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until they were brought to light by the labours of modern archae- 

 ologists. The Gothic races differed from the Roman whom they 

 conquered in that they preferred the country to the town ; and 

 municipal habits and tastes were not cultivated by them. In this 

 there seemed to be a sufficient reason for the general desertion of 

 the Roman cities, and many instances could be cited of Roman 

 cities, now populous, which were deserted in the ninth century. 

 Chester, for instance, was a desert place in 894. In the present 

 case the disappearance of the ancient name of Akemauchester, and 

 the substitution of a totally new one, was a gi-eat argument that 

 the place passed through a period of desertion and ruin. When 

 might this period have been? In the year 577 there was a great 

 battle at Dyrham between the Saxons and the Britons, in which 

 three British kings were slain, and the Saxons became masters of 

 the three strongholds of the west, viz., Gloucester, Cirencester, and 

 Akemauchester. From this date there were just 99 years before 

 we heard anything further of Akemauchester, and then it was 

 found to bear the name of Bath. The grant of Osric for the 

 building of a monasteiy at Bath was dated Nov. 6th, 676, so that 

 in round figures there were a hundred years in which we might 

 reasonably surmise that Akemauchester was desolate. Then as to 

 the poem itself. Before he had worked out the historical question 

 of time he had asked — What, in a purely literary or philological 

 light, should be the date assigned to this poem 1 He would 

 attribute it to the seventh or eighth century ; it belonged to the 

 oldest type of Saxon poetry, to that type of which the Beowulf was 

 the most striking example. If we indulged in the hypothesis that 

 the description referred to old Akemauchester, we should find 

 some minor coincidences arising to confirm the identification. The 

 term which he had rendered as " pictured gable" was rather 

 obscure, but before he had found words to express the meaning of 

 the original he had found a thing which would answer to it, and 

 that thing was the great sculptured pediment in the Institution. 

 There was a local tinge about the phrase " lichen-spotted," which 

 he had put down in the translation. The exact Saxon was " ruddy 

 mottled," and many would know that our oolite walls had a very 

 pretty way of filming themselves over with a ruddy lichen. 



