9;) 

 ESSAY INTRODUCTORY 



TO THE 



ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND. 

 Part I. 



Although in a Journal of Science and Literature, science will of course 

 occupy a prominent part, it was never intended that it should engross the 

 whole, and of that portion of our Journal which is to be devoted to literature, 

 we trust that the activity of our correspondents will not suffer Archaeology, 

 in its broad and most valuable signification, to fill up an unimportant share : 

 it would indeed be unpardonable, if, in a Journal emanating froui the me- 

 tropolitan city of the West, a portion of its pages were not to be devoted to 

 the illustration of the vast archaeological domain, of which tliat metropolis 

 is the centre. 



A variety of circumstances have conspired to make the south-western 

 provinces of Great Britain peculiarly abundant in the remains, philological, 

 traditional, and topographical, of every period of British history. The 

 ready communication by sea subsisting between those provinces and the 

 continent of Europe, the variety of surface into which the ground is moulded, 

 the fertility of the soil in some parts, and the rich and readily worked 

 mineral treasures in others, are causes, which seem long since to have at- 

 tracted an early, and given rise to an abundant, population, whose physical 

 traces still remain, in their extensive camps, in the altars and temples of 

 tiieir religious worship, and in their sepulchral monuments j vestiges of all 

 which, though found occasionally throughout the country, are more nu- 

 merous^ and on a more extensive scale, in the west. 



An archaeological enquiry into the history of the nations who liave oc- 

 cupied a country, depends for its success upon four sources of information ; 

 1. the philological remains j 2. the traditions of the country; 3. the do- 

 cument of regular history j 4. the topograpliical antiquities ; and to these 

 might in many cases be added, the testimony derived from the physical 

 conformation and intellectual character of the inhabitants. The substance 

 of the present essay will be directed towards the elucidntion of the fourth 

 of these points, the topographical remains ; but even this limited view 

 would be imperfect without some preliminary observations upon the rest. 



We shall in tlie first place consider the ancient connexions subsisting 

 between the inhabitants of Iberia and Gaul, and tiiose of the British isles. 

 Confining our observations more particularly to the latter, we shall in the 

 second place consider their history, language, religion, and topographical 

 antiquities, under three successive aeras — the British or aboriginal, the 

 Roman, and the Anglo-Saxon, with the Danish interregnum. The Norman 

 Conquest, and the changes in arts and architecture which accompanied the 

 commencement of the latter, will form the third and principal portion of 

 our essay, to u hich indeed the two pro ions jiarts may be considered as sub- 

 ordinate and introductory. 



