MONUMENTAL ART IN EARLY ENGLAND, ETC. 211 



connection with the Irish monuments we have considered, and 

 we must attribute it to an earlier race than the cross- 

 builders, or to the time of an earlier basis of worship than 

 theirs. 



We enter upon an entirely new series of questions when we 

 enter upon the corresponding monumental remains of early 

 Caledonia. We have there large numbers of standing stone 

 slabs, with, on one side, crosses wrought with elaborate and 

 intricate interlacements, accompanied by dragons and other 

 creatures knotted up and fettered by the power of the Cross ; 

 and on the other side of the slab crowds of horsemen, hounds, 

 various animals, and, constantly recurring, one or more of 

 three unique symbols, called respectively the " elephant," the 

 " crescent " and the " spectacles." The " elephant," which, like 

 the other two, is of very frequent recurrence, has all the appear- 

 ance of being drawn originally by someone who had only glanced 

 hastily at an elephant once, when its trunk happened to be 

 thrown back. The " crescent," with the beautiful pins through 

 it jointed at an angle, is like the golden ornament of the head of 

 a king. The " spectacles," again, with beautiful jointed pins 

 through the connecting links, are exactly like the great circular 

 buttons on either side of the upper part of the royal robe, with 

 fastenings made safe with the pins. These circular buttons 

 and their ornamentation are exactly like golden buttons found 

 by Schlieman in old Mycen&. Some writers trace them all 

 to sun worship. 



These were probably the " figures," " marked out with iron 

 pricks," which the Roman soldiers gazed at on the bodies of 

 the " dying Pict," as the poet Claudian tells, a.d. 400, trans- 

 ferred by stencil plates to memorial and boundary stones when 

 the Christian preachers clothed the half-naked Pict. 



Unlike the Anglian and the Hibernian stones, the whole of 

 these Pictish stones are silent, with one exception. On the 

 other hand, there was for a short time an outburst of Ogam 

 inscriptions in one part of Caledonia, probably due to the 

 missionary work of a Scot, who went to Ireland to study and 

 came back to work among his own countrymen as a bishop in 

 Buchan, having, no doubt, in his train some attendant who 

 knew and could cut the Ogam script, and did so cut his master's 

 name. Accordingly, the Annals of Ulster tell us under the 

 year 669 " Itarnan died among the Picts." The monuments 

 of the Scots in Argyleshire are of an Irish order. 



