Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/144

102 102 NOTICES OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS. of works such as that now under consideration. A system, moreover, of conciliatory encouragement towards those, into whose hands rehcs of antiquity may casually fall, has, we are assured, essentially contributed to important scientific results, for a most useful synopsis of which the English antiquary is now indebted to Mr. Thoms. In our own country, unfortunately for the interests of science, no adequate public collection exists, as at Copenhagen, to evince that intelligent sense of the value of national anti- quities so strikingly shown on the part of the Danish government, and for which archaeologists in Great Britain have so long looked in vain. They are accordingly compelled to seek in books the information more liberally afforded, in some other countries, by access to public depositories. Wliilst no series of the cognate types of early remains from the North is displayed in our metropolis, as it has already been in Edinburgh and Dublin, through the establishment of friendly relations of interchange with the Eoyal insti- tutions for preserving the national monuments of Denmark, the antiquary is greatly indebted to those, who, like the noble and accomplished editor of the " Guide to Northern Archaeology," the Earl of EUesmere, place within his reach information so much needed. The work before us is not, it must be observed, a repetition of the interesting manual to which we have alluded. The joint production of several distinguished labourers in the field of Archaeology, — Thomsen, the founder of the invaluable Royal Museum of Copenhagen, Finn Magnussen, Rafn and others, eminent in their several departments of knowledge, — that manual forms a valuable monument of their acute energies in a most difficult investigation. In the treatise translated by Mr. Thoms, the more matured results of this scientific inquiry are conveyed for the purpose of general instniction, combined with the valuable observations of Mr. Worsaae, not only in his own country, but formed during an extensive investigation of analogous remains in the British Islands and the northern States of the Continent. British antiquities, our author, with much candour, remarks, when once sufficiently collected, examined and compared, promise more interesting and important results than have been derived from those of Denmark and most other countries, because they belong to so many and such different people. There is, therefore, still great occasion for keen and critical dis- crimination ; and we would hope that some British antiquary, emulous of Mr. Worsaae 's ardent intelligence, may be aroused to undertake the task. Much hiis been achieved since times, not long past, when the great historic periods of antiquity, subsequent to the earliest British times, seemed, in the opinion of the learned, almost limited to two, — lloman and Danish. Still, as Mr Worsaae remarks, much confusion has resulted from the want of a fixed nomenclature, and he has been warmly seconded by the translator in the endeavour to introduce a more correct terminology, an object which claims the utmost consideration. The work, which we desii-e cordially to commend to the attention of our readers, is signally interesting to the British antiquary in this respect — that it must materially aid his inquiries regarding vestiges properly to be attributed to a Danish influence in these Islands. It must candidly be admitted that, in the actual state of archaeological science, and from the