162 



that appeals not to our sethestic feelings and imaginations for its 

 heauty of outline, but something that appeals to us as English- 

 men, something which we may look at with the same indulgence 

 and tenderness of feeling as we look at the drawings of our own 

 children, and in that point of view Saxon sculpture is intensely 

 interesting. There i^ found up in that wall what I think may 

 be taken as a specimen of the palmy period, an example of early 

 Saxon sculpture, because in a later period they had lost something 

 of their artistic ability. By the way, let me pause a moment to illus- 

 trate what I mean about the difference in the later pei'iod. It is in the 

 early period that we have the best worksof art,notinthelate period. 

 By the early period I mean the period before the ninth century, 

 a period in which our national existence was imperilled, out of 

 which we were drawn by the heroism of Alfred, and this was the 

 achievement which makes him a great national hero. Well, before 

 that time, art had gained a higher perfection than it ever gained 

 afterwards up to the time of the Conquest. One little example. 

 Of the whole series of Anglo-Saxon coins during that 500 years 

 the most beautiful as works of art are the denarii of King Offa_ 

 King Offa died in the year 793, and the most perfect works of ait 

 in the Saxon period are his coins. That is an illustration of 

 what I mean. The early period is the period of the best Saxon 

 art, and the later period is a period of recover}' from an enormous 

 shock. 



The sculpture to which I have referred represents two 

 angels, which we may suppose are in a flying or soaring 

 position, almost horizontal in their figures, and evidently looking 

 towards some object, inasmuch as they are looking, as it were, to 

 one another ; but in all probability there was the head of the 

 cross between them, and perhaps the head of the Lord himself, 

 and these angels must have been, as it were, wor.shiping, 

 waiting, tending or serving the crucified one. That is pro- 

 bably the meaning of the composition of which they are the relics. 

 There is another piece of Saxon sculpture of which, however, I am 



