336 
There may be more elaborate patterns and devices on some 
than on others, but it is the same unimproved and unim- 
proving genius which has in all cases prompted and executed 
them. 
Taking the vases altogether, there seems to be no mode of 
characterising them more suitable than that adopted by the 
late Mr. Bateman, when speaking of the lot which were (as 
above noticed) surreptitiously obtained from certain houes on 
our moors, and which, after the death of the man who obtained 
them, passed into that eminent collector's hands. " I can 
assure you/' he wrote, " that every object thus foimd is of 
primaeval, or, as commonly termed, Celtic date, and of a 
relatively early period in that indefinitely ancient age." 
I am, therefore, more inclined to estimate the age of the 
war-hammer noticed above by the unvarying character of the 
pottery of the entire neighbourhood, and the other con- 
temporaneous remains, than to assign an exceptional era to 
the containing pottery from the article which in this particular 
case was found enclosed : and I am inclined to believe 
that just as the Greek coins infinitely surpass the Roman in 
point of art and finish ; — nay, even the later Greek are not 
equal to the earlier of the same group ; and while it is no 
unusual circumstance to find early brasses, from about the four- 
teenth century which are fine and good, many of the latest, or 
those about 1580 to 1600 being relatively poor or even com- 
parative scratches ; so, when once the art of fabricating flint 
and stone weapons had passed out of its first and empirical 
stages, and the perfectly shaped and nicely adapted 
instrument was become producible at will, that the next 
stage was to polish and otherwise complete and beautify the 
result of the moulder's skill. JNor do I believe that such 
care and pains-taking in the formation of the implements of 
war and the chase would pass away before the accomplished 
introduction of infinitely more perfect cutting instruments, 
no longer fashioned with tedious toil out of so intractable a 
