its Value to the Archaeologist. 339 
the true and ancient pronunciation of Latin, at the end of the 
Public School Latin Grammar, and which I trust is making progress. 
It should always be remembered that in the Anglo-Saxon period, 
spelling, though variable, was much more phonetic than in recent 
English, and that when two vowels come together they ought to 
be both sounded, if possible, so as to make a proper, and not an 
improper diphthong, as English grammatists absurdly talk. 
I will now give some examples of the special value of Anglo- 
Saxon to the archzologist. One of the chief mementos we possess 
of Anglo-Saxon times is the jewel of King Alfred, picked up im 
the Isle of Athelney, in Somerset, and still preserved-in the Ash- 
molean Museum, at Oxford; I have brought here this evening a 
very beautiful and exact coloured drawing of it. It bears in archaic 
and ornamental characters the inscription: “ Aelfred mec heht ge- 
wyrean,” z.e., Alfred gave command to make me. 
Professor Earle pointed out some years ago that the form of this 
inscription marks it as belonging to the time of King Alfred, mec 
being an Archaic form of me, the accusative of “ic,” I; and heht 
being a reduplicated and archaic form of “het,” the past tense of 
“hatan,” to command. We thus require Anglo-Saxon to read and 
interpret the inscription, and critical Anglo-Saxon scholarship helps 
us to understand how the archaic form of the inscription attests the 
genuineness of King Alfred’s jewel. 
In this neighbourhood we are all happily familiar with the Downs, 
both name and thing, and probably our notion of Salisbury Plain is 
very different from that formed by those who live at a distance, and 
have never seen anything of it. We know that we have to go“ up 
at hill a long ways,” as we say hereabouts, to get on the Downs; 
that when we are there we find many ups and downs; and that even 
coming off the Downs takes some time. 
In illustration of this practical experience it seems interesting to 
know that, in Anglo-Saxon, “dun” was one of the words for hill, 
and that the history of our ordinary preposition, down, is off down, 
adown, down. 
In the account of the Deluge in Genesis vii., 20, the Anglo- 
‘Saxon version, to express “ And the water was fifteen fathoms deep 
