‘ 478 
ference itself is of the deepest moment. Where the material 
of which implements are composed itself defines the form which 
will be imposed upon them, there can be but little variety, and 
the difference can never be characteristic; but where the ma- 
terial is of such a nature that free play is given to the artistic 
feelings of the workman—where, as in clay or bronze, he is at 
liberty to impose what form and lines he will upon the yield- 
ing material, then the spirit and feeling of art reveals itself in 
the form which he adopts, and the prevalence of this may be 
made the measure of his culture. There is nothing more cha- 
racteristic than the pottery of those early races, because the 
material enabled the workman to give to it whatever shape 
his feelings induced him to devise; and I believe that though 
the careful study of ancient ceramic art will show that the 
graceful forms of the Greek potter had very likely at some 
early period found their way even to the coast of the Baltic, 
and remained there as models to be imitated—readily imitated, 
indeed, —but still the instructed eye recalled the tradition of a 
higher culture, and added one link more to the chain which 
binds the civilization of the North and of the South together. 
‘¢ Tam painfully conscious how imperfectly I have touched 
many of the important subjects on which I had-to speak, and 
I would not have ventured to claim your attention for so long 
a period but for the strong feelings of respect I have for many 
labourers of your body, and for the wish that we may be found 
hereafter working as much as possible together in one well- 
considered spirit of united inquiry. No man values higher 
than myself that noble spirit which makes us look with love 
upon the records of our own ancestors, and of our own land; 
nor can any man feel prouder than myself in the conviction of 
the high state of culture to which the earliest denizens of this 
island had attained. It is this feeling which induces us to 
adopt a study which has but little attraction for the great mass 
of mankind, and must be pursued with little sympathy and no 
profit; which supports us during inquiries that must be made 
