'58 IXTKODUCTION. 



logical science it has been of inestimable service. What should 

 we know of ancient Egypt, of her cultivation, her art, her manu- 

 factures, except so far as the imperishable monuments of stone 

 bear witness, had not the tombs preserved an endless storehouse 

 of pictures as well as of the very things themselves those pictures 

 represent. Denmark's stone, bronze, and iron ages might have 

 remained a subject of dispute amongst the learned, but for the 

 barrows and their buried contents, which have handed down to 

 us a book in whose recofd of flint and metal we may again read 

 somewhat of the history of the past. Our own English ancestors 

 might, no doubt, have been understood by us in many of their 

 great characteristics, in their obedience to law, their love of 

 justice and of freedom, and their aptitude for self-government, 

 for these by an unswerving tradition have passed down, by slow 

 gradations of change, unto ourselves. We might have known 

 something of their poetry and other writings, for Caedmon and 

 Beda and Alcuin had lived and written, and letters had early 

 taken root amongst them. We might have recognised their 

 energy, their devotion, their strong religious feeling, which made 

 them the teachers of a new and purer faith to those beyond their 

 borders ; for all Europs bears testimony to the great missionary 

 labours of the English, when Wilfrid, Willebrord, and Boniface 

 became the apostles of the Gospel to many a heathen land. But 

 without the wondrous museum of gold, and silver, and iron, and 

 precious stone, and glass, and bronze, and ivory, which the 

 cemeteries of Kent, of East-Anglia, and of middle England 

 have so carefully preserved to us, what should we have known 

 of English progress in many a developement of artistic workman- 

 ship? How should we have become cognisant of their wondrous 

 skill in goldsmith's -work ; their tasteful application of metal, 

 stone, and glass to the enrichment of personal ornaments ; their 

 knowledge of glass manufacture in beads and vessels of that 

 material ^ ; their high cultivation in art ; their great practical 

 acquaintance with the mystery of the smith? 



Natchez, who was interred with his wives, weapons, &c., is given hy Du Pratz, 

 History of Louisiana, vol. ii. p. 216, Lond. 1763, and quot<>d by Jones, Antiquities 

 of the Southern Indians, pp. 105-107. Mr. Jones states, p. 185, 'The practice of 

 depositing in the grave all articles which the deceased deemed most valuable obtained 

 among all the Southern tribes.' 



^ It is perhaps questionable whether the beads and glass vessels found in KngMsli 

 graves were not of foreign manufacture. It is certain that a very great similaritv 

 exists between those found in England and those which have occurred so plentifullv 

 in the cemeteries of north - eastern France and the Rhine district. Similaritv of 



