taries of local franchises and provincial customs;-a chapter in our history too long neglected, since by means of such information the greater part of all that is peculiar in our laws and manners might probably at one time have been traced to its origin, accounted for, and explained.

Meantime, throughout the whole of the eighteenth century, archæology, properly so called, continued gradually developing itself. A number of books, under the form of tours through England, as well as various works of a more pictorial character, which appeared during the earlier half of the last century, show that people in general were paying much more attention than formerly to the remains of antiquity which are scattered over the island. Unfortunately, this new antiquarianism fell into the hands of a class of persons totally different from the scholars of the previous age. They were fanciful men, at home only in the wild region of conjectural speculation. Instead of deducing knowledge from a comparison of facts, they began by systems and theories, to which, by force of distortion and misrepresentation, they were bent on making their facts conform. The grand type of this school, in the earlier half of the eighteenth century, was the antiquary Stukeley. It was afterwards worthily represented by Vallancey and Pownall. It is impossible now to calculate the amount of industry in writing, and of paper in printing, which have been wasted by the Bryants, and the Maurices, and so many others, in spreading abroad extensive theories-with nothing to rest them on, beyond an absolute ignorance of the meaning of the larger portion of the monuments brought forward in their support. Antiquarianism of this stamp, however, was too attractive and romantic, as well as too easy, not to find a multitude of followers; and it is hardly extinct at the present day. The proceedings of this school, from overlooking the essential objects of the science, and from raising trifles into importance, have the unfortunate distinction of having exposed the study of antiquities to popular ridicule more than any other. The readers of our lighter literature owe to it the virtuosos of Addison and Arbuthnot.

However, historical and philological learning still had friends. At the very beginning of the century, a few of the last scholars of the better school of the preceding age, such as Wanley, Madox, Elstob, and Peter le Neve, had formed themselves into a small society, with similar objects to those of the society formed more than a century before by Archbishop Parker. The outward influence of this incipient association is hardly perceived, until, in 1751, it was metamorphosed, by a royal charter,

into the present Society of Antiquaries. It had previously met in some of the London taverns; it now took apartments in Chancery Lane, which it quitted, in 1780, for rooms in Somerset House, given to it by George III. Its incorporation gave it a sanction, a local habitation, and a name; but charters cannot always give members sense, any more than they could teach Foote manners. And unluckily there was no early success sufficiently brilliant to awe the scoffers, or give courage to gossips and shabby friends. In 1772, Horace Walpole has entered among his notes:

I had long left off going to the Antiquarian Society. This summer I heard that they intended printing some more foolish notes against my Richard the Third; and though I had taken no notice of their first publication, I thought they might at last provoke me to expose them. I determined, therefore, to be at liberty by breaking with them first; and Foote having brought them on the stage for sitting in council, as they had done, on Whittington and his Cat, I was not sorry to find them so ridiculous, or to mark their being so; and upon that nonsense, and the laughter that accompanied it, I struck my name out of their book. This was at the end of July.'

Shortly before this period, the society had determined on publishing its transactions; the first volume of which, under the title of 'Archæologia,' appeared in 1770, and the second in 1773; since which time it has been continued with tolerable regularity. The earlier volumes exhibit archæological science in almost all its original poverty and disorder-a vast undefined field, without pathways to guide the course, or landmarks to fix the boundary. What one man called Roman, another called British: and it seldom happened that two antiquaries agreed in the same opinion, from not having fixed upon any common principle on which to regulate their judgments. Yet, the publication of the Archæologia' was in many respects a great step gained; it drew public attention to national antiquities, and attracted many individuals to the study. Numbers have one advantage: Sow seed enough, some will grow. Above all, this publication encouraged more exact observations, and became the means of preserving them when made; thus furnishing enlarged materials for comparison to future investigators. Amid a mass of rubbish, its earlier volumes contained a few papers of considerable merit for the age in which they were written, and which led the way to a better classification in particular branches of the science.

It was in the publications of the Society of Antiquaries that the architectural antiquities of England first began to grow into a scientific system. Extended and made popular by the

labours of a Britton, the system has now been brought nearly to perfection. We perceive, also, the influence of the Society in some works of a higher class, that were published towards the end of the century. The Nenia Britannica' of Douglas, which appeared in 1793, is one of the most valuable contributions to archæological science that have yet been made in this country: None can better prove the value of large collections of antiquities of a similar description: since, by means of them, we have been enabled to classify the remains of the first portion of the Anglo-Saxon period-namely, that which intervened between the arrival of the Saxons in this island and their conversion to Christianity. Gough's Sepulchral Monuments, published from 1786 to 1796, first made manifest the historical value of a systematic study of the monumental effigies and brasses dispersed among our churches. On the whole, however, looking back upon the hundred years which make up the last century, their archæological labours produced, we must acknowledge, no great fruits: Nor had our actual knowledge, even during the first quarter of the present century, much advanced beyond its state in the days of Stukeley. The importance of the subject, it is true, was more generally felt, and a larger quantity of materials had been gathered together: But people still reasoned ill upon these materials; and, their classifications, for the most part, were erroneous. For instance, an antiquarian labourer of some repute, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, after making an elaborate classification of barrows, and having the experience of Douglas to profit by, was unable to distinguish a Saxon barrow from a British barrow. His classification of barrows is indeed altogether founded on a wrong principle; for it arranges them according to their outward appearance, instead of by their contents. In historical antiquities, we find no considerable addition to the labours of Hearne. English philology having been contemptuously cast aside, as a thing worthy only of occupying the attention of charlatans like Orator Henley, it is not to be wondered at that it evaporated at the end of the century (in spite of the bulky but injudicious dictionary of Lye) in the flimsy nonsense of Samuel Henshall. One department had better fortune. Early English poetry sprang at once into sudden popularity. The Reliques of Bishop Percy, Tyrwhitt's Chaucer, Warton's History of English Poetry, and the drier labours of the industrious but ill-tempered Ritson, prepared the way for the more careful study of texts and manuscripts in our own times. But, where can have been the study of philology, when Chatterton could venture to palm upon the public his

supposititious Rowley, with any chance of success even for a week?

We are not wanting in nationality. But the study of national antiquities has not fared so well with us, on the whole, as on the Continent. Virtually without patronage or encouragement from the great, leading to no distinction in society, it has been taken up only by those who followed it as an amusement, or who, now and then, devoted to it a portion of their leisure hours. On the Continent, especially in Germany and France, where science and literature have always received direct encouragement from the government, the case has been widely different. In the former country, the philology of the Teutonic languages was gradually reduced to a grand and intelligible system of comparison and analysis; and, in both, the remains of medieval literature have been frequently and ably edited. In France, the writings of Thierry and Guizot produced a taste for medieval antiquities and history, which, since the Revolution of 1830, have been studied with the greatest assiduity and success. In 1834, under the direction of M. Guizot, as minister of public instruction, a French Historical Commission for the publication of historical documents was established, somewhat on the plan of the English Record Commission, but much more comprehensive in its views; and in January 1835, a Commission of Archæ. ology was joined to it, under the title of 'Arts and Monuments,' with the object of preserving and illustrating the ancient monuments of the kingdom. The patronage of government was the solid foundation needful. And although under some succeeding ministers, especially Cousin and Villemain, mere archæology met with discouragement, the Commission of Arts and Monuments has, in the end, attained even a more prominent position than the other, and has filled every department of France with sound archæologists. Looking to the nature of the subject, we could not expect to have been left behind by a people so much more mercurial than ourselves, and so much more passionately attached to new ideas.

From the honours of priority, French architectural archæology, at least ecclesiastical, must, however, be excepted. In England,' (observes Mr Fergusson), as far at least as the Gothic styles are 'concerned, the architectural character of the buildings themselves has so far superseded all other evidence, that we almost forget 'the time when such strange dates were attached to our cathedrals, ' from what appeared to be the most irrefragable documentary 'evidence; and every tyro in archæology can distinguish between 'the Norman, early English, decorative, and perpendicular styles,

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' and tell at what period one was introduced or gave place to the other. But, in France, they have not yet reached even 'that stage, or are only opening their eyes to the facts of the case and within the last very few years, books have been written to prove, on documentary evidence so complete and 'positive that it is impossible to refute it, that the cathedrals of Tournay, Laon, Chartres, Coutances, &c., were built, some one, some two, and even three centuries, before or after the true period of their erection. Not long ago, the antiquaries of Caen were mystified at finding the pointed arch in ancient churches, where it ought not to have been found: and there is no pleasanter book of the kind than the late Mr Gally Knight's account of the tour he made in Normandy, with the view of ascertaining, in these questionable exceptions, how the arch had got there.

On the other hand, though the architectural antiquities of France so far from being in advance of us-may have, until lately, been behind hand; yet, at the present time, they are more on an equality with us than Mr Fergusson is aware. Their Societies of Antiquaries, it is true, are as yet novelties. That of Normandy-the oldest-is not older than 1823. What progress, however, has since been made, may be judged of by the discourse addressed to its members by its President or Directeur, at its last yearly meeting.-(Revue des Deux Mondes -last August number, p. 762.)

After observing, that their example has been followed in almost all the other provinces, that their triumph over the indifferent and the hostile had been secured by the co-operation of the government, and that le marteau des démolisseurs' was arrested, M. Vitet found it necessary to warn them against the errors into which they may be betrayed by an exclusive zeal. There are signs, it seems, of intolerance among them; but he tells them, that they must be satisfied, if the archæology of the middle age takes its proper place with other archæologies, Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Asiatic: they cannot insist upon its being l'archéologie par excellence, une science supérieure et pour ainsi dire révélée, qui n'a besoin ni de justifier ce qu'elle explique, ni de prouver ce qu'elle affirme.' There has been some talk also, it seems, of resuscitating the architecture of the middle ages in other words, some people have sought to adopt it servilely as a model, even in modern buildings, constructed for the wants of modern society. M. Vitet bids them remember, that mere imitation will be always puerile: whether it is the Parthenon which is copied, or the Cathedral of Rheims, the effect is just the same les modèles resteront sublimes, les

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