475 
northward, and found its principal development in this island 
of the Atlantic Ocean. 
«But let me not be misunderstood. There is a peculiar 
development of the double spiral line, totally unknown to the 
Greeks, the Etruscans, and the nations of the Teutonic North, 
which is essentially characteristic, not only of the Scoto- 
Keltic, but the Britanno-Keltic populations of these islands. 
If the lines are allowed to diverge, instead of following one 
another closely in their windings, they produce that remark- 
able pattern which since a few years we have been in the habit 
of calling the trumpet pattern, and which, from one of its pe- 
culiarities, is sometimes called the thumb pattern. When this 
is represented in a plane surface, in the illuminations of MSS., 
you have that marvellously beautiful result which is familiar 
to you in the ‘ Book of Kells;’ to us in the ‘* Book of St. 
Cuthbert,’ or ‘The Durham Book,’ in the British Museum; 
and in the equally beautiful records of Scoto-Keltic self-devo- 
tion and culture in the MSS. of St. Gall in Switzerland. 
When, as is often the case in metal, this principle of the di- 
verging spiral line is carried out in repoussé—when you have 
those singularly beautiful curves—more beautiful, perhaps, in 
the parts that are not seen than in those that meet the eye— 
whose beauty, revealed in shadow more than in form—you 
have a peculiar characteristic—a form of beauty which belongs 
to no nation but our own, and to no portion of our nation but 
the Keltic portion. There are traces of it, faint and poor, but 
sufficient for identification, among the Kelts of Normandy 
and the Keltic Helvetians. But the most perfect specimens 
of it are met with in these islands: I may mention, among 
them, that exquisite specimen of workmanship, the Goodrich 
Court shield, found in the bed of the river Witham, in Lin- 
colnshire; the even prior specimens being parts of shields 
dredged out of the Thames in laying the foundations of Wa- 
terloo Bridge; the sword belonging to the Witham shield, 
now at Alnwick Castle; and one or two very beautiful spe- 
