ARCHÆOLOGICAL ESSAYS
BY THE LATE
SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON, BART.
M.D., D.C.L.
ONE OF HER MAJESTY'S PHYSICIANS FOR SCOTLAND, AND PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE AND MIDWIFERY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
EDITED BY
JOHN STUART, LL.D.
SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF SCOTLAND
VOL. I.
EDINBURGH
EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS
PUBLISHERS TO THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES
MDCCCLXXII
Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.
THE EDITOR'S PREFACE.
The late Sir James Simpson, in the midst of his anxious professional labours, was wont to seek for refreshment in the pursuit of subjects of a historical and archæological character, and to publish the results in the Transactions of different Societies and in scientific journals.
Some of these papers are now scarce, and difficult of access; and a desire having been expressed in various quarters for their appearance in a collected and permanent form, I was consulted on the subject by Sir Walter Simpson, who put into my hands copies of the various essays, with notes on some of them by his father, which seemed to indicate that he himself had contemplated their republication.
Having for a long time been acquainted with their merits, I did not hesitate to express a strong opinion in favour of their publication; and I accepted with pleasure the duty of editing them, which Sir Walter requested me to perform.
The papers in question were the fruit of inquiries begun indeed as a relief from weightier cares; but as it was not in their author's nature to rest satisfied with desultory and superficial results in his treatment of any subject, so his archæological papers more resemble the exhaustive treatises of a leisurely student, than the occasional efforts of one overwhelmed in professional occupations.
In the present work will be found all the more important archæological papers of Sir James Simpson, collected from the various sources indicated in the Table of Contents.
The subjects to the antiquities of which Sir James first directed his attention were connected with his own profession; but, as time went on, his interest in historical pursuits deepened and expanded, and the questions discussed by him became more varied.
It has been thought best to arrange the papers of a general historical scope in the first volume, and those connected with professional antiquities in the second; but readers, who may wish to trace the order in which they were written by the author, will find their various dates in the Table.
The first paper, entitled "Archæology, its Past and its Future Work," was prepared as a lecture to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. This was done with a care and elaboration which are not always associated with such efforts; and, whether in indicating the object and end of the archæological student's pursuits,—sketching the past progress of the study,—and specifying the lines of research from which Scottish inductive archæology may be expected to derive additional data and facts,—nothing more thoroughly practical could be desired; while in his resumé of the difficulties and enigmas peculiar to Scottish antiquities, he may be said to have left none of them untouched, his passing allusions being, in many instances, suggestive of their solution.
The paper on "An old Stone-roofed Cell or Oratory in the Island of Inchcolm" affords an instance of the author's careful observation, and his fertility of illustration. The humble structure in question, which, at the time when it first attracted Sir James Simpson's notice, was used as a pig-stye, had few external features to suggest the necessity of farther inquiry; but after his eye had become accustomed to the architecture of the early monastic cells in Ireland, its real character flashed upon him, and he found that his conclusions coincided with the facts of the early history of the island.
These he gleaned from many sources, but in grouping them into a picture he enriched his narrative with various instructive notes; as on the "Mos Scotticum" of our early buildings; a comparison of the ruin with the Irish oratories; notices of other Island Retreats of Saints, and of the Saints themselves. In one of these he gives an instructive reference to a passage in the original Latin text of Boece about the round tower of Brechin, which had been overlooked by his translator Bellenden, and so was now quoted for the first time.
A copy of this paper on Inchcolm having been sent to his friend Dr. Petrie of Dublin, author of the well-known essay on the "Early Ecclesiastical Architecture and Round Towers of Ireland," it was returned after a time, enriched with many notes and illustrations. In now reprinting the paper these have been added, and are distinguished from the author's notes by having the letter P annexed to them. The subject of the Inchcolm oratory was one about which this great man felt much interest, and on which he could speak from the abundance of his knowledge and experience. The notes are therefore of special value, as furnishing the latest views of the author on mooted points of Celtic Ecclesiology, while they are conspicuous for the modesty and candour which were combined with Dr. Petrie's vast learning on the subject.
Thus, in his work on the Round Towers, Dr. Petrie assigned "about the year 1020" as the date of the round tower of Brechin, but in one of the notes he corrects himself, and explains the origin of his mistake:—"The recollection of the error which I made, by a carelessness not in such matters usual with me, in assigning this date 1020, instead of between the years 971 and 994, as I ought to have done, has long given me annoyance, and a lesson never to trust to memory in dates; for it was thus I fell into the mistake. I had the year 1020 on my mind, which is the year assigned by Pinkerton for the writing of the Chron. Pictorum, and, without stopping to remember or to refer, I took it for granted that it was the year of Kenneth's death, or rather of his gift."
In writing of the Early Churches or Oratories of Ireland, Dr. Petrie stated in his Essay—"they had a single doorway always placed in the centre of the west wall." In one of his notes, now printed, he thus qualifies the statement:—"I should perhaps have written almost always. The very few exceptions did not at the moment occur to me." Again, Sir James Simpson having quoted a passage from Dr. Petrie's work, in which the writer ascribes the old small stone-roofed church at Killaloe to the seventh century, Dr. Petrie, in his relative note, adds—"but now considers as of the tenth, or perhaps eleventh."
To the paper on "Leprosy and Leper Hospitals in Scotland and England" is now added a series of additional "Historical Notices," prepared by Dr. Joseph Robertson, with the accuracy and research for which, as is well known, my early friend was conspicuous.
The origin of the tract on "Medical Officers in the Roman Army" is explained in the following note, prefixed to the first edition:—"A few years ago my late colleague, Sir George Ballingall, asked me—'Was the Roman Army provided with Medical Officers?' He was interested in the subject as Professor of Military Surgery, and told me that he had made, quite unsuccessfully, inquiries on the matter in various quarters, and at various persons. I drew up for him a few remarks, which were privately printed and cir
The essay on the monument called "The Catstane" suggested an explanation, which naturally elicited divergent criticisms. Some of these appear to have occasionally engaged Sir James Simpson's attention; and from some unfinished notes among his papers, it seems plain that he meant to notice them in an additional communication to the Society of Antiquaries.
In these notes, after recapitulating at the outset the facts adduced in his first paper, Sir James proceeds:—"These points of evidence, I ventured to conclude, 'tend at least to render it probable' that the Catstane is a monument to Vetta, the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa. But I did not consider the question as a settled question. I began and ended my paper by discussing this early Saxon origin of the monument as problematical and probable, but not fixed. At the same time, I may perhaps take the liberty of remarking, that both in archæology and history we look upon some questions as sufficiently fixed and settled, regarding which we have less inferential and direct proof than we have respecting this solution of the enigma respecting the Catstane. The idea, however, that it was possible for a monument to a historic Saxon leader to be found in Scotland of a date antecedent to the advent of Hengist and Horsa to the shores of Kent, was a notion so repugnant to many minds, that, very naturally, various arguments have been adduced against it, while some high authorities have declared in favour of it. In this communication I propose to notice briefly some of the leading arguments that have been latterly brought forward both against and for the belief that the Catstane commemorates the ancestor of the Saxon conquerors of Kent.
"1. One anonymous writer has maintained, that if the Catstane was a monument to the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, the inscription upon it should not have read 'In hoc tumulo jacet Vetta f(ilius) Victi,' but, on the contrary, 'Victus filius Vettæ.' In other words, he holds that the inscription reverses the order of paternity as given by Bede, Nennius, etc.[1] But all this is simply and altogether a mistake on the part of the writer. All the ancient genealogies describe Hengist and Horsa as the sons of Victgils, Victgils as the son of Vetta, and Vetta as the son of Victus. The Catstane inscriptions give Vetta and Victus in exactly the same order. When I pointed out to the writer the mistake into which he had, perhaps inadvertently, fallen, he turned round, and argued that in such names the vowels e and i were more trustworthy as permanent elements than the consonants c and t.[2] He argued, in other words, that Vecta as a proper name would not be found spelled with an i. If it were never so spelled with an i, that circumstance was no argument in favour of the strange error of criticism into which the writer had fallen; but the fact is, that in the famous chapter of Bede's history, in which the names Hengist and Horsa, and their genealogies, first occur, there is an instance given, showing that, contrary to the opinion of this writer, a proper name having, like Vetta, the letter e as a component, may change it to i. For Bede, in telling us that the men of Kent and of the Isle of Wight (Cantuarii et Victuarii) were sprung from the Jutes, spells the Isle of Wight (Vecta) with an e, and the inhabitants of it (Victuarii) with an i.
"The same writer states it as his opinion that the lettering in the Catstane inscription is not so old as I should wish to make it. 'It is,' says he, 'in our opinion, of later date even than Hengist himself, both in the formula of the inscription and in the character of the writing.' Perhaps the writer's opinion upon such a point is not worth alluding to, as it is maintained by no proof. But Edward Lhuyd—one of the very best judges in such questions in former days—stated the lettering to be of the fourth or fifth century, without having any hypothesis to support or subvert by this opinion. And the best palæographer of our own times—Professor Westwood—is quite of the same idea as to the mere age of the inscription, as drawn from its palæography and formula, an idea in which he is joined by an antiquary who has worked much with ancient lettering—viz. Professor Stephens of Copenhagen."
Although it is to be regretted that the contemplated remarks were not completed, it may be doubted if the question admitted of much further illustration; and, however unlikely the conclusion may be that the inscription on the Catstane, Vetta F[ilius] Victi, is a contemporary commemoration of the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, it may not be easy to suggest a solution of the question free from difficulties as puzzling. At all events the palæographic features of the inscription seem plainly to associate it with a class of rude post-Roman monuments, of which we have a good many examples in different parts of the kingdom; and it may be remarked that Mr. Skene, who has made this period of our history a special study, after investigating, with his usual acumen, the evidence which exists to show that the Frisians had formed settlements in Scotland at a period anterior to that usually assigned for the arrival of the Saxons in England, has established the fact of the early settlement on our northern coasts of a people called by the general name of Saxons, but in reality an offshoot from the Frisians, whose principal seat was on the shores of the Firth of Forth, and on the whole thinks it not impossible that the Catstane may be the tomb of their first leader Vitta, son of Vecta, the traditionary grandfather of Hengist and Horsa.[3]
Besides the papers now printed, Sir James Simpson contributed many shorter essays and reviews of books to magazines and newspapers. He also prepared a memorandum, printed in the second volume of the "Sculptured Stones of Scotland," of a reading of the inscription on a sculptured cross at St. Vigeans in Forfarshire.[4] At the time of the final adjustment of this paper Sir James was an invalid, and confined to his bed, and I well remember the extreme, almost fastidious, care bestowed by him on the proof-sheet, in the course of my frequent visits to his bedroom.
It sometimes happened also that a subject originally treated in a paper by Sir James Simpson required a volume to exhaust it. Thus, in the spring of 1864, he read to a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland a "Notice of the Sculpturing of Cups and Concentric Rings on Stones and Rocks in various parts of Scotland;" but materials afterwards so grew on his hands that his original Notice came to be expanded into a volume of nearly 200 pages, with 36 illustrative plates. His treatment of this curious subject furnishes a model for such investigations.
Setting out with a description of the principal types of the sculptures, he investigates the chief deviations which occur. He next classifies the various monuments on which the sculptures have been observed, as standing-stones, cromlechs, stones in chambered tumuli, and stones in sepulchral cists. Another chapter describes their occurrence on stones connected with archaic habitations, as weems, fortified buildings, in and near ancient towns and camps, and on isolated rocks and stones. After a description of analogous sculptures in other countries, there is a concluding chapter of general inferences founded on the facts accumulated in the previous part of the volume.
On the occasion of a rapid journey to Liverpool, Sir James Simpson visited a stone circle at Calder, near that city, and detected the true character of the sculptures on the stones, a very imperfect note of which I had recently brought under his notice. An account of this monument, which he prepared for the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, is printed in the Transactions of that body for 1865, and the following passages are quoted from it:—"Many suggestions, I may observe, have been offered in regard to the intent and import of such lapidary cup and ring cuttings as exist on the Calder Stones; but none of the theories proposed solve, as it seems to me, the hieroglyphic mystery in which these sculpturings are still involved. They are old enigmatical 'handwritings on the wall,' which no modern reader has yet deciphered. In our present state of knowledge with regard to them, let us be content with merely collecting and recording the facts in regard to their appearances, relations, localities, etc.; for all early theorising will, in all probability, end only in error. It is surely better frankly to own that we know not what these markings mean (and possibly may never know it), rather than wander off into that vague mystification and conjecture which in former days often brought discredit on the whole study of archæology.
"But in regard to their probable era let me add one suggestion. These cup and ring cuttings have now been traced along the whole length of the British Isles, from Dorsetshire to Orkney, and across their whole breadth from Yorkshire in England to Kerry in Ireland; and in many of the inland counties in the three kingdoms. They are evidently dictated by some common thought belonging to some common race of men. But how very long is it since a common race—or successive waves even of a common race—inhabited such distant districts as I have just named, and spread over Great Britain and Ireland, from the English Channel to the Pentland Firth, and from the shores of the German Ocean to those of the Atlantic?"
The special value of the inductive treatment of the subject adopted by Sir James Simpson is here conspicuous; and although no decided conclusion was come to on the age and meaning of the sculptures, or the people by whom they were made, yet a reader feels that the utmost has been made of existing materials; and that, while nothing has been left untouched which could throw light on the question, a broad and sure foundation has been laid on which all subsequent research must rest.
One of the Appendices to this volume contains an account of some ancient sculptures on the walls of certain caves in Fife. The essay originally appeared as a communication to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in January 1866, and was also soon afterwards printed separately—"Inscribed to James Drummond, Esq., R.S.A., as a small token of the Author's very sincere friendship and esteem."
The discovery of these cave sculptures affords an instance of the thoroughness which Sir James carried into all his investigations. While engaged in the preparation of his original paper for the Society of Antiquaries on the Sculpturing of Cups and Rings, he wished to ascertain all the localities and conditions of their occurrence. After describing the sculptured circles and cups which had been found on the stones of weems and "Picts' Houses," he referred to the caves on the coast of Fife, which he suggested might be considered as natural weems or habitations. These he had visited in the hope of discovering cup-markings; and in one near the village of Easter Wemyss he discovered faded appearances of some depressions or cups, with small single circles cut on the wall, adding to his description—"Probably a more minute and extensive search in these caves would discover many more such carvings."
This was written in 1864; and when the paper then prepared had been expanded into the volume of 1867, the passage just quoted was accompanied by the following note:—"I leave this sentence as it was written above two years ago. Shortly after that period, I revisited Wemyss, to inspect the other caves of the district, and make more minute observations than I could do in my first hurried visit, and discovered on the walls of some of them many carvings of animals, 'spectacle ornaments,' and other symbols exactly resembling in type and character the similar figures represented on the ancient so-called sculptured stones of Scotland, and, like them, probably about a thousand years old."[6]
In like manner, after Sir Gardner Wilkinson had detected a concentric circle of four rings sculptured on the pillar called "Long Meg," at the great stone circle of Salkeld, in Cumberland, Sir James Simpson paid a visit to the monument, when his scrutiny was rewarded by the discovery on this pillar of several additional groups of sculptures.[7]
In his lecture on Archæology, Sir James Simpson has indicated two lines of research, from which additional data and facts for the elucidation of past times might be expected—viz. researches beneath the surface of the earth, and researches among older works and manuscripts. By the former he meant the careful and systematised examinations in which the spade and pickaxe are so important, and have done such service in late years, and from which Sir James expected much more; and by the latter the exploring and turning to account the many stores of written records of early times yet untouched.
Being impressed with the value of the charters of our old religious houses for historical purposes, he, shortly before his death, had a transcript made of the Chartulary of the Monastery of Inchcolm, with a design to edit it as one of a series of volumes of monastic records for the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
But the services of Sir James Simpson to the cause of archæological research are not to be measured by his written contributions, remarkable as these are. Perhaps it may be said that his influence was most pregnant in kindling a love of research in others, by opening their eyes to see how much yet lay undiscovered, and how much each person could do by judicious effort in his own neighbourhood. With this view he on various occasions delivered lectures on special subjects of antiquity, and among his papers I found very full notes of lectures on Roman antiquities, one of which, on the "Romans in Britain," he delivered at Falkirk in the winter of 1862.
For many years the house of Sir James Simpson was the rendezvous of archæological students; and it was one of his great
The friends who were accustomed to these easy reunions will not soon forget the radiant geniality of the host, and his success in stimulating the discussions most likely to draw out the special stores of his guests. Others also, who were associated with Sir James in the visits to historical sites which he frequently planned, in the retrospect of the pleasant hours thus spent will feel how vain it is to hope for another leader with the attractions which were combined in him.
In the course of his numerous professional journeys he acquired a wonderfully accurate knowledge of the early remains of different districts; and so contagious was his enthusiasm for their elucidation, that both the professional brethren with whom he acted, and his patients, were speedily found among his correspondents and allies.
His presence at the meetings of Archæological Societies was ever regarded as a pleasure and benefit. Besides the stated meetings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, which he attended with comparative frequency, and where he ever took a share in the discussions, he was present on various occasions at Congresses of the Archæological Institute, the Cambrian Association, and other kindred bodies, by means of which he was enabled to maintain an intercourse with contemporary fellow-labourers in the archæological field, and to attain that familiarity with different classes of antiquities which he turned to such account in the discussion and classification of the early remains of Scotland.
I must not speak of the wonderful combination of qualities which were conspicuous in Sir James Simpson, alongside of those which I have mentioned. This may safely be left to the more competent hand of Professor Duns, from whose memoir of his early friend so much may be expected, and where a more general estimate of his character will naturally be found. Yet, in bringing together this series of Sir James Simpson's Archæological Essays, it seemed not unsuitable for me to express something of my admiration of the earnest truth-seeking spirit with which they were undertaken, as well as of the genius and research with which they were executed.
JOHN STUART.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "The monument reverses the order of paternity of the two individuals, making Wecta the son of Witta, instead of Witta the son of Wecta, in which all the old genealogies agree."—Athenæum, July 5, 1862, p. 17.
[2] "The vowel is far more distinctive of the two names than the difference of c and t, letters which were continually interchanged."—Ibid. August 2, 1862, p. 149.
[3] Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 181.
[4] The Sculptured Stones of Scotland, vol. ii. Notices of the Plates, p. 71.
[5] Archaic Sculpturings of Cups, Circles, etc., upon Stones and Rocks in Scotland, England, and other Countries. Edin. 1867.
[6] British Archaic Sculpturings, p. 126.
[7] Idem, p. 20.
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.
- Archæology: its Past and its Future Work
An Inaugural Address to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Session 1860-61. Proc. vol. iv. p. 5. - On an Old Stone-Roofed Cell or Oratory in the Island of Inchcolm
A Paper read to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, July 13, 1857. Proc. vol. ii. p. 489.
[With Notes by Dr. George Petrie, Author of an Essay on the "Early Ecclesiastical Architecture and Round Towers of Ireland."] - On the Cat-Stane, Kirkliston
Read to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 11th February 1861. Proc. vol. iv. p. 119.
Printed separately in 1862, and "Inscribed with Feelings of the most Sincere Esteem to Mrs. Pender, Crumpsall House, Manchester." - On Some Scottish Magical Charm-Stones, or Curing-Stones
Read to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 8th April 1861. Proc. vol. iv. p. 211. - Is the Great Pyramid of Gizeh a Metrological Monument?
Corrected Abstract of a Communication to the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 20th January 1868, with Notes and an Appendix. Proc. of the Royal Society, No. 75.
ARCHÆOLOGY:
ITS PAST AND ITS FUTURE WORK.[8]
It has become a practice of late years in this Society for one of the Vice-Presidents to read an Annual Address on some topic or topics connected with Archæology. I appear here to-night more in compliance with this custom than with any hope of being able to state aught to you that is likely to prove either of adequate interest or of adequate importance for such an occasion.
In making this admission, I am fully aware that the deficiency lies in
The objects of antiquarian research embrace events and periods, many of which are placed within the era of written evidence; but many more are of a date long anterior to the epoch when man made that greatest of human discoveries—the discovery, namely, of the power of permanently recording words, thoughts, and acts, in symbolical and alphabetic writing. To some minds it has seemed almost chimerical for the archæologist to expect to regain to any extent a knowledge of the conditions and circumstances of man, and of the different nations of men, before human cunning had learned to collect and inscribe them on stone or brass, or had fashioned them into written or traditional records capable of being safely floated down the stream of time. But the modern history of Archæology, as well as the analogies of other allied pursuits, are totally against any such hopeless views.
Almost within the lifetime of some who are still amongst us, there has sprung up and been cultivated—and cultivated most successfully too—a science which has no written documents or legible inscriptions to guide it on its path, and whose researches are far more ancient in their object than the researches of Archæology. Its subject is an antiquity greatly older than human antiquity. It deals with the state of the earth and of the inhabitants of the earth in times immeasurably beyond the earliest times studied by the antiquary. In the course of its investigations it has recovered many strange stories and marvellous chronicles of the world and of its living occupants—long, long ages before human antiquity even began. But if Geology has thus successfully restored to us long and important chapters in the pre-Adamite annals of the world's history, need Archæology despair of yet deciphering and reading—infinitely more clearly than it has yet done—that far later episode in the drama of the past which opens with the appearance of man as a denizen of earth. The modes of investigating these two allied and almost continuous sciences—Geology and Archæology—are the same in principle, however much the two sciences themselves may differ in detail. And if Geology, in its efforts to regain the records of the past state of animal and vegetable life upon the surface of the earth, has attractions which bind the votaries of it to its ardent study, surely Archæology has equal, if not stronger claims to urge in its own behoof and favour. To the human mind the study of those relics by which the archæologist tries to recover and reconstruct the history of the past races and nations of man, should naturally form as engrossing a topic as the study of those relics by which the geologist tries to regain the history of the past races and families of the fauna and flora of the ancient world. Surely, as a mere matter of scientific pursuit, the ancient or fossil states of man should—for man himself—have attractions as great, at least, as the ancient or fossil states of plants and animals; and the old Celt, or Pict, or Saxon, be as interesting a study as the old Lepidodendron or Ichthyosaurus.
Formerly, the pursuit of Archæology was not unfrequently regarded as a kind of romantic dilettanteism, as a collecting together of meaningless antique relics and oddities, as a greedy hoarding and storing up of rubbish and frivolities that were fit only for an old curiosity shop, and that were valued merely because they were old;—while the essays and writings of the antiquary were looked down upon as disquisitions upon very profitless conjectures, and very solemn trivialities. Perhaps the objects and method in which antiquarian studies were formerly pursued afforded only too much ground for such accusations. But all this is now, in a great measure, entirely changed. Archæology, as tempered and directed by the philosophic spirit, and quickened with the life and energy of the nineteenth century, is a very different pursuit from the Archæology of our forefathers, and has as little relation to their antiquarianism as modern Chemistry and modern Astronomy have to their former prototypes—Alchemy and Astrology. In proof of this, I may confidently appeal to the good work which Archæology has done, and the great advances which it has struck out in different directions within the last fifty years. Within this brief period it has made discoveries, perhaps in themselves of as momentous and marvellous a character as those of which any other modern science can boast. Let me cite two or three instances in illustration of this remark.
Dating, then, from the commencement of the present century, Archæology has—amidst its other work—rediscovered, through the interpretation of the Rosetta-stone, the long-lost hieroglyphic language of Egypt, and has thus found a key by which it has begun—but only as yet begun—to unlock the rich treasure-stores of ancient knowledge which have for ages lain concealed among the monuments and records scattered along the valley of the Nile. It has copied, by the aid of the telescope, the trilingual arrow-headed inscriptions written 300 feet high upon the face of the rocks of Behistun; and though the alphabets and the languages in which these long inscriptions were "graven with a pen of iron and lead upon the rocks for ever," had been long dead and unknown, yet, by a kind of philological divination, Archæology has exorcised and resuscitated both; and from these dumb stones, and from the analogous inscriptions of Van, Elwend, Persepolis, etc., it has evoked official gazettes and royal contemporaneous annals of the deeds and dominions of Darius, Xerxes, and other Persian
The notices of antiquarian progress in modern times, that I have hitherto alluded to, refer to other continents than our own. But since the commencement of the present century Archæology has been equally active in Europe. It has, by its recent devoted study of the whole works of art belonging to Greece, shown that in many respects a livelier and more familiar knowledge of the ancient inhabitants of that classic land is to be derived from the contemplation of their remaining statues, sculptures, gems, medals, coins, etc., than by any amount of mere school-grinding at Greek words and Greek quantities. It has recovered at the same time some interesting objects connected with ancient Grecian history; having, for example, during the occupation of Constantinople in 1854 by the armies of England and France, laid bare to its base and carefully copied the inscription, engraved some twenty-three centuries ago, upon the brazen stand of the famous tripod which was dedicated by the confederate Greeks to Apollo at Delphi, after the defeat of the Persian host at Platea,—an inscription that Herodotus himself speaks of, and by which, indeed, the Father of History seems to have authenticated his own battle-roll of the Greek combatants. Archæology has busied itself also, particularly of late years, in disinterring the ruins of numerous old Roman villas, towns, and cities in Italy, in France, in Britain, and in the other western colonies of Home; and by this measure it has gained for us a clearer and nearer insight into every-day Roman life and habits, than all the wealth of classic literature supplies us with. Though perfectly acquainted with the Etruscan alphabet, it has hitherto utterly failed to read a single line of the numerous inscriptions found in Etruria, but yet among the unwritten records and relics of the towns and tombs of that ancient kingdom, it has recovered a wonderfully complete knowledge of the manners, and habits, and faith, of a great and prosperous nation, which—located in the central districts of Italy—was already far advanced in civilisation and refinement long before that epoch when Romulus is fabled to have drawn around the Palatine the first boundary line of the infant city which was destined to become the mistress of the world. Latterly, among all the western and northern countries of Europe, in Germany, in Scandinavia, in Denmark, in France, and in the British Islands, Archæology has made many careful and valuable collections of the numerous and diversified implements, weapons, etc., of the aboriginal inhabitants of these parts, and traced by them the stratifications, as it were, of progress and civilisation, by which our primæval ancestors successively passed upwards through the varying eras and stages of advancement, from their first struggles in the battle of life with tools of stone, and flint, and bone alone, till they discovered and applied the use of metals in the arts alike of peace and war; from those distant ages in which, dressed in the skins of animals, they wore ornaments made of sea-shells and jet, till the times when they learned to plait and weave dresses of hair, wool, and other fibres, and adorned their chiefs with torcs and armlets of bronze, silver, and gold. Archæology also has sought out and studied the strongholds and forts, the land and lake habitations of these, our primæval Celtic and Teutonic forefathers:—and has discovered among their ruins many interesting specimens of the implements they used, the dresses that they wore, the houses they inhabited, and the very food they fed upon. It has descended also into their sepulchres and tombs, and there—among the mysterious contents of their graves and cinerary urns—it has found revealed many other wondrous proofs of their habits and condition during this life, as well as of their creeds and faith in regard to a future state of existence.
By the aid of that new and most powerful ally, Comparative Philology, Archæology has lately made other great advances. By proofs exactly of the same linguistic kind as those by which the modern Spanish, French, and other Latin dialects can be shown to have all radiated from Rome as their centre, the old traditions of the eastern origin of all the chief nations of Europe have been proved to be fundamentally true; for by evidence so "irrefragable" (to use the expression of the Taylorian professor of modern languages at Oxford), that "not an English jury could now-a-days
Lastly, to close this too long, and yet too rapid and imperfect sketch of some of the work performed by modern inductive Archæology, let me merely here add,—for the matter is too important to omit,—that, principally since the commencement of this century, Archæology has sedulously sat down among the old and forbidding stores of musty, and often nearly illegible manuscripts, charters, cartularies, records, letters, and other written documents, that have been accumulating for hundreds of years in the public and private collections of Europe, and has most patiently and laboriously culled from them annals and facts having the most direct and momentous bearing upon the acts and thoughts of our mediæval forefathers, and upon the events and persons of these mediæval times. By means of this last type of work, the researches of the antiquary have to a wonderful degree both purified and extended the history of this and of the other kingdoms of Europe. These researches have further, and in an especial manner, thrown a new flood of light upon the inner and domestic life of our ancestors, and particularly upon the conditions of the middle and lower grades of society in former times,—objects ever of primary moment to the researches of Archæology in its services, as the workman and the pioneer of history. For, truly, human history, as it has been hitherto usually composed, has been too often written as if human chronicles ought to detail only the deeds of camps and courts—as if the number of men murdered on particular battle-fields, and the intrigues and treasons perpetrated in royal and lordly antechambers, were the sum total of actual knowledge which it was of any moment to transmit from one generation of men to another. In gathering, however, from the records of the past his materials for the true philosophy of history, the archæologist finds—and is now teaching the public to find—as great an attraction in studying the arts of peace as in studying the arts of war; for in his eyes the life, and thoughts, and faith of the merchant, and craftsman, and churl, are as important as those of the knight, and nobleman, and prince—with him the peasant is as grand and as genuine a piece of antiquity as the king.
Small in extent, scant in population, and spare in purse, as Scotland confessedly is, yet, in the cultivation of Archæology she has in these modern times by no means lagged behind the other and greater kingdoms of Europe. This observation is attested by the rich and valuable Museum of Scottish antiquities which this Society has gathered together—a Museum which, exclusively of its large collection of foreign coins, now numbers above 7000 specimens, for nearly 1000 of which we stand indebted to the enlightened zeal and patriotic munificence of one Scottish gentleman, Mr. A. Henry Rhind of Sibster. The same fact is attested also by the highly valuable character of the systematic works on Scottish Archæology which have been published of late years by some of our colleagues, such as the masterly Pre-historic Annals of Scotland, by Professor Daniel Wilson; the admirable volume on Scotland in the Middle Ages, by Professor Cosmo Innes; and the delightful Domestic Annals of Scotland, by Mr. Robert Chambers. The essays also, and monographs on individual subjects in Scottish Archæology, published by Mr. Laing, Lord Neaves, Mr. Skene, Mr. Stuart, Mr. Robertson, Mr. Fraser, Captain Thomas, Mr. Burton, Mr. Napier, Mr. M'Kinlay, Mr. M'Lauchlan, Dr. Wise, Dr. J.A. Smith, Mr. Drummond, etc., all strongly prove the solid and successful interest which the subject of Scottish Archæology has in recent times created in this city. The recent excellent town and county histories published by Dr. Peter Chalmers, Messrs. Irving, Jeffrey, Jervise, Pratt, Black, Miller, etc., afford evidences to the same effect. Nor can I forget in such an enumeration the two complete Statistical Accounts of Scotland. But if I were asked to name any one circumstance, as proving more than another the attention lately awakened among our countrymen by antiquarian
But let us not cheat and cozen ourselves into idleness and apathy by reflecting and rejoicing over what has been done. For, after all, the truth is, that Scottish Archæology is still so much in its infancy, that it is only now beginning to guess its powers, and feel its deficiencies. It has still no end of lessons to learn, and perhaps some to unlearn, before it can manage to extract the true metal of knowledge from the ore and dross of exaggeration in which many of its inquiries have become enveloped. At this present hour we virtually know far less of the Archæology and history of Scotland ten or fifteen centuries ago than we know of the Archæology and history of Etruria, Egypt, or Assyria, twenty-five or thirty centuries ago.
In order to obtain the light which is required to clear away the dark and heavy mists which thus obscure the early Archæology of Scotland, how should we proceed? In the pursuits and investigations of Archæology, as of other departments of science, there has never yet been, and never will be discovered, any direct railway or royal road to the knowledge which we are anxious to gain, but which we are inevitably doomed to wait for and to work for. The different branches of science are Gordian knots, the threads of which we can only hope to unwind and evolve by cautious assiduity, and slow, patient industry. Their secrets cannot be summarily cut open and exposed by the sword of any son of Philip. But, in our daydreams, it is not unpleasant sometimes to imagine the possibility of such a feat. It was, as we all know, very generally believed, in distant antiquarian times, that occasionally dead men could be induced to rise, and impart all sorts of otherwise unattainable information to the living. This creed, however, has not been limited to those ancient times, for, in our own days, many sane persons still profess to believe in the possibility of summoning the spirits of the departed from the other world back to this sublunary sphere. When they do so, they have always hitherto, as far as I have heard, encouraged these spirits to perform such silly juggling tricks, or requested them to answer such trivial and frivolous questions, as would seem to my humble apprehension to be almost insulting to the grim dignity and solemn character of any respectable and intelligent ghost. If, like Owen Glendower, or Mr. Home, I had the power to "call spirits from the vasty deep," and if the spirits answered the call, I—being a practical man—would fain make a practical use of their presence. Methinks I should feel grossly tempted, for example, to ask such of them as had the necessary foreknowledge, to rap out for me, in the first instance, the exact state of the English funds, or of the London stock and share-list, a week or a month hence; for such early information would, I opine—if the spirits were true spirits—be rather an expeditious and easy mode of filling my coffers, or the coffers of any man who had the good sense of plying these spiritual intelligences with one or two simple and useful questions. If, however, the spirits refused to answer such golden interrogatories as involving matters too mercenary and not sufficiently ghostly in their character, then I certainly should next ask them—and I would of course select very ancient spirits for the purpose—hosts of questions regarding the state of society, religion, the arts, etc., at the time when they themselves were living denizens of this earth. Suppose, for a moment, that our Secretaries, on summoning the next meeting of this Society, had the power of announcing in their billets that, by "some feat of magic mystery," a very select and intelligent deputation of ancient Britons and Caledonians, Picts, Celts, and Scots, and perhaps of Scottish Turanians, were to be present in our Museum—(certainly the most appropriate room in the kingdom for such a reunion)—for a short sederunt, somewhere between twilight and cock-crowing, to answer any questions which the Fellows might choose to ply them with, what an excitement would such an announcement create! How eagerly would some of our Fellows look forward to the results of one or two such "Hours with the Mystics." And what a battery of quick questions would be levelled at the members of this deputation on all the endless problems involved in Scottish Archæology. I think we may readily, and yet pretty certainly, conjecture a few of the questions, on our earlier antiquities alone, that would be put by various members that I might name, as:—
What is the signification of the so-called "crescent" and "spectacle" ornaments, and of the other unique symbols that are so common upon the 150 and odd ancient Sculptured Stones scattered over the north-eastern districts of Scotland?
What is the true reading of the old enigmatic inscriptions upon the Newton and St. Vigean's stones, and of the Oghams on the stones of Logie, Bressay, Golspie, etc.?
Had Solinus Polyhistor, in the fourth century, any ground for stating that an ancient Ulyssean altar, written with Greek letters, existed in the recesses of Caledonia?
Who were Vetta, Victus, Memor, Loinedinus, Liberalis, Florentius, Mavorius, etc., whose names are recorded on the Romano-British monuments at Kirkliston, Yarrow, Kirkmadrine, etc., and what is the date of these monuments?
By what people was constructed the Devil's Dyke, which runs above fifty miles in length from Loch Ryan into Nithsdale?
When, and for what purpose, was the Catrail dug?
Was it on the line of the Catrail, or of the Roman wall between the Forth and Clyde, or on what other ground, that there was fought the great battle or siege of Cattraeth or Kaltraez, which Aneurin sings of in his Gododin, and where, among the ranks of the British combatants, were "three hundred and sixty-three chieftains wearing the golden torcs" (some specimens, of which might yet perhaps be dug up on the battle-field by our Museum Committee, seeing three only of these chiefs escaped alive); and how was the "bewitching mead" brewed, that Aneurin tells us was far too freely partaken of by his British countrymen before and during this fierce struggle with the Saxon foe?
Is the poet Aneurin the same person as our earliest native prose historian Gildas, the two appellations being relatively the Cymric and Saxon names of the same individual? Or were they not two of the sons or descendants of Caw of Cwm Cawlwyd, that North British chief whose miraculous interview with St. Cadoc near Bannawc (Stirlingshire?) is described in the life of that Welsh saint?
Of what family and rank was the poet—Merddin Wyllt—or "Merlin the Wild," who, wearing the chieftain's golden torc, fought at the battle of Arderydd, about A.D. 573, against Rhydderch Hael, that king of Alcluith or Dumbarton, who was the friend of St. Columba, and "the champion of the (Christian) faith," as Merlin himself styles him? And when that victory was apparently the direct means of establishing this Christian king upon the throne of Strathclyde, and the indirect means which led to the recall of St. Kentigern from St. Asaph's to Glasgow, how is it that the Welsh Triads talk of it enigmatically as a battle for a lark's nest?
If Ossian is not a myth, when and where did he live and sing? Was he not an Irish Gael? And could any member of the deputation give us any accurate information about our old nursery friend Fingal or Fin Mac Coul? Was he really, after all, not greater, or larger, or any other than simply a successful and reforming general in the army of King Cormac of Tara, and the son-in-law of that monarch of Ireland?
From what part of Pictland did King Cormac obtain, in the third century, the skilled mill-wright, Mac Lamha, to build for him that first water-mill which he erected in Ireland, on one of the streams of Tara? And is it true, as some genealogists in this earthly world believe, that the lineal descendants of this Scottish or Pictish mill-wright are still millers on the reputed site of this original Irish water-mill?
The apostate Picts (Picti apostati) who along with the Scots are spoken of by St. Patrick in his famous letter against Coroticus, as having bought for slaves some of the Christian converts kidnapped and carried off by that chief from Ireland, were they inhabitants of Galloway, or of our more northern districts? And was the Irish sea not very frequently a "middle passage" in these early days, across which St. Patrick himself and many others were carried from their native homes and sold into slavery?
Was it a Pictish or Scottish, a British or a Roman architect that built "Julius' howff," at Stenhouse (Stone-house) on the Carron, and what was its use and object?
Were our numerous "weems," or underground houses, really used as human abodes, and were they actually so very dark, that when one of the inmates ventured on a joke, he was obliged—as suggested by "Elia"—to handle his neighbour's cheek to feel if there was any resulting smile playing upon it?
When, and by whom were reared the Titanic stone-works on the White Caterthun, and the formidable stone and earth forts and walls on the Brown Caterthun, on Dunsinane, on Barra, on the Barmekyn of Echt, on Dunnichen, on Dunpender, and on the tops of hundreds of other hills in Scotland?
How, and when, were our Vitrified Forts built? Was the vitrification of the walls accidental, or was it not rather intentional, as most of us now believe? In particular, who first constructed, and who last occupied the remarkable Vitrified Forts of Finhaven in Angus, and of the hill of Noath in Strathbogie? Was not the Vitrified Fort of Craig-Phadric, near Inverness, the residence of King Brude, the son of Meilochon, in the sixth century; and if so, is it true, as stated in the Irish Life of St. Columba, that its gates were provided with iron locks?
When, by whom, and for what object, were the moats of Urr, Hawick, Lincluden, Biggar, and our other great circular earth mounds of the same kind, constructed? Were they used for judicial and legal purposes, like the old Things of Scandinavia; and as the Tinwald Mount in the island of Man is used to this day? And were not some of them military or sepulchral works?
Who fashioned the terraces at Newlands in Tweeddale; and what was the origin of the many hillside terraces scattered over the country?
What is the age of the rock-caves of Ancrum, Hawthornden, etc., and were they primarily used as human habitations?
The sea-cave at Aldham on the Firth of Forth—when opened in 1831, with its paved floor strewed with charred wood, animal bones, limpet-shells, and apparently with a rock-altar at its mouth, having its top marked with fire, ashes adhering to its side, and two infants' skeletons lying at its base—was it a human habitation, or a Pagan temple?
What races sleep in the chambered barrows and cairns of Clava, Yarrows, Broigar, and in the many other similar old Scottish cities and houses of the dead?
By whom and for what purpose or purposes were the megalithic circles at Stennis, Callernish, Leys, Achnaclach, Crichie, Kennethmont, Midmar, Dyce, Kirkmichael, Deer, Kirkbean, Lochrutton, Torhouse, etc., etc., reared?
What were the leading peculiarities in the religious creed, faith, and festivals of Broichan and the other Caledonian or Pictish Magi before the introduction of Christianity?
When Coifi, the pagan high-priest of Edwin, the king of Northumbria and the Lothians, was converted to Christianity by Paulinus, in A.D. 627, he destroyed, according to Bede, the heathen idols, and set fire to the heathen temples and altars; but what was the structure of the pagan temples here in these days, that he could burn them,—while at the same time they were so uninclosed, that men on horseback could ride into them, as Coifi himself did after he had thrown in the desecrating spear?
Was not our city named after this Northumbrian Bretwalda, "Edwin's-burgh?" Or was the Eiddyn of which Aneurin speaks before the time of Edwin, and the Dinas Eiddyn that was one of the chief seats of Llewddyn Lueddog (Lew or Loth), the grandfather of St. Kentigern or Mungo of Glasgow, really our own Dun Edin? Or if the Welsh term "Dinas" does not necessarily imply the high or elevated position of the place, was it Caer Eden (Cariden, or Blackness), at the eastern end of the Roman Wall, on the banks of the Forth?
Did our venerable castle rock obtain the Welsh name of Din or Dun Monaidh, from its being "the fortress of the hill," and was its other Cymric appellation Agnedh, connected with its ever having been given as a marriage-portion (Agwedh)? Or did its old name of Maiden Castle, or Castrum Puellarum, not rather originate in its olden use as a female prison, or as a school, or a nunnery?
And is it true, as asserted by Conchubhranus, that the Irish lady Saint, Darerca or Monnine, founded, late in the fifth century, seven churches (or nunneries?) in Scotland, on the hills of Dun Edin, Dumbarton, Stirling, Dunpelder, and Dundevenal, at Lanfortin near Dundee, and at Chilnacase in Galloway?
When, and by whom, were the Round Towers of Abernethy, Brechin, and Eglishay built? Were there not in Scotland or its islands other such "turres rotundae mirâ arte constructae," to borrow the phrase of Hector Boece regarding the Brechin tower?
If St. Patrick was, as some of his earliest biographers aver, a Strathclyde Briton, born about A.D. 387 at Nempthur (Nemphlar, on the Clyde?) and his father Calphurnius was, as St. Patrick himself states in his Confession, a deacon, and his grandfather Potitus a priest, then he belonged to a family two generations of which were already office-bearers in Scotland in the Christian Church;—but were there many, or any such families in Scotland before St. Ninian built his stone church at Whithern about A.D. 397, or St. Palladius, the missionary of Pope Celestine, died about A.D. 431, in the Mearns? And was it a mere rhetorical flourish, or was there some foundation for the strong and distinct averment of the Latin father Tertullian, that, when he wrote, about the time of the invasion of Scotland by Severus (circa A.D. 210), there were places in Britain beyond the limits of the Roman sway already subject to Christ?
When Dion Cassius describes this invasion of Scotland by Severus, and the Roman Emperor's loss of 50,000 men in the campaign, does he not indulge in "travellers' tales," when he further avers that our Caledonian ancestors were such votaries of hydropathy that they could stand in their marshes immersed up to the neck in water for live-long days, and had a kind of prepared homœopathic food, the eating of a piece of which, the size of a bean, entirely prevented all hunger and thirst?
Cæsar tells us that dying the skin blue with woad was a practice common among our British ancestors some 1900 years ago;—are Claudian
According to Cæsar, the Britons wore a moustache on the upper lip, but shaved the rest of the beard; and the sole stone—fortunately a fragment of ancient sculpture—which has been saved from the ruins of the old capital of the Picts at Forteviot, shows a similar practice among them. But what did they shave with? Were their razors of bronze, or iron, or steel? And where, and by whom, were they manufactured?
Was the state of civilisation and of the arts among the Caledonians, when Agricola invaded them, about A.D. 80 or 81, as backward as some authorities have imagined, seeing that they were already so skilled in, for example, the metallurgic arts, as to be able to construct, for the purposes of war,—chariots, and consequently chariot-wheels, long swords, darts, targets, etc.?
As the swords of the Caledonians in the first century were, according to Tacitus, long, large, and blunt at the point, and hence in all probability made of iron, whence came the sharp-pointed leaf-shaped bronze swords so often found in Scotland, and what is the place and date of their manufacture? Were they earlier? And what is the real origin of the large accumulation of spears and other instruments of bronze, some whole, and others twisted, as if half-melted with heat, which, with human bones, deer and elk-horns, were dredged up from Duddingston Loch about eighty years ago, and constituted, it may be said, the foundation of our Museum? Was there an ancient bronze-smith shop in the neighbourhood; or were these not rather the relics of a burned crannoge that had formerly existed in this lake, within two miles of the future metropolis of Scotland?