LITERATURE AND SCIENCE OF ENGLAND. 33 



design and execute according to the chastest models 

 of Grecian art. Some of our inscribed marbles are 

 cut with peculiar delicacy and beauty. The bronze 

 head which is among the ornaments in the Guild- 

 Hall, part of a statue the remainder of which may 

 one day be discovered, is the work of no ordinary 

 hand. It may be questioned, indeed, whether it was 

 the performance of any resident artist. But that it 

 was so is rendered probable by the discovery that 

 the processes of metallurgy must have been carried 

 on in this place to a considerable extent, because that 

 here was a manufactory of the instruments used by 

 the Romans in war. From this it is inferred that 

 here were the furnaces necessary for the casting of 

 the bronze in question ; and some of the skill which 

 such a work required in those who had to shape the 

 ensigns or to form the devices on the shields of the 

 Roman warriors. [4] 



With attention to the arts a literary spirit is 

 generally united. But the dawn of the literature of 

 England is to be fixed at a period after the retreat 

 of the Romans from Britain, and when the anarchy 

 which prevailed during the fifth and sixth centuries 

 had given place to settled and regular government. 

 Before England acknowledged only one sovereign it 

 had begun to have its national literature. Alcuin 

 and Bede, northern men, were among the most emi- 



D 



