254 REVIEWS — HISTORY OF ANCIENT POTTERY. 



Hence on the "book and volume of the brain" there are produced 

 sparse and detached bright spots instead of a broad sheet of diffused 

 light illustrating in clear display the wide expanse, teeming with rich- 

 ness, gravid with genetic force. "W. S. 



History of Ancient Pottery. By Samuel Birch. F. S. A. 2 vols. 

 8vo. London : John Murray. 1858. 



The value of fictile remains of ancient art, as instructive memo- 

 rials of the past, grows more and more in general appreciation ; and 

 now, through the labors of Mr. Samuel Birch, of the British Mu- 

 seum, we are in possession of a highly condensed and portable book 

 of reference on nearly all that relates to the history and classifica- 

 tion of ancient pottery. The subject is no insignificant one in the 

 hands of an arch^ologist so accomplished and laborious. The pot- 

 ter's art has, in all lands, long preceded the labors of the chronicler 

 of history, and has thereby preserved to us many a lively record of 

 ages whose heroes are all unsung. The primeval civilization of 

 Egypt and Assyria is thus exhibited, and the oldest definite chroni- 

 cles of the East come down to us in like manner, — not on papyrus 

 or parchment, but on the potter's clay. From the bricks of Egypt 

 have been recovered names of her ancient dynasties, and the car- 

 touches of Pharaohs, whose architectural memorials Time slowly 

 erases from the half-deciphered history of the Nile-valley. The 

 Assyrian and Babylonian bricks have become inseparably associated, 

 in the popular mind, with the mysteries of Cuneatic inscriptions ; 

 while in later and more familiar eras of ancient history, the im- 

 pressed brick gives us the names of Eoman Consuls, and appropri- 

 ates the works of Roman cohorts. Thus we find the tiles of Chester, 

 the Roman Deva, bearing the name and title of the Twentieth Le- 

 gion, LEG. xx. v.v. Again, at York, we learn from like fictile 

 chronicles, that the military architecture of the E-oman Eburacum, 

 was executed by the Second, and by the Ninth Spanish Legion, 

 liEG. VI. VICT, and leg. ix. hisp. ; while of greater interest is the 

 accepted interpretation of the OL. be. generally found on the Ro- 

 man bricks and tiles discovered along the Kentish coast, the classiarii 

 Britannici — the marines of the British fleet ; or the more conjec- 

 tural rendering of the P. P. be. loist. of the London tiles — propr<stor 

 BritannicB Londiniiy which, if accepted, establishes the metropoli- 



