Page:Comprehensivehis01macf.djvu/23

 tons themselves so remiss in improving to the full those advantages of intercourse with foreigners, which they had enjoyed for so many centuries? They had been visited successively by the most enterprising and civilized of the nations, and yet had learned comparatively so little! It may be answered that civilization had entered, but had not pervaded the land. Even the most important, and yet most obvious step in advance which the Britons might have been expected to adopt — that of constructing good barks for themselves, modelled from those of the strangers, and thus carrying on such a gainful trade on their own account — appears incomprehensible. This discrepancy, however, is to some extent met by the statement of Festus Avienus, that the islands frequented by the Phoenician mariners did not produce wood for the construction of ships. Further, the peculiar genius and circumstances of the people may be taken into account — the influence of superstition under the rule of the Druids so similar to that of the Egyptian priesthood. The ancient Egyptians had the same commercial temptations, and the ability to build ships; but it appears from Herodotus that they abstained, from a loathing of the sea, looking upon it as the domain of the abhorred Typhon. The Britons evidently did not possess those national qualities that are needful for patient and enduring sailors. It was not until the Saxon and the Dane had become settled inhabitants, that the "meteor flag of England" was to float in undisputed ascendency.

Where tradition and history are both insufficient to enlighten our inquiries into the origin and condition of our early population, we have buried beneath the soil, a history which a high state of intellectual cultivation enables the inquirer to discover; and to read in obscure caverns--the places of sepulture--a lesson on the condition of those early tribes, whose record we might otherwise have abandoned in despair.

In the endeavour to comprehend the bearing of those vestiges upon our pre-historic era, a classification has been adopted, by which the implements, weapons, &c., found in barrows and excavations, are arranged under the Stone, the Bronze, and the Iron periods. This formula, however convenient, is not founded upon such sufficient authority that it can be adopted as an arbitrary rule, and instead of periods, it is more prudent to say conditions; for, with regard to the use of the materials of bronze and stone, it is probable that the one appertained to the great, and the other to the lowly, in the same way that the rich man of the present day eats his fish with a silver fork, and the poor man with an implement of Sheffield hardware. In adverting to the stone condition of the Celtic Britons, we find a great variety of weapons and implements, along with the buried remains, as the things moat valued by the departed, or adapted to his use in a future state. Among these the stone hammer appears in a variety of forms, from that of a rude stone to those in which it has been fashioned into a shapely and convenient instrument, such as is represented in the accompanying cut, No. 8. In Nos. 1, 2, 3, we see implements in their original handles of deer's horn, one a rude flake of flint the other two chisel-shaped, and suitable for flaying the carcasses of animals, &c. No. 4 is a large flake of flint, found in a tumulus at Alfreton, in Sussex, which has been chipped into an imperfect shape. Nos. 6 and C are composed of a hard greenish flint, symmetrically formed and finely polished, but of a shape unsuited for handles. In No. we observe a stone with a flexure in the sides, by which it could be held by a pliable handle bent round it, and tied at the junction, like No. 11, a stone hammer used by the natives of Northern Australia. In No. 7 the stone implement is perforated for the insertion of a handle, like No. 10, a stone hammer from Western Australia, in which a wooden handle is inserted, and further secured by a cement of native gum; but in No. 8 the sides of the stone are scooped as well as pierced, for the purpose of binding the handle with thongs or oziers. There are likewise found a variety of javelin heads, Nos. 12, 13, 16, and