82 THE PURBECK SOCIETY. 



that we have scarcely any records of historical researches in the 

 Island. Under this state of things, the spade becomes our chief 

 historian, and I must consequently, earnestly press upon the 

 Society, the necessity for its use. We have, on the face of the 

 country, traces of occupation by the Briton, the Roman, the 

 Saxon, and the Dane. But those traces, worn as they are by 

 the rain and the winds of heaven, by the march of time, and by 

 the progress of cultivation, can but vaguely suggest to us, that 

 they may afford to the enquirer, information of no light value. 

 But it is only to the enquirer that they will do so ; the passing 

 eye may determine that the circular work claims a British, the 

 quadrangular, a Roman origin; that the lofty barrow, and the 

 scarcely perceptible rise alike, have contained, or do contain, 

 traces of the departed, were they British or Roman, defender 

 or invader of the barren soil. But it is reserved to the patient 

 investigation of the spade, and even of the sieve, to trace the 

 remains of the wheel or the forge, the plastic or metallic treasures 

 that have been deposited, the nature of the sacrifice, and the 

 variation of the sepulture ; to tell us that the one mound hides, 

 amid carefully piled stones, the urn of skilful workmanship, 

 while the neighbouring and loftier heap of earth can disclose 

 layers of bones consumed by fire, and of coflined skeletons telling 

 the tale of affection, beauteous in death. What is their history? 

 What their nation ? Was the fire whose trace we mark, extin- 

 guished in the blood of victims? And what victims ? Were the 

 mother and child, the husband and wife, whose remains, un- 

 divided in death, are unclosed to the eye, but not violated by 

 the hand, of the nineteenth century, laid with their faces to the 

 east, looking for a Deliverer to come from those regions of 

 which tradition may have spoken even ^^]»emtus toto divisis orhe 

 Britannis'^ ? 



Though dead, they yet may speak ; and it is with no feeling of 

 idle curiosity, with no lack of reverence for the grave, that we 

 would carefully examine the tombs, and seek for the traces of 

 the liistory of those who have lived and died, and now lie among 

 us, the cultivators or the ravagers, the invaders or the defenders, 

 of this secluded Island. 



JOHN. H. AUSTEN. 



