Phœnicia. They are also found in the temple of the Sun at Baalbec,
and may with great probability, I conceive, be regarded as
Phœnician; though the rest of the beautiful architectural remains
there are Greco-Roman of the Imperial period, and perhaps the best
specimens of their kind in existence. Among other Phœnician
antiquities we have sarcophagi, and sepulchral chambers for
receiving them, also very beautiful variegated glass found over a
good part of Europe and Asia, commonly called Greek, but perhaps
more reasonably presumed to be Phœnician. Most of the remains found
on the sites of the Phœnician settlements are either so late
Phœnician, or so little Phœnician at all, as at Carthage, that I
shall make no apology for passing over both them, and the few
exceptions also, just alluding however to the existence of a
remarkable hypæthral temple in Malta, which I myself saw nearly
twenty years ago, not long, I believe, after it was uncovered. With
regard to the strange vaulted towers of Sardinia, called Nuraggis,
they may be Phœnician or Carthaginian, but their origin is
uncertain. “All Phœnician monuments,” says Mr Kenrick, “in countries
unquestionably occupied by the Phœnicians are recent[12].” He makes
the remark in reference to the Lycian archæology. Whether the
Lycians were of Phœnician origin or not, their rock-temples and
rock-tombs, abounding in sculptures (illustrative both of their
mythology and military history), shew that they were not much behind
the Greeks in the arts. With the general appearance of their
Gothic-like architecture, and of their strange bilingual
inscriptions, Greek and Lycian, we are of course familiarised by the
Lycian Room in the British Museum. With regard to the relation of
Phœnician and Lycian archæology to the history of the peoples
themselves, it must be sufficient to say, that their history, both
literary and monumental, is quite fragmentary; in the case of
Phœnicia the literary notices perhaps preserve more to us than the
monumental; in regard to Lycia the remark must rather be reversed.

Footnote 12:

_Phœnicia_, p. 88. London, 1855. See also Smith’s _Dict. of Greek
and Roman Geography_, s. v. Phœnicia and Lycia.

From Phœnicia, which first carried letters to Greece, let us also
pass to Greece. But Greece, in the sense in which I shall use it,
includes not only Greece Proper, but many parts of Asia Minor, as
well as Sicily and the Great Greece of Italy. And here I must
unwillingly be brief, and make the splendid extract from Canon
Marsden, quoted before, in some degree do duty for me. But think for
a minute first on its architecture, I do not mean its earliest
remains, such as the Cyclopian walls and the lion-gate at Mycenæ,
and the so-called treasury of Atreus, which ascend to the heroic
ages or farther back, but its temple architecture. Before I can name
them, images of the Parthenon, the Erectheum, the temple of Jupiter
Panhellenius at Ægina, the temple of Apollo Epicurius at Phigalia or
Bassæ, that of Concord (so-called) at Agrigentum, the most perfect
in Sicily, the three glorious Doric temples of Pæstum, the Ionic
ruins of Branchidæ, will, I am confident, have arisen before your
eyes. Many of us perhaps have seen some of them; if not, we all feel
as though we had. Think of its sepulchral monuments, which are in
the form of temples; and first of Queen Artemisia’s Mausoleum, the
most splendid architectural expression of conjugal affection that
has ever existed, the wonder of the world, with its colossal statue
of her husband and its bas-reliefs by Bryaxis and Scopas and other
principal sculptors; and remember that we have these in our national
museum. Various fine rock-tombs, likewise in the form of temples,
occur in Asia Minor, _e.g._ that of Midas at Nacoleia, the Lion-tomb
at Cnidus, the necropolis at Telmessus.

The transition from temples and tombs to statuary is easy, as these
were more or less decorated with its aid. Although we still possess
the great compositions of some of the first sculptors and
brass-casters, for example, the Quoit-thrower of Myron, the
Diadumenos of Polycleitus, (_i.e._ a youth binding his head with a
fillet in token of an athletic victory,) and perhaps several of the
Venuses of Praxiteles; yet it is needless for me to remind you that
these with few exceptions are considered to be copies, not
originals. But yet there are exceptions. “The extant relics of Greek
sculpture,” says Mr Bunbury, “few and fragmentary as they
undoubtedly are, are yet in some degree sufficient to enable us to
judge of the works of the ancient masters in this branch of art. The
metopes of Selinus, the Æginetan, the Elgin, and the Phigaleian
marbles, to which we now add the noble fragments recently brought to
this country from Halicarnassus, not only serve to give us a clear
and definite idea of the progress of the art of sculpture, but
enable us to estimate for ourselves the mighty works which were so
celebrated in antiquity[13].” Of bronzes of the genuine Greek
period, which we may call their metal statuary, the most beautiful
that occur to my remembrance are those of Siris, now in the British
Museum. They are considered by Brönsted to agree in the most
remarkable and striking manner with the distinctive character of the
school of Lysippus. But most of the extant bronzes are, I believe,
of the Roman period, executed however, like their other best works,
by Greco-Roman artists.

Footnote 13:

_Edinburgh Review_ for 1858, Vol. CVIII. p. 382. I follow common
fame in assigning this article to Mr Bunbury; few others indeed
were capable of writing it. Besides the sculptures named by him we
have in the British Museum a bas-relief by Scopas, as it is
thought, who may also be the author of the Niobid group at
Florence; likewise the Ceres (so-called) from Eleusis, and the
statue of Pan from Athens, now in our Fitzwilliam Museum. For
other antique statues and bronzes and for the later copies see
Müller’s _Ancient Art_, passim.

With the Greek schools of painting, Attic, Asiatic, and Sicyonian,
no less celebrated than their sculpture, it has fared far worse.
There is not one of their works surviving; no, not one. Of these
schools and their paintings I need not here say anything, as I am
concerned only with the archæological monuments which are now in
existence. But the loss is compensated in some degree by the
paintings on vases, in which we may one day recognise the
compositions of the various great masters of the different schools,
just as in the majolica and other wares of the 16th and following
centuries we have the compositions of Raffaelle, Giulio Romano, and
other painters. “The glorious art of the Greek painters,” says K. O.
Müller, the greatest authority for ancient art generally, “as far as
regards light, tone, and local colours, is wholly lost to us; and we
know nothing of it except from obscure notices and later
imitations;” (referring, I suppose, to the frescoes of Herculaneum
and of Pompeii more especially;) “on the contrary, the pictures on
vases with thinly scattered bright figures give us the most exalted
idea of the progress and achievements of the art of design, if we
venture, from the workmanship of common handicraftsmen, to draw
conclusions as to the works of the first artists[14].” But of this
matter and of the vases themselves, which rank among the most
graceful remains of Greek antiquity, and are found over the whole
Greek world, I shall say no more now, as they will form the subject
of my following lectures. We have also many terra cottas of delicate
Greek workmanship, mostly plain, but some gilded, others painted,
from Athens, as well as from a great variety of other places, of
which the finest are now at Munich. Relief ornaments, sometimes of
great beauty, in the same material, were impressed with moulds, and
Cicero, in a letter to Atticus, wishes for such _typi_ from Athens,
in order to fix them on the plaster of an atrium. Most of those
which now remain seem to be of Greco-Roman times.

Footnote 14:

_Ancient Art and its Remains_, p. 119. Translated (with additions
from Welcker) by Leitch. London, 1852. This invaluable work is a
perfect thesaurus for the student, and will conduct him to the
most trustworthy authorities on every branch of the subject.

Of the art of coinage invented by the Greeks and carried by them to
the highest perfection which it has ever attained, a few words must
now be said. The history of a nation, said the first Napoleon, is
its coinage: and the art which the Greeks invented became soon
afterwards, and now is, the history of the world. Numismatics are
the epitome of all archæological knowledge, and any one who is
versed in this study must by necessity be more or less acquainted
with many others also. Architecture, sculpture, iconography,
topography, palæography, the public and private life of the ancients
and their mythology, are all illustrated by numismatics, and
reciprocally illustrate them.

Numismatics give us also the succession of kings and tyrants over
the whole Greek world. In the case of Bactria or Bactriana, whose
capital Bactra is the modern Balk, this value of numismatics is
perhaps most conspicuous. From coins, and from coins almost alone,
we obtain the succession of kings, beginning with the Greek series
in the third century B.C., and going on with various dynasties of
Indian language and religion, till we come down to the Mohammedan
conquest. “Extending through a period of more than fifteen
centuries,” says Professor H. H. Wilson, “they furnish a distinct
outline of the great political and religious vicissitudes of an
important division of India, respecting which written records are
imperfect or deficient[15].”

Footnote 15:

_Ariana Antiqua_, p. 439. London, 1841. For the more recent views
of English and German numismatists on these coins, see Mr Thomas’s
_Catalogue of Bactrian Coins_ in the Numismatic Chronicle for
1857, Vol. XIX. p. 13 sqq.

Coins are so much more durable than most other monuments, that they
frequently survive, when the rest have perished. This is well put by
Pope in his Epistle to Addison, on his Discourse on Medals:

Ambition sighed, she saw it vain to trust
The faithless column and the crumbling bust,
Huge moles whose shadows stretched from shore to shore,
Their ruins perished and their place no more.
Convinced she now contracts her vast design,
And all her triumphs shrink into a coin.
A narrow orb each crowded conquest keeps,
Beneath her palm here sad Judæa weeps;
Now scantier limits the proud arch confine;
And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhine;
A small Euphrates thro’ the piece is rolled,
And little eagles wave their wings in gold.
The Medal, faithful to its charge of fame,
Through climes and ages bears each form and name;
In one short view subjected to our eye,
Gods, emperors, heroes, sages, beauties, lie.

Regarded simply as works of art the coins of Magna Græcia and
Sicily, more especially those of Syracuse and its tyrants, as well
as those of Thasos, Opus, and Elis, also the regal coins of Philip,
Alexander, Mithridates, and some of the Seleucidæ, are amongst the
most exquisite productions of antiquity. Not even in gem-engraving,
an art derived by Greece from Egypt and Assyria, but carried by her
to the highest conceivable perfection, do we find anything superior
to these. I must, before quitting the subject of numismatics,
congratulate the University on the acquisition of one of the largest
and most carefully selected private collections of Greek coins ever
formed, viz. the cabinet of the late Col. Leake, which is now one of
the principal treasures of the Fitzwilliam Museum.

Inferior as gems are to coins in most archæological respects,
especially in respect of their connection with literary history, and
though not superior to the best of them artistically, gems have
nevertheless one advantage over coins, that they are commonly quite
uninjured by time. Occasionally (it is true) this is the case with
coins; but with gems it is the rule. Of course, to speak generally,
the art of gems, whose material is always more or less precious, is
superior to that of coins, which were often carelessly executed, as
being merely designed for a medium of commercial exchange. High art
would not usually spend itself upon small copper money, but be
reserved for the more valuable pieces, especially those of gold and
silver[16]. The subjects of gems are mostly mythological, or are
connected with the heroic cycle; a smaller, but more interesting
number, presents us with portraits, which however are in general
uninscribed. At the same time, by comparing these with
portrait-statues and coins we are able to identify Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle, Demosthenes, Alexander the Great, several of the
Ptolemies, and a few others; most of which may have been engraved by
Greco-Roman artists. But the catalogue of authentic portraits
preserved to us, both Greek and Roman, is, as K. O. Müller observes,
now very much to be thinned.

Footnote 16:

This remark however must not be pressed too closely. Certain small
Greek copper coins of Italy, Sicily, &c., are exceedingly
beautiful.

With regard to ancient iconography in general, coins, without doubt,
afford the greatest aid; but no certain coin-portraits are, I
believe, earlier than Alexander[17]. The oldest Greek
portrait-statue known to me is that of Mausolus, now in the British
Museum; but the majority of the statues of Greek philosophers and
others are probably to be referred to the Roman times, when the
formation of portrait-galleries became a favourite pursuit. With the
Greeks it was otherwise; the ideal was ever uppermost in their mind:
they executed busts of Homer indeed and placed his head on many of
their coins; but of course these were no more portraits than the
statues of Jupiter and Pallas are portraits. With regard to the
relation of Greek archæology to the history of Greece, both the
monuments and the literature are abundant, and they mutually
illustrate one another; and the same remark is more or less true for
the histories of the nations afterwards to be mentioned, upon which
I shall therefore not comment in this respect.

Footnote 17:

I am aware that there are reasons for believing that a Persian
coin preserves a portrait of Artaxerxes Mnemon, who reigned a
little earlier.

From Greece, who taught Rome most or all that she ever knew of the
arts, we pass to the contemplation of the mistress of the world
herself. She found indeed in her own vicinity an earlier
civilisation, the Etruscan, whose archæological remains and history
generally are amongst the most obscure and perplexing matters in all
the world of fore-time. The sepulchral and other monuments of
Etruria are often inscribed, but no ingenuity has yet interpreted
them. The words of the Etruscan and other Italian languages have
been recently collected by Fabretti. There is some story about a
learned antiquary after many years’ research coming to the
conclusion that two Etruscan words were equivalent to _vixit annos_,
but which was _vixit_, and which _annos_, he was as yet uncertain.
We have also Etruscan wall-paintings, and various miscellaneous
antiquities in bronze, and among them the most salient peculiarity
of Etruscan archæology not easily to be conjectured, its
elegantly-formed bronze mirrors. These, which are incised with
mythological subjects, and often inscribed, have attracted the
especial attention of modern scholars and antiquaries, who have
gazed upon them indeed almost as wistfully as the Tuscan ladies
themselves.

But Greece had far more influence over Roman life and art than
Etruria.

Græcia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes
Intulit agresti Latio.

Accordingly, Greek architecture (mostly of the later Corinthian
style, which was badly elaborated into the Composite) was imported
into Rome itself, and continued to flourish in the Greek provinces
of the empire. Temples and theatres continued much as before; but
the triumphal arch and column, the amphitheatre, the bath and the
basilica, are peculiarly Roman.

The genius of Rome however was essentially military, and the stamp
which she has left on the world is military also. Her camps, her
walls, and her roads, _strata viaram_, which, like arteries,
connected her towns one with another and with the capital, are the
real peculiarities of her archæology. The treatise on Roman roads,
by Bergier, occupies above 800 pages in the _Thesaurus_ of Grævius.
Instead of bootlessly wandering over the width of the world on
these, let us rather walk a little over those in our own country,
and as we travel survey the general character of the Roman British
remains, which may serve as a type of all. In the early part of this
lecture, I observed that we, in common with the rest of Western
Europe, find in our islands weapons which belong to the stone,
bronze, and iron periods; and here also, as in other places, the
last-named period doubtless connects itself with the Roman. But
besides these, we have other remains, many of which may be referred
to the Celtic population which Cæsar had to encounter, when he
invaded our shores. These remains may in great part perhaps (for I
am compelled to speak hesitatingly on a subject which I have studied
but little, and of which no one, however learned, knows very much)
be anterior to Roman times. Of this kind are the cromlechs at
Dufferin in South Wales, in Anglesey, and in Penzance, of which
there are models in the British Museum; of this kind also are, most
probably, the gigantic structures at Stonehenge, about which so much
has been written and disputed. The British barrows of various forms
and other sepulchral remains may also be referred, I should
conceive, in part at least, to the pre-Roman Celtic period. The
earlier mounds contain weapons and ornaments of stone, bronze and
ivory, and rude pottery; the later ones, called Roman British
barrows, appear mostly not to contain stone implements, but various
articles of bronze and iron and pottery; also gold ornaments and
amber and bead necklaces. Other sepulchral monuments consist merely
of heaps of stones covering the body which has been laid in the
earth. Many researches into this class of remains have of late years
been made, and by none perhaps more patiently and more successfully
than by the late Mr Bateman, in Derbyshire. The archæology of Wales
has also been made the special object of study by a society formed
for the purpose. Some tribes of the ancient Britons were certainly
acquainted with the art of die-sinking, and a great many coins,
principally gold, are extant, some of which may probably be as early
as the second century before Christ. They are, to speak generally,
barbarous copies of the beautiful gold staters of Philip of Macedon,
which circulated over the Greek world, and so might become known to
our forefathers by the route of Marseilles.

With these remarks I leave the Celtic remains in Britain; all
attempts to connect together the literary notices and the
antiquities of the Celts and Druids, so as to make out a history
from them, have been compared to attempts to “trace pictures in the
clouds[18].” Still we may say to the Celtic archæologist,

Θαρσεῖν χρὴ, φίλε Βύττε, τάχ’ αὔριον ἔσσετ’ ἄμεινον.

Footnote 18:

_Pict. Hist. of England_, Vol. I. p. 59. London, 1837.

One day matters may become clearer by the help of an extended and
scientific archæology.

But of the Romano-British remains it may be necessary to say
something. When we look at the map in Petrie’s _Monumenta Historica
Britannica_, in which the Roman roads are laid down by their actual
remains, we see the principal Roman towns and stations connected
together by straight lines, which are but little broken. So numerous
are they that we might almost fancy that we were looking at a map in
an early edition of a _Railway Guide_. In this county they abound
and have been very carefully traced, and both here and in other
counties are still used as actual roads. In a few instances
mile-stones have also been found. In our own country, cut off, as
Virgil says, from the whole world, we do not expect the splendid
monuments of Roman greatness, yet even here the temple, the
amphitheatre and the bath are not unknown; and in our little Pompeii
at Wroxeter we have, if my memory deceive me not, some vestiges of
fresco-painting, an art of which we have such beautiful Roman
examples elsewhere. But everywhere we stumble upon camps and villas;
everywhere

The tesselated pavements shew
Where Roman lamps were wont to glow.

And of these lamps themselves we have an infinite number and
variety, and on many of them representations of the games of the
circus and of various other things, formed in relief; a remark which
may also be made of their fine and valuable red Samian ware;
fragments of which are commonly met with, but the vases are rarely
entire. Of their other pottery, and of their glass and personal
ornaments, and miscellaneous objects, I must hardly say any thing;
but only observe that the Romans have left us a very interesting
series of coins relating to Britain; Claudius records in gold the
arch he raised in triumphant victory over us: in the same way
Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Septimius Severus, besides building their
great walls against us, have, as well as Caracalla and Geta, struck
many pieces in silver and copper to commemorate our tardy
subjugation. The British emperors or usurpers, Carausius and
Allectus, have also left us very ample series of coins, and indeed
it is by these, much more than by the monuments of letters, that
their histories are known. In the fourth and fifth centuries the
monetary art declined greatly in the Western Empire, and was on the
whole at a very low ebb in the Eastern or Byzantine Empire, and in
the middle ages, generally, throughout Europe.

At Constantinople a new school of Roman art arose, which exercised a
powerful influence on medieval art in general. Soon after the
foundation of Constantinople, Roman artists worked there in several
departments with a skill by no means contemptible, though of a
strangely conventional and grotesque character; and from them, as it
would seem, the medieval artists of Central and Western Europe
caught the love of the same crafts, and carried them to much higher
excellence. I would allude in the first place, as being among the
earliest, to ivory carvings, principally consular diptychs. From the
time of the emperors it was the custom for consuls and other curule
magistrates to make presents both to officials and their friends of
ivory diptychs, which folded together like a pair of book-covers, on
which sculptures in low relief were carved, as a mode of announcing
their elevation. From the fourth and fifth centuries down to the
fourteenth we find them, some of the earliest with classical
subjects, as the triumph of Bacchus, probably of the fourth century;
but mostly with Scriptural ones, or with representations of consuls.
Some of these are enriched with jewellery. The inscriptions
accompanying them are either in Greek or in Latin. In Germany they
occur in the Carlovingian period, though rarely, and in France and
Italy later still. Perhaps it should be mentioned that the ivory
episcopal chair of St Maximian at Ravenna, a work of the sixth
century, is the finest example extant of this class of antiques, and
is doubly interesting as being one of the very few extant specimens
of furniture during the first three centuries of the middle ages.
Various casts of medieval ivories, it may be added, have been
executed and circulated by the Arundel Society.

Another art learnt from Rome in her decline, or from Constantinople,
is the illumination of MSS., which the calligraphers of the middle
ages in all countries throughout Europe carried to a very high
perfection. Perhaps the earliest example to be named is the Greek
MS. of Genesis in the LXX, now preserved in the Imperial Library at
Vienna, probably of the fourth century. The vellum is stained
purple, and the MS. is decorated with pictures executed in a quaint,
but vigorous style. In these, we find (as M. Labarte[19], a great
authority for medieval art, assures us) all the characters of Roman
art in its decline, such as it was imported to Constantinople by the
artists whom Constantine called to his new capital; and “they have
served,” as he adds, “for a point of departure” in the examination
which he has made of the tendencies and destinies of Byzantine art.
Compare the Vatican MSS. of Terence and Virgil. I cannot be expected
to enter into details about illuminations; they occur in MSS. of all
sorts, more or less, in Europe, down to the sixteenth century, but
especially in sacred books, such as were used in Divine service. I
need only call to your remembrance the beautiful assemblage
exhibited in the Fitzwilliam Museum and in the University Library,
to say nothing of the treasures possessed by our different colleges.

Footnote 19:

_Histoire des Arts au moyen âge._ Album. Vol. II. pl. lxxvii.
Paris, 1864.

There are many other objects of medieval art not unworthy of being
enlarged upon, which I intentionally pass over lightly, lest their
multiplicity should distract us; thus I will say little of its
pottery, its coins, or of its sculptures and bas-reliefs in stone.
With regard to the first of them, M. Labarte observes: “It is not
until the beginning of the fifteenth century that we find among the
European nations any pottery, but such as has been designed for the
commonest domestic use, and none that art has been pleased to
decorate.” These are objects which the middle ages have in common
with others; and they are objects in which a comparison will not be
favourable to medieval art. Still, we must take care that a love of
art does not blind us to the real value of such things; they are
always interesting for the _history_ of art, whatever their rudeness
or whatever their ugliness; and, moreover, they are often, as the
coins of various nations, of high historical interest. For examine,
on our own series of barbarous Saxon coins we have not only the
successions of kings handed down to us, in the several kingdoms of
the so-called Heptarchy and in the united kingdom, but also on the
reverses of the same coins we have mention made of a very large
number of cities and towns at which they were respectively struck.
For example, to take Cambridge, we find that coins were struck here
by King Edward the Martyr, Ethelred the Second, Canute, Harold the
First, and Edward the Confessor; also after the Conquest by William
the First and William the Second. We are thus furnished with very
early notices, and so in some measure able to estimate the
importance of the cities and towns of our island in medieval times;
though great caution is necessary here in making deductions; for no
coins appear to have been struck in Cambridge after the reign of
William Rufus. And this seems at first sight so much the more
surprising when we bear in mind that money was struck in some of our
cities, as York, Durham, Canterbury, and Bristol, quite commonly, as
late as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. But, in truth, from
the twelfth century downwards, the number of cities and towns in
which lawful money was struck became comparatively small.

But I must not wander too far into numismatics. The art of
enamelling, peculiarly characteristic of the later periods of the
middle ages, is very fully treated of by M. Labarte, from whom I
derive the following facts. The most ancient writer that mentions it
is the elder Philostratus, a Greek writer of the third century, who
emigrated from Athens to Rome. In his _Icones_, or _Treatise on
Images_, the following passage occurs. After speaking of a harness
enriched with gold, precious stones, and various colours, he adds:
“It is said that the barbarians living near the ocean pour colours
upon heated brass, so that these adhere and become like stone, and
preserve the design represented.” It may, therefore, be considered
as established that the art of enamelling upon metals had no
existence in either Greece or Italy at the beginning of the third
century; and, moreover, that this art was practised at least as
early in the cities of Western Gaul. During the invasions and wars
which desolated Europe from the fourth to the eleventh century
almost all the arts languished, and some may have been entirely
lost. Enamelling was all but lost; for between the third and the
eleventh centuries the only two works which occur as landmarks are
the ring of King Ethelwulf in the British Museum, and the ring of
Alhstan, probably the bishop of Sherburne, who lived at the same
time. These two little pieces, however, only serve to establish the
bare existence of enamelling in the West in the ninth century. But
in this same century the art was in all its splendour at
Constantinople, and we possess specimens of Byzantine workmanship of
even an earlier date. I cannot enter into the various modes of
enamelling, which are fully described by M. Labarte; but merely
mention, without comment, a few of the principal specimens,
independently of the Limoges manufacture, which constituted the
chief glory of that city from the eleventh century to the end of the
medieval period. “This became the focus whence emanated nearly all
the beautiful specimens of enamelled copper, which are so much
admired and so eagerly sought after for museums and collections.”
The principal earlier examples then are these; the crown and the
sword of Charlemagne, of the ninth century, now in the Imperial
Treasury at Vienna; the chalice of St Remigius, of the twelfth
century, in the Imperial Library at Paris; the shrine of the Magi in
Cologne, and the great shrine of Nôtre Dame at Aix-la-Chapelle,
presented by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in the latter part of
the same twelfth century. Also the full-length portrait (25 inches
by 13) of Geoffrey Plantagenet, father of our Henry II., which
formerly ornamented his tomb in the cathedral, but is now in the
Museum at Le Mans. The British Museum likewise contains two or three
fine examples; and among them an enamelled plate representing Henry
of Blois, Bishop of Winchester, and brother of King Stephen.

Very fine also are the extant products of the goldsmith’s art in the
middle ages; which date principally from the eleventh century, when
the art received a new impulse in the West; those of earlier date,
with very few exceptions, now cease to exist. They are principally
chalices, reliquaries, censers, candlesticks, croziers and
statuettes.

Nor can I pass over in absolute silence the armour of the middle
ages. Until the middle of the ninth century it would appear to have
resembled the Roman fashion, of which it is needless to say
anything; but in Carlovingian times the hilts and scabbards of
dress-swords were very highly decorated; and about this period, or
rather later, the description of armour used by the ancients was
exchanged for the hauberk or coat of mail, which was the most usual
defensive armour during the period of the Crusades. The first
authentic monument where this mail-armour is represented is on the
Bayeux tapestry of Queen Matilda, representing the invasion of
England by William Duke of Normandy in 1066; the most famous example
of medieval tapestry in existence, though other specimens are to be
seen at Berne, Nancy, La Chaise Dieu, and Coventry. The art of the
_tapissier_, however, in the eleventh century, when the Bayeux
tapestry was made, would appear to have been on the decline. In the
beginning of the fourteenth century plate-armour began to come into
use; and by and by this was decorated with Damascene work, a style
of art applied to the gate of a basilica in Rome, which was sent
from Constantinople, as early as the eleventh century, but which did
not become general in the West till the fifteenth. To this I may
just add, that sepulchral brasses, on which figures in armour are
often elaborately represented by incised lines, are a purely
medieval invention of the thirteenth century. Sir Roger de
Trumpington’s brass at Trumpington is one of the very earliest
examples. But time forbids me to say more of sepulchral brasses, a
class of antiquities almost confined to our own country, of which we
have some few specimens as late as the seventeenth century, or to do
more than allude to the beautiful sepulchral monuments in stone of
the medieval period, with which we are all more or less familiar.

The most remarkable art to which the middle age gave birth was
oil-painting, the very queen of all the fine arts, though it was to
the age of the Medici that its immense development was due.
Previously painting had been subordinated to architecture; but now,
while mosaics, frescoes, and painted glass remained still
subservient to her, the art of painting occupies a distinct and
prominent rank of its own. It used commonly to be said that the
invention of painting on prepared panel was due to Margaritone of
Arezzo, who died about 1290, and in like manner that John van Eyck
invented oil-painting in 1410. Both these errors have been
propagated by the authority of Vasari. But it is now well known, and
has been conclusively proved, both by M. Labarte and by Sir C.
Eastlake, that these modes of painting are mentioned by authors who
lived more than a century before Margaritone, in particular by the
monk Theophilus, who in the twelfth century composed a work entitled
_Diversarum artium schedula_. Paintings in oil either are or lately
were in existence anterior to John van Eyck; for example one at
Naples, executed by Filippo Tesauro, and dated 1309. We must ascend
to much earlier times to discover the true origin of portable
paintings, and we shall find it in the Byzantine Empire. The Greeks,
about the time that the controversy respecting images was rife,
multiplied little pictures of saints; these were afterwards brought
over in abundance by the priests and monks who followed the
crusades, and from the study of them, schools of painting in tempera
arose in Italy, in the twelfth century, at Pisa, Florence and other
places. The Byzantine school, M. Labarte tells us, reigned paramount
in Italy until the time of Giotto, _i.e._ the beginning of the
fourteenth century, and also in the schools of Bohemia and Cologne,
the most ancient in northern Europe, until towards the end of the
fourteenth century. In this country we have two very early
paintings, one of the beginning and the other of the end of the same
fourteenth century, in Westminster Abbey. The former, probably a
decoration of the high altar, is on wood; it represents the
Adoration of the Magi and other Scriptural subjects, and is declared
by Sir C. Eastlake to be worthy of a good Italian artist of the
fourteenth century, though he thinks that it was executed in
England. The latter is the canopy of the tomb of Richard II. and
Anne, his first wife, representing the Saviour and the Virgin and
other figures. The action and expression are declared by Sir C.
Eastlake to indicate the hand of a skilful painter. In 1396, £20 was
paid by the sacrist for the execution of the work. These remarks
must suffice for a notice of medieval painting; the glorious period
of its history belongs rather to the Renaissance, or post-medieval
age.

The only archæological monuments of great importance which remain to
be mentioned are those of architecture, in connection with the
accessories of mosaics, frescoes, and painted glass. The two former
descended from classical times, the last is the creation of the
middle age. Mosaics having been originally used only in pavements,
at length were employed as embellishments for the walls of
basilicas, and, by a natural transition, of churches. Constantine
and his successors decorated many churches in this manner, and in
the East a ground of gold or silver was introduced below the glass
cubes of the mosaics, and a lustre was by this means spread over the
work which in earlier times was altogether unknown. Thus the
tympanum above the principal door of the narthex of the Church of St
Sophia, built by the Emperor Justinian at Constantinople, is adorned
with a mosaic picture of the Saviour seated, the cubes of the
mosaics being of silvered glass; it is accompanied by Greek texts.
This and other later mosaics are figured by M. Labarte, in his last
and most splendid work, entitled _Histoire des Arts au moyen âge_;
among the rest a Transfiguration of the tenth century. The Byzantine
art, with its stiff conventionality, prevailed every where till
Cimabue, G. Gaddi, and Giotto imparted to its rudeness a grace and
nobleness which marked a new era. In the vestibule of St Peter is a
noble mosaic, partly after the design of Giotto, representing Christ
walking on the water, and the apostles in the ship. But the very
masters who raised the art to its perfection brought about its
destruction. Painting, restored by these same great men, was too
powerful a rival; and after the sixteenth century, when it still
flourished in Venice under the encouragement of Titian, we hear
little more of mosaics on any great scale.

Passing over frescoes, which were much encouraged by Charlemagne,
and by various sovereigns and popes during the middle ages, because
the ravages of time have either destroyed them altogether or left
them in a deplorable condition, as for example in some
parish-churches in England, I will make a few remarks on painted
glass, so extensively used in the decoration of the later churches.

The art of painting glass was unknown to the ancients, and also to
the early periods of the middle ages. “It is a fact,” says M.
Labarte, “acknowledged by all archæologists, that we do not now know
any painted glass to which an earlier date than the eleventh century
can be assigned with certainty.” Two specimens, and no more, of this
century, are figured by _M. Lasteyrie_. The painted windows of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries are nearly of the same character.
They consist of little historical medallions, distributed over
mosaic grounds composed of coloured (not painted) glass, borrowed
from preceding centuries. Fine examples from the church of St Denys
and La Sainte Chapelle at Paris, of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, are figured by M. Lasteyrie, and also by M. Labarte, who
has many beautiful remarks on their harmony with the buildings to
which they belong, on the elegance of their form, the richness of
their details, and the brilliancy of their colours. In the
fourteenth century, when examples become common, the glass-painters
copied nature with more fidelity, and exchanged the violet-tinted
masses, by which the flesh-tints had been rendered, for a reddish
gray colour, painted upon white glass, which approached more nearly
to nature. Large single figures now often occupy an entire window.
The improvement in drawing and colouring is a compensation for the
more striking effects of the brilliant yet mysterious examples of
the preceding centuries; and the end of the fourteenth century is
one of the finest epochs in the history of painted glass. Painting
on glass followed the progress of painting in oils in the age which
followed; and artists more and more aimed at producing individual
works; and in the latter half of the fifteenth century buildings and
landscapes in perspective were first introduced. The decorations
which surround the figures being borrowed from the architecture of
the time have often a very beautiful effect. But the large
introduction of _grisailles_ deprives the windows of this period of
the transparent brilliancy of the coloured mosaics of the earlier
glass-painting. In the sixteenth century, however, glass was nothing
more than the material subservient to the glass-painter, like canvas
to the oil-painter. Small pictures very highly finished were
executed after the designs of Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, and the
other great painters of the Renaissance. “But,” as M. Labarte truly
says, “the era of glass-painting was at an end. From the moment that
it was attempted to transform an art of purely monumental decoration
into an art of expression, its intention was perverted, and this led
of necessity to its ruin. The resources of glass-painting were more
limited than those of oil, with which it was unable to compete. From
the end of the sixteenth century the art was in its decline, and
towards the middle of the seventeenth was” almost “entirely given
up.” Our own age has seen its revival, and though the success has
been indeed great, we may hope that the zenith has not yet been
reached. “It is,” says Mr Winston, “a distinct and complete branch
of art, which, like many other medieval inventions, is of universal
applicability, and susceptible of great improvement.” I have been a
little more diffuse on glass-painting than on some other subjects,
as it is a purely medieval art, and one which has now acquired a
living interest. Various examples of the different styles will
easily suggest themselves to many, or, if not, they may be studied
in the splendid work of M. Lasteyrie, entitled _Histoire de la
Peinture sur Verre d’après ses monuments en France_, and on a
smaller scale in Mr Winston’s valuable _Hints on Glass-painting_.

With regard to the architectural monuments of the medieval world, I
may, in addressing such an audience, consider them to be
sufficiently well known for my present purpose, which is to give an
indication, and little more, of the archæological remains which have
come down to our own days. Medieval architecture is in itself a
boundless subject; and as I have not specially studied it, I could
not, if I would, successfully attempt an epitome of its various
forms of Byzantine, Saracenic, Romanesque, Lombardic, and of
infinitely diversified Gothic. For a succinct yet comprehensive view
of all these and more, I must refer you to Mr Fergusson’s _Handbook
of Architecture_. Yet when we let our imagination idly roam over
Europe, and the adjoining regions of Asia and Africa, what a host of
architectural objects flits before it in endless successions of
variety and beauty! Think of Justinian’s Church of St Sophia, which
he boasted had vanquished Solomon’s temple, and again of St Mark’s
at Venice, as Byzantine examples. Think next of the mosque of the
Sultan Hassan, and of the tombs of the Memlooks mingled with lovely
minarets and domes at Cairo; of the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem;
of the Alhambra in Spain, with all the witchery of its gold and
azure decorations. Float, if you will, along the banks of the Rhine
or the Danube (as many of us have actually done), and conjure up the
majestic cathedrals, the spacious monasteries and the ruined
castles, telling of other days, with which they are fringed. Let the
bare mention of the names of Milan, Venice, Rome; again of Paris,
Rheims, Chartres, Amiens, Troyes, Rouen, Avignon; and in fine those
of Antwerp, Louvain, and Brussels, suggest their own stories. Yet
the magnificent structures, secular and ecclesiastical, which I have
either named or hinted at, need not make us ashamed of our own
country. We are surrounded on all sides by an archæology which is
emphatically an archæology of progress, and we may justly be proud
of it as Englishmen. In this University and its immediate
neighbourhood we have fine specimens of Saxon, Norman, Early
English, Decorated, and Perpendicular styles of Gothic architecture;
and as regards the last of them, one of the most splendid examples
in the world. In the opinion of competent judges the English
cathedrals, while surpassed in size by many on the Continent, are in
excellence of art superior to those of France or of any country in
Europe. “Nothing can exceed the beauty of the crosses which Edward
I. erected on the spots where the body of Queen Eleanor rested on
its way to London.” Some of these, Waltham for example, are quite
equal to anything of their class found on the Continent. “The vault
of Westminster Abbey” (says Mr Fergusson, on whose authority I make
almost every statement relating to medieval architecture) “is richer
and more beautiful in form than any ever constructed in France;” the
triforium is as beautiful as any in existence; and its
appropriateness of detail and sobriety of design render it one of
the most beautiful Gothic edifices in Europe.

I thus conclude my sketch, such as it is, of the archæology of the
world. Its aim has been to bring under review the rude implements
and weapons of primeval man; the colossal structures of civilised
man in Egypt and India; the strangely-compounded palace-sculptures
of Assyria and Babylonia; the exquisitely ornamented columns of
Persian halls; the massive architecture of Phœnicia; the Gothic-like
rock-tombs of Lycia; the lovely temples, and incomparable works of
art of every kind, great and small, of Greece; the military impress
of Roman conquest; the medieval works of art in ivory, in enamel, in
glass-painting, as well as its glorious architectural remains,
connecting the middle ages with our own times. It has been drawn, as
I observed at the outset, under very adverse circumstances, and must
on that account venture to sue for much indulgence. It is open, no
doubt, to many criticisms: I expect to be charged with grievous sins
of omission, and perhaps of commission also: nor do I suppose that I
could entirely vindicate myself from such charges. Worse than all
perhaps, I have exposed myself to the unanswerable sarcasm that I
have talked about many subjects of which I know but little. If,
however, I have been able to compile from trustworthy sources or
manuals so much respecting those particular branches of archæology
which I have not studied, as to bring before you their salient
features in an intelligible manner, that is enough for my purpose. I
want no more, and I pretend to no more; and I am conscious enough
that even this purpose has been but feebly accomplished.
Tediousness, indeed, in dealing with numerous details could hardly
be altogether avoided; but this is so much lighter a fault than an
indulgence in mere platitudes, running smoothly and amusingly, but
emptily withal, that I shall hear your verdict of _guilty_ with
composure.

It now only remains that I should very briefly point out what
qualifications are necessary for an archæologist, and also the
pleasure and advantage which result from his pursuits.

With regard to the first of these matters, the qualifications
necessary for an archæologist, they are to some considerable extent
the same as are necessary for a naturalist.

Like the naturalist, the antiquary must in the first place bring
together a large number of facts and objects. This is, no doubt, a
matter of great labour, but believe me, ‘_labor ipse voluptas_.’ The
labour is its own ample reward. The hunting out, the securing, and
the amassing facts and objects of antiquity, or of natural history,
are the field-sports of the learned or scientific Nimrod. In a
certain sense every archæologist _must_ be a collector; he must be
mentally in possession of a mass of facts and objects, brought
together either by himself or by others. It is not absolutely
necessary that he should be a collector, in the sense of being owner
of a collection of his objects of study; in some departments indeed
of archæology to amass the objects themselves is impossible: who,
for instance, can collect Roman roads or Gothic cathedrals? models,
plans, and drawings, are the only substitutes possible. But, with
the facts relating to his favourite objects, and also as much as
possible with the objects themselves, he must be familiar.

Yet this familiarity will not be enough to make him an archæologist.
Such knowledge may be possessed, and very often is possessed, by a
mere dealer in antiquities. The true antiquary must not only be well
acquainted with his facts, but he must also, when there are
sufficient data, proceed to reason upon them. He puts them together,
and considers what story they have to render up. We saw a beautiful
illustration of this in the joint labours of the Scandinavian
antiquaries and naturalists. The order and sequence of the stone,
bronze, and iron ages, were distinctly made out; and even their
chronology may one day be discovered. The antiquary is enabled to
form some judgment of the civilisation, the arts, and the religion
of the nations whose remains he studies. Very often, as in the Roman
series of coins, he makes out political events in their history, and
assigns their dates. He determines the place of things in the
historical series, much as the naturalist does in the natural
series.

Like the naturalist also he must be a man of learning, _i.e._ he
must be acquainted with what has been written by his
fellow-labourers in the same branch of study. Few know, prior to
experience, what a serious business this is. The bibliography of
every department of archæology, as well as of natural history, is
now becoming immense.

But besides a knowledge of facts, and objects, and books, there are
one or two other qualifications necessary for many departments of
archæology, the want of which has been very prejudicial to some
distinguished writers. Exact scholarship is one of these
qualifications. I do not merely mean that if a man be engaged in
Greek archæology, he must be aware of the passages of Greek authors,
in which the vases or the coins he is talking about are alluded to,
though he must certainly be acquainted with these, and possess
sufficient scholarship to construe them correctly; but he must also
be able to interpret his written archæological monuments, such as
his inscriptions and the legends of his coins. This is oftentimes no
easy matter, and it requires a knowledge of strange words and
dialects. Moreover, if an inscription or a legend be mutilated (and
this is very frequently the case), unless the archæologist has an
accurate knowledge of the language in which it is written, whatever
that may be, Greek, Latin, Norman-French, or any other, what hope is
there that he will ordinarily be able to restore it, and having so
done interpret it with security or satisfaction? As one illustration
of many, I will cite Prof. Ramsay’s remark on Nibby’s dissertation
_Delle vie degli Antichi_: “In the first part of this article (on
Roman roads) his essay has been closely followed. _Considerable
caution, however, is necessary in using the works of this author_,
who, although a profound local antiquary is by no means an accurate
scholar[20].” Mr Bunbury, while pointing out the advantages which
scholars would derive from some acquaintance with archæology, points
out by implication the advantage which archæologists would derive
from scholarship. “In this country,” says he, “the study of
archæology is but too much neglected; it forms no part of the
ordinary training of our classical scholars at the Universities, and
is rarely taken up by them in after life. It is generally considered
as the exclusive province of the professed antiquarian, who has
seldom undergone that early training in accurate scholarship, which
is regarded, and we think with perfect justice, by the student from
Oxford or Cambridge, as the indispensable foundation of sound
classical knowledge[21].” I think he is a little over-severe on us;
living men like Mr C. T. Newton, Mr Waddington, Mr Vaux, Mr C. W.
King, Mr C. K. Watson, and, last, but not least, like himself, to
whom others might be added, prove that his assertions must be taken
_cum grano_; even if it be true that this country has produced no
work connected with ancient art which can be compared with the
writings of Gerhard, or Welcker; of Thiersch, or Karl Otfried
Müller[22].

Footnote 20:

See Smith’s _Dict. Gr. and Rom. Antiq._ s. v. Viæ.

Footnote 21:

_Edinburgh Review_, u. s.

Footnote 22:

I feel a little inclined to dispute this: Stuart, one of the
authors of the _Antiquities of Athens_, which have been continued
by other very able hands, and have also been translated into
German, may, perhaps, take rank with the authors named in the
text. K. O. Müller himself calls Millingen’s _Ancient Unedited
Monuments_ (London, 1822) “a model of a work;” and though without
doubt Millingen is inferior to Müller in scholarship and in
acquaintance with books, he is probably at least his equal as a
practical archæologist. Colonel Leake’s _Numismata Hellenica_
(London, 1856) may also be cited as an admirable combination of
learning with practical archæology.

Another thing very desirable for the successful prosecution of some
branches of archæology is an appreciation of art. Without it we
cannot judge of the value of many antiques, or enter into their
spirit or feeling; we neither discern their excellencies nor their
deficiencies. Mr King, who has made the province of ancient gems
peculiarly his own, justly calls them “little monuments of perfect
taste, ... only to be appreciated by the educated and practised
eye[23].” Moreover, this is the very knowledge often so requisite
for distinguishing genuine antiquities from modern counterfeits. The
modern forgers, who fabricate Greek coins from false dies, do not
often reach the freedom and beauty of the originals; though it must
be confessed that some of them, as Becker, have carried their
execrable art to a very high perfection. It is but rarely that these
men meet with the punishment they deserve; yet it is satisfactory to
know that Charles Patin, great scholar and great antiquary as he
was, was banished by Lewis XIV. from his court for ever, for selling
him a false coin of Otho; and that a manufacturer of antiques in the
East, near Bagdad I believe, lately received by order of the Turkish
governor a sound bastinado on the soles of his feet for reproducing
the idols of misbelievers of old time.

Footnote 23:

_Antique Gems_, Introd. p. xxiii. London, 1860.

A knowledge of natural history in fine is occasionally very useful
to an antiquary. I will give two instances, not at all generally
known, one taken from zoology, one from botany. On the reverse of
the splendid Greek coins of Agrigentum a crab is commonly
represented. To an ignorant eye the crab looks much like the crab in
our shops here in Cambridge; the zoologist recognises in it the
fresh-water crab of the regions of the Mediterranean; the
numismatist, profiting by this knowledge, sees at once that the type
of the coin symbolizes not the harbour of Agrigentum, as he had
supposed, but its river. Again, on the reverse of the beautiful
Greek coins of Rhodes occurs a flower, about which numismatists have
disputed since the time of Spanheim, whether it was the flower of
the rose or of the pomegranate. Even Col. Leake has here taken the
wrong side, and decided in favour of the pomegranate; the divided
calyx at once shews every botanist that the representation is
intended for the rose, conventional as that representation may be,
from which flower the island derives its name.

These are, I think, the principal qualifications which are necessary
or desirable for the archæologist. It only remains that I should
point out briefly some of the pleasures and advantages that result
from his pursuits. For I shall not so insult any one of you, who are
here present, as to suppose that this question is lurking secretly
in your mind, “Is there any good in archæology at all? To what
practical end do your researches tend?” My learned predecessor well
says that “this question is sometimes put to the lover of science or
letters by those from whom nature has withheld the faculty of
deriving pleasure from the exercise of the intellect, and he feels
for the moment degraded to the level of such.” It is not so clear
however that the fault must be put to the account of nature. Rather,
we may say,

Homine _imperito_ nunquam quidquam injustius,
Qui nisi quod ipse facit, nihil rectum putat.

“No one,” says a Swedish scholar of the seventeenth century, “blames
the study of antiquity without evidencing his own ignorance; as they
that esteem it do credit to their own judgment; so that to sum up
its advantages we may assert, there is nothing useful in literature,
if the knowledge of antiquity be judged unprofitable[24].” It is
doubtless one of the many charms of archæology that it illustrates
and is illustrated by literature; indeed, some knowledge of
antiquity is little less than necessary for every man of letters.
Unless we have some knowledge of the objects whose names occur in
ancient literature, we lose half the pleasure of reading it. In
reading the New Testament, I can certainly say for myself, that I
derive more pleasure from the narrative of the woman who poured the
contents of the alabaster box over the head of Jesus, now that I
know what an _alabastron_ is, and how its contents would be
extracted; and in the same way I appreciate the remark made by the
silversmith in the Acts, that all Asia and the world worshipped the
Ephesian Diana, now that I know her image to be stamped not on the
coins of Ephesus only, but on many other cities throughout Asia
also. Here, I think, we have pleasure and profit combined in one.
Instances are abundant where monuments illustrate profane authors.
The reader of Aristophanes will be pleased to recognise among the
earliest figures on vases that of the ἱππαλεκτρυών, the cock-horse,
or horse-cock, which cost Bacchus a sleepless night to conceive what
manner of fowl it might be. “The Homeric scholar again,” it has been
said, “must contemplate with interest the ancient pictures of Trojan
scenes on the vases, and can hardly fail to derive some assistance
in picturing them to his own imagination, by seeing how they were
reproduced in that of the Greeks themselves in the days of Æschylus
and Pindar[25].”

Footnote 24:

Figrelius, quoted in the _Museum of Classical Antiquities_, Vol.
I. p. 4.

Footnote 25:

_Edinburgh Review_, u. s.

Further, not only is ancient literature, but also modern art, aided
by archæology. It is well known how, in the early part of the
thirteenth century, Niccola Pisano was so attracted by a bas-relief
of Meleager, which had been lying in Pisa for ages unheeded, “that
it became the basis of his studies and the germ of true taste in
Italy.” In the Academy of St Luke at Rome, and in the schools
established shortly afterwards at Florence by Lorenzo de’ Medici,
the professors were required to point out to the students the beauty
and excellence of the works of ancient art, before they were allowed
to exercise their own skill and imagination. Under the fostering
patronage of this illustrious man and of his not less illustrious
son a galaxy of great artists lighted up all Europe with their
splendour. Leon Batista Alberti, one of the greatest men of his age,
and especially great in architecture, was most influential in
bringing back his countrymen to the study of the monuments of
antiquity. He travelled to explore such as were then known, and
tells us that he shed tears on beholding the state of desolation in
which many of them lay. The prince of painters, Raffaelle,

timuit quo sospite vinci
Rerum magna parens et moriente mori,

and the prince of sculptors, Michael Angelo, both drew their
inspiration from the contemplation of the art-works of antiquity.
The former was led to improve the art of painting by the frescoes of
the baths of Titus, the latter by the sight of a mere torso imbibed
the principles of proportion and effect which were so admirably
developed in that fragment[26]. And not only the arts of sculpture
and painting, but those which enter into our daily life, are
furthered by the wise consideration of the past. Who can have
witnessed the noble exhibitions in Hyde Park or at Kensington
without feeling how much the objects displayed were indebted to
Hellenic art? In reference to the former of these Mr Wornum says:
“Repudiate the idea of copying as we will, all our vagaries end in a
recurrence to Greek shapes; all the most beautiful forms in the
Exhibition, (whether in silver, in bronze, in earthenware, or in
glass,) are Greek shapes; it is true often disfigured by the
accessory decorations of the modern styles, but still Greek in their
essential form[27].”

Footnote 26:

For this and the preceding facts see the _Museum of Classical
Antiquities_, Vol. I. pp. 13-15. The frescoes of the baths of
Titus have subsequently lost their brilliancy. See Quatremère de
Quincy’s _Life of Raphael_, p. 263. Hazlitt’s Translation.
(Bogue’s European Library).

Footnote 27:

_The Exhibition as a Lesson in Taste_, p. xvii.*** (Printed at the
end of the _Art-Journal Illustrated Catalogue_, 1851).

And yet I must, in concluding this Introductory Lecture, most
strongly recommend to you the study of archæology, not only for its
illustration of ancient literature, not only for its furtherance of
modern art, but also, and even principally, for its own sake. “Hæc
studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res
ornant, adversis perfugium ac solatium præbent; delectant domi, non
impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur,
rusticantur[28].” Every one who follows a pursuit in addition to the
routine duties of life has, by so doing, a happiness and an
advantage of which others know little. The more elevated the
pursuit, the more exquisite the happiness and the more solid the
advantage. Now if

The proper study of mankind is man,

then most assuredly archæology is one of the most proper pursuits
which man can follow. For she is the interpreter of the remains
which man in former ages has left behind him. By her we read his
history, his arts, his civilisation; by her magical charms the past
rises up again and becomes a present; the tide of time flows back
with us in imagination; the power of association transports us from
place to place, from age to age, suddenly and in a moment. Again the
glories of the nations of the old world shine forth;

Again their godlike heroes rise to view,
And all their faded garlands bloom anew.

Footnote 28:

Cicero _pro Archia poeta_, c. vii.

To adopt and adapt the words of one who is both a learned
archæologist and a learned astronomer of this University, I feel
that I may, under any and all circumstances, impress upon your minds
the utility and pleasure of “every species and every degree of
archæological enquiry.” For “history must be looked upon as the
great instructive school in the philosophical regulation of human
conduct,” as well as the teacher “of moral precepts” for all ages to
come; and no “better aid can be appealed to for” the discovery, for
“the confirmation, and for the demonstration of the facts of
history, than the energetic pursuit of archæology”[29].

Footnote 29:

See an address delivered at an Archæological meeting at Leicester,
by John Lee, Esq., LL.D. (_Journal of Archæol. Association_ for
1863, p. 37).

-------

NOTES.

Pp. 15-20. Nearly everything contained in the text relating to
pre-historic Europe will be found in the _Revue Archéologique_ for
1864, and in Sir C. Lyell’s _Antiquity of Man_, London, 1863; see
also for Thetford, _Antiq. Commun._ Vol. I. pp. 339-341, (Cambr.
Antiq. Soc. 1859); but the following recent works (as I learn from
Mr Bonney, who is very familiar with this class of antiquities) will
also be found useful to the student:

_Prehistoric Times._ By John Lubbock, F.R.S. London, 1865. 8vo.

_The Primeval Antiquities of Denmark._ By Prof. Worsäe. London,
1849. 8vo. (Engl. Transl.).

_Les Habitations Lacustres._ Par F. Troyon. Lausanne, 1860.

_Les Constructions Lacustres du Lac de Neufchâtel._ Par E. Desor.
Neufchâtel, 1864.

_Antiquités Celtiques et Antédiluviennes._ Par Boucher de Perthes.
Paris, 1847.

_Die Pfahlbauten._ Von Dr Ferd. Keller. Ber. I-V. (_Mittheilungen
der Antiquarischen Gesellschaft in Zurich_). 1854, sqq. 4to.

_Die Pfahlbauten in den Schweizer-Seeen._ Von I. Staub. Zurich,
1864. 8vo.

Besides these there are several valuable papers in the _Transactions
of the Royal, Geological, and Antiquarian Societies_ (by Messrs John
Evans, Prestwich, and others), the _Natural History Review_, and
other Periodicals.

p. 26. For the literature relating to ancient Egypt see Mr R. S.
Poole’s article on Egypt, in Smith’s _Dictionary of the Bible_, Vol.
I. p. 512.

pp. 29-31. Besides the works of Robinson, De Saulcy, Lewin, Thrupp,
and others, the following books may be mentioned as more especially
devoted to the archæology of Jerusalem:

_The Holy City._ By George Williams, B.D. (Second edition, including
an architectural History of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre by the
Rev. Robert Willis, M.A., F.R.S. 1849.)

_Jerusalem Explored._ By Ermete Pierotti. Translated by T. G.
Bonney, M.A. 1864.

_Le Temple de Jérusalem._ Par le Comte Melchior de Vogüé, 1865. The
Count considers none of the present remains of the Temple to be
earlier than the time of Herod.

To these I should add Mr Williams’ and Mr Bonney’s tracts, directed
against the views of Mr Fergusson, in justification of those of Dr
Pierotti.

p. 31, l. 20. From some remarks made to me by my learned friend,
Count de Vogüé, I fear that this is not so certain a characteristic
of Phœnician architecture as has been commonly supposed. He assigns
some of the bevelled stones which occur in Phœnicia to the age of
the Crusades.

p. 31, last line. For the very remarkable Phœnician sarcophagus
discovered in 1855, and for various references to authorities on
Phœnician antiquities, see Smith’s _Dict. of the Bible_, Vol. II. p.
868, and Vol. III. p. 1850.

p. 36. As a general work on Greek and Roman Coins Eckhel’s _Doctrina
Numorum Veterum_ (Vindobonæ, 1792-1828, with Steinbuchel’s
_Addenda_, 8 Vols. 4to.) still remains the standard, though now
getting a little out of date.

The same remark must be made of Mionnet’s great work, _Description
de Médailles Antiques, Grecques et Romaines_, Paris, 1806-1813 (7
Vols.), with a supplement of 9 Vols. Paris, 1818-1837, giving a very
useful _Bibliothèque Numismatique_ at the end; to which must be
added his _Poids des Médailles Grecques_, Paris, 1839. These
seventeen volumes comprise the Greek coins: the other part of his
work, _De la Rareté et du Prix des Médailles Romaines_, Paris, 1827,
in two volumes, is now superseded.

Since Mionnet’s time certain departments of Greek and other ancient
numismatics have been much more fully worked out, especially by the
following authors:

De Luynes (coins of Satraps; also of Cyprus); L. Müller (coins of
Philip and Alexander; of Lysimachus; also of Ancient Africa); Pinder
(Cistophori); Beulé (Athenian coins); Lindsay (Parthian coins);
Longpérier, and more recently Mordtmann (coins of the Sassanidæ);
Carelli’s plates described by Cavedoni (coins of Magna Græcia, &c.);
other works of Cavedoni (Various coins); Friedländer (Oscan coins);
Sambon (coins of South Italy); De Saulcy, Levy, Madden (Jewish
coins); V. Langlois (Armenian, also early Arabian coins); J. L.
Warren (Greek Federal coins; also more recently, copper coins of
Achæan League); R. S. Poole (coins of the Ptolemies); Waddington
(Unedited coins of Asia Minor).

For Roman and Byzantine coins (including Æs grave and Contorniates)
see the works of Marchi and Tessieri, Cohen, Sabatier, and De
Saulcy.

Others, as Prokesch-Osten, Leake, Smyth, Hobler, and Fox, have
published their collections or the unedited coins of them; and all
the numismatic periodicals contain various previously unedited Greek
and Roman and other ancient coins.

p. 40. Fabretti’s work is entitled, _Glossarium Italicum in quo
omnia vocabula continentur ex Umbricis, Sabinis, Oscis, Volscis,
Etruscis, cæterisque monumentis collecta, et cum interpretationibus
variorum explicantur_ (Turin, 1858-1864). Many figures of the
antiquities, on which the words occur, are given in their places.

p. 43. Cromlechs in some, if not in all cases, appear to be the
skeletons of barrows.

p. 44. The following works will be found useful for the student of
early British antiquities:

_Pictorial History of England_, Vol. I. Lond. 1838.

_Archæological Index to remains of Antiquity of the Celtic,
Romano-British, and Anglo-Saxon periods._ By J. Y. Akerman, F.S.A.
London, 1847 (with a classified index of the Papers in the
_Archæologia_, Vols. I-XXXI.).

_Ten years’ diggings in Celtic and Saxon Grave Hills in the Counties
of Derby, Stafford, and York, from 1848-1858._ By Thomas Bateman.
London, 1861. A most useful work, which will indicate the existence
of many others. In connection with this see Dr Thurnam’s paper on
British and Gaulish skulls in _Memoirs of Anthropological Soc._ Vol.
I. p. 120.

_The Land’s End District, its Antiquities, Natural History_, &c. By
Richard Edmonds. London, 1862.

_Catalogue of the Antiquities of Stone, Earthen, and Vegetable
Materials, in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy._ By W. B.
Wilde, M.R.I.A. Dublin, 1857.

_The Coins of the Ancient Britons._ By John Evans, F.S.A. The plates
by F. W. Fairholt, F.S.A. London, 1864. By far the best and most
complete work hitherto published on the subject.

Also, the _Transactions_ of various learned Societies in Great
Britain and Ireland, among which the _Archæologia Cambrensis_ is
deserving of special mention.

For the Romano-British Antiquities may be added Horsley’s _Britannia
Romana_, 1732; Roy’s _Military Antiquities of the Romans in
Britain_, 1793; Lysons’ _Relliquiæ Britannico-Romanæ_. London, 1813,
4 Vols. fol.

Monographs on York, by Mr Wellbeloved; on Richborough and other
towns, by Mr C. R. Smith; on Aldborough, by Mr H. E. Smith; on
Wroxeter, by Mr Wright; on Caerleon, by Mr Lee; on Cirencester, by
Messrs Buckman and Newmarch; on Hadrian’s wall, by Dr Bruce; on
various excavations in Cambridgeshire, by the Hon. R. C. Neville.

p. 45. For the Roman Roads, &c. in Cambridgeshire, see Prof. Charles
C. Babington’s _Ancient Cambridgeshire_, Cambr. 1853 (Cambr. Ant.
Soc).

— No doubt need have been expressed about Wroxeter, which should
hardly have been called ‘our little Pompeii’; the area of Wroxeter
being greater, however less considerable the remains. See Wright’s
_Guide to Uriconium_, p. 88. Shrewsbury, 1860. For various examples
of Roman wall-painting in Britain see _Reliq. Isur._ by H. E. Smith,
p. 18, 1852.

p. 46. For Romano-British coins see

_Coins of the Romans relating to Britain, described and
illustrated._ By J. Y. Akerman, F.S.A. London, 1844.

Petrie’s _Monumenta Historica Britannica_, Pl. I-XVII. London, 1848
(for beautiful figures).

Others, published by Mr C. R. Smith in his valuable _Collectanea
Antiqua_; also by Mr Hobler, in his _Records of Roman History,
exhibited on Coins_. London, 1860. Others in the _Numismatic
Chronicle_, in the _Transactions of the Cambridge Antiquarian
Society_, and perhaps elsewhere.

For medieval and modern numismatics in general we may soon, I trust,
have a valuable manual (the MS. of which I have seen) from the pen
of my learned friend, the Rev. W. G. Searle. He has favoured me with
the following notes:

On medieval and modern coins generally we have

Appel, _Repertorium zur Münzkunde des Mittelalters und der neuern
Zeit_, 6 Vols. 8vo. Pesth, 1820-1829.

Barthélémy, _Manuel de Numismatique du moyen âge et moderne_. Paris,
1851. 12mo.

The bibliography up to 1840 we get in

Lipsius, _Biblioth. Numaria_, Leipz. 1801 (2 Vols.) 8vo., and in

Leitzmann, _Verzeichniss aller seit 1800 erschienenen Numism.
Werke_, Weissensee, 1841, 8vo.

On medieval coins, their types and geography, we have

J. Lelewel, _La Numismatique du Moyen-âge, considérée sous le
rapport du type_. Paris, 1835, 2 vols. 8vo. Atlas 4to.

Then there are the great Numismatic Periodicals:

_Revue Numism._ 8vo. Paris, 1836.

_Revue de la Num. Belge_, 8vo. Brussels, 1841.

Leitzmann, _Numismatische Zeitung_, 4to. Weissensee, 1834.

On Bracteates:

Mader, _Versuch über die Bracteaten_. Prague, 1797, 4to.

And the great Coin Catalogues of

Welzl v. Wellenheim. 3 vols. 8vo. Vienna, 1844 ff. (c. 40,000
coins).

v. Reichel at St Petersburgh, in at least 9 parts.

On current coins we have

Lud. Fort, _Neueste Münzkunde_, engravings and descr. 8vo. Leipzig,
1851 ff.

p. 45. For almost everything relating to ivories and for a great
deal on the subjects which follow, see _Handbook of the Arts of the
Middle Ages and Renaissance_, Translated from the French of M. Jules
Labarte, with notes, and copiously illustrated, London, 1855, which
will lead the student to the great authorities for medieval art, as
Du Sommerard, &c. I have also examined and freely used _Histoire des
Arts industriels au moyen âge et à l’époque de la Renaissance_, Par
Jules Labarte. Paris, 1864, 8vo. 2 volumes; accompanied by an album
in quarto with descriptions of the plates, also in two volumes.

p. 47. For examples of medieval calligraphy and illuminations see Mr
Westwood’s _Palæographia Sacra Pictoria_, (Lond. 1845), and his
_Illuminated Illustrations of the Bible_, (London, 1846).

p. 48. A good deal of information about Celtic, Romano-British, and
medieval pottery will be found in Mr Jewitt’s _Life of Wedgwood_,
London, 1865. For ancient pottery in general (excluding however the
medieval) see Dr Birch’s _Ancient Pottery and Porcelain_, London,
1858, which will conduct the student to the most authentic sources
of information. In connection with this should be studied Mr
Bunbury’s article in the _Edinburgh Review_ for 1858, to which Mr
Oldfield’s paper on Sir W. Temple’s vases in the _Transactions of
the Royal Soc. of Lit._ Vol. VI. pp. 130-149 (1859), may be added.

—— For medieval sculpture see Flaxman’s _Lectures_. The ‘horrible
and burlesque’ style of the earlier ages was discarded in the
thirteenth century, when the art revived in Italy. Italian artists
executed various sepulchral statues in this country, which possess
considerable merit, as do others by native artists, but the great
beauty of our sepulchral monuments consists in their architectural
decorations.

p. 49. For the coinage of the British Islands see the works of
Ruding, Hawkins, and Lindsay, also for the Saxon coins found in
great numbers in Scandinavia, Hildebrand and Schröder. Humphreys’
popular work on the coinage of the British Empire, so far as the
plates are concerned, is useful, but the author is deficient in
scholarship.

p. 52. For the statements here made on oil-painting see Bryan’s
_Dict. of Painters and Engravers_, by Stanley, (London, 1849), under
Van Eyck, and Sir C. L. Eastlake’s _Materials for a History of
Oil-painting_. (London 1847.)

p. 53. For medieval brasses, see

Bowtell, _Monumental Brasses and Slabs_. London, 1847, 8vo.

——— _Monumental Brasses of England, a Series of engravings in wood_.
London, 1849.

Haines, _Manual of Monumental Brasses_. 2 parts. London, 1861, 8vo.
This contains also a list of all the brasses known to him as
existing in the British Isles. Mr Way has given an account of
foreign sepulchral brasses in _Archæol. Journ._, Vol. VII.

p. 56. Several English frescoes are described and figured in the
_Journal of the Archæological Association_, passim.

p. 62, l. 13. The omission of ancient costume has been pointed out
to me. The _actually existing_ specimens however are mostly very
late; with the exception of a few articles of dress found in Danish
sepulchres of the bronze period, or in Irish peat bogs of uncertain
date, the episcopal vestments of Becket now preserved at Sens are
the earliest which occur to my recollection; and there are few
articles of dress, I believe, so early as these. However both
ancient and medieval costume is well known from the
_representations_ on monuments of various kinds. See _inter alia_
Hope’s _Costume of the Ancients_; Becker’s _Gallus_ and _Charicles_;
Strutt’s _Dress of the English People_, edited by Planché, (Lond.
1842); Shaw’s _Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages_.

p. 67. The statement about Patin is made on the authority of a note
in Warton’s edition of Pope’s Works, Vol. III. p. 306. (London
1797.)

p. 68. The remark about the crab was made to me by the late Mr
Burgon, and I do not know whether it has ever been printed; its
truth seems pretty certain. For the Rhodian symbol see my paper in
the _Numismatic Chronicle_ for 1864, pp. 1-6.

--------------

_PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION_,

An Introduction to the Study of Greek Fictile Vases; their
Classification, Subjects, and Nomenclature. Being the substance
of the Disney Professor’s Lectures for 1865, and of those which
he purposes to deliver in 1866.

---------------------

CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent
only when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that:
was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

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