Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 9.djvu/16

4 of difficulty subdued by perseverance. The most profitable remains for the study of the artist or manufacturer will of course be the productions of those periods and countries which have most affinity, in their forms of civilization and social condition, with our own; a consideration which might have appeared too obvious for mention, had we not seen it so often practically ignored.

From this rapid survey of the domain of Archaeology, let us turn to its actual condition, as it presents itself in each of these several points of view.

First, in its Historical application. It is seldom that the recovery of the actual vouchers of History from the débris of ages can be the reward of systematic research. The unconscious evidence of war, or of flight,—the heaped bones, or deposited treasure,—even, in many instances, the purposed monumental record,—the Chronicle of Paros, or the Stone of Rosetta,—are the discoveries of chance. We owe, perhaps, more original materials to the rude labours of agriculture and modern engineering, than to all the learning and skill of Academies and Institutes. Nevertheless, our own day has witnessed one of the richest acquisitions of monumental evidence which sagacious and persevering antiquarian research has ever contributed to History. The excavations lately made, and still making, in the neighbourhood of Nineveh, have raised from the silence of the tomb the eloquent memorials of events once affecting the condition of millions of mankind. Incidentally, these discoveries have reflected light on other distinct sciences: the naturalist views in the Assyrian monuments the record of animals now wholly, or partially, extinct: and the architect recognizes his most familiar forms, the Ionic volute, the guilloche ornament, the arched vault, employed long before the supposed inventions of Greece and Rome. But the inscriptions thus obtained present us with a fresh library of historical literature, still indeed but imperfectly decyphered, yet now in course of interpretation, which, from its novelty, extent, and still undetermined influence, may be said to constitute Nineveh the California of Archaeology.

In considering, secondly, that department of the Science which is devoted to the illustration of the manners, arts, and personal life of our ancestors, two occurrences of the past year must be specially mentioned, as subjects of congratulation. The one is the act of the Society of Antiquaries of