OGBURY BARROWS 289 



necessary personal connection witli arclineology in any way. 

 He (or she) is a human being, of assorted origin, age, and 

 sex, known as an archtcologist then and there on no other 

 ground than the possession of a ticket (price half-a-guinea) 

 for that particular archfeological meeting. Who would 

 not be a man (or woman) of science on such easy and un- 

 exacting terms ? Moft archaeologists within my own 

 private experience, indeed, are ladies of various ages, many 

 of them elderly, but many more young and pretty, whose 

 views about the styles of English architecture or the exact 

 distinction between Durotriges and Damnonians are of the 

 vaguest and most shadowy possible description. You all 

 drive in brakes together to the various points of interest in 

 the surrounding country. When you arrive at a point of 

 interest, somebody or other with a bad cold in bis head 

 reads a dull paper on its origin and nature, in which there 

 is fortunately no subsequent examination. If you are 

 burning to learn all about it, you put your hand up to 

 your ear, and assume an attitude of profound attention. 

 If you are not burning with the desire for information, 

 you stro]l off casually about the grounds and gardens 

 with the prettiest and pleasantest among the archaeological 

 sisters, whose acquaintance you have made on the way 

 thither. Sometimes it rains, and then you obtain an 

 admirable chance of offering your neighbour the protection 

 afforded by your brand-new silk umbrella. By-and-by the 

 dull paper gets finished, and som.ebody who lives in an 

 adjoining house volunteers to provide you with luncheon. 

 Then you adjourn to the parish church, where an old 

 gentleman of feeble eyesight reads a long and tedious 

 account of all the persons whose monuments are or are not 

 to be found upon the walls of that poky little building. 

 Nobody listens to him ; but everybody carries away a vague 

 impression that some one or other, temp. Henry the Second, 



