( xi ) 



hidden in darkness. Did the West Britons borrow the germs of this sys- 

 tem fromEune writing nations or vice versa, or else are we to regard Runes 

 and Oghams as of independent growth ? These are questions which 

 still remain to be solved, and the cryptic Eunesof Scandinavian nations 

 seem to be too late to assist us in answering them, though they betray 

 a great similarity of principle. It is noteworthy that British Ogham 

 writing is to be traced back to a time when we may reasonably sup- 

 pose Cymric nationality to have revived, and a reaction against Roman 

 habits and customs to have to a certain extent taken place when the 

 last Roman soldier had taken his departure from our island." 



To revert again to the errors into which we have been tempted to 

 fall by too hasty conclusions, formed before any system of comparative 

 archseology could be arrived at, it is manifest that in dealing with our 

 megalithic monuments, and even with the architectural remains of a 

 later period, serious mistakes have been made. Certain similarities of 

 structure and design have been observed to exist between our earliest 

 architectural works and those of the primitive builders in Greece and 

 Latium, and these similarities have been held to prove similarity of 

 race, although it does not appear that there is any idiosyneracy or pecu- 

 liar character in such structures or designs, sufficient to base any 

 argument upon, or whether while such forms are common to two or 

 three races at certain stages in their development, they may not also be 

 common to many more. To bear out the theory of the early Greek 

 colonization of Ireland another argument was used, founded on certain 

 similarities in bronze weapons of Ireland and Greece, but now we 

 know that the use of such was common to many places and in many 

 periods, and that the Irish weapons do not resemble those of the Greeks 

 more than do the weapons found in Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe. 

 No argument can be drawn as yet from the discovery of such bronze 

 weapons as are found in Ireland, for it still seems to be uncertain when 

 they were used in any particular region or by whom. The Greeks in 

 the time of Homer used them, and the Egyptian monuments show 

 us that on the Kile they were used at a very early period, while 

 they have also been found in the Assyrian palaces, but it remains 

 as yet unknown by what people they were used all over Europe. 



It does seem as if certain similarities in forms of architecture 

 and design might occur accidentally, might all belong to what" 

 may be termed the architecture of necessity, and such forms are 



