By the Rev. Cation J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. 333 



of which we know little or nothing Our remote ancestors seem to 

 have been of the same way of thinking as one of the ancient 

 Pharaohs, of whom a story is told. " When the art of writing was 

 discovered in that country the ingenious inventor went to show it 

 to the king. ' What use/ said he, ' do you mean to make of this?' 

 'To help memory, Sire/ was the answer. 'No/ said the King, 

 'you will not help memory : you will destroy memory : because, if 

 my people put things down in writing and trust to the paper, they 

 won't take the pains to remember them : so your fine invention will 

 do more harm than good.' " It did not occur to him that however 

 carefully the memory is cultivated and writing neglected, still, when 

 men die their memory dies with them, and if what they knew was 

 worthy of being known hereafter but was not committed to writing, 

 posterity was not likely to know much about it. That is the reason 

 why we are almost in the dark about some periods of English history. 

 Perhaps, as archaeologists, you may feel disposed to say " It is 

 well for us they dii not record everything, for if they had, and the 

 records had survived^ our occupation had gone." 



Boundary Line. 



The total length of the line that divides the county of Southampton 

 from the shire of Wilts is about sixty miles : and it begins, towards 

 the north, at a point called Buttermere Corner, where Wilts, 

 Berks, and Hants meet. Buttermere itself is a little village on the 

 Wiltshire side. Not far ofi^, but in Hampshire, and at the northern- 

 most point of it, is another little village called Combe, of which I 

 have a very pleasant recollection, having passed two following 

 summers there, for reading purposes, whilst I was an undergraduate 

 at Oxford. I was never in this part of England before, and Combe 

 was my first perch in the south. Combe is a very common name 

 for villages, especially near the downs or other ranges of hills. 

 The word is Welsh, and means a particular kind of valley : for all 

 vallies are not combes. Two ranges of hills may be divided by a 

 narrow valley, as at Clifton near Bristol. That is the valley of the 

 Avon ; but it is not a combe. I believe that a combe proper is a 



VOL. XXI. NO. LXIII. z 



