With these remarks I leave the Celtic remains in Britain; all attempts to connect together the literary notices and the antiquities of the Celts and Druids, so as to make out a history from them, have been compared to attempts to “trace pictures in the clouds[[18]].” Still we may say to the Celtic archæologist,
Θαρσεῖν χρὴ, φίλε Βύττε, τάχ’ αὔριον ἔσσετ’ ἄμεινον.
[18]. Pict. Hist. of England, Vol. I. p. 59. London, 1837.
One day matters may become clearer by the help of an extended and scientific archæology.
But of the Romano-British remains it may be necessary to say something. When we look at the map in Petrie’s Monumenta Historica Britannica, in which the Roman roads are laid down by their actual remains, we see the principal Roman towns and stations connected together by straight lines, which are but little broken. So numerous are they that we might almost fancy that we were looking at a map in an early edition of a Railway Guide. In this county they abound and have been very carefully traced, and both here and in other counties are still used as actual roads. In a few instances mile-stones have also been found. In our own country, cut off, as Virgil says, from the whole world, we do not expect the splendid monuments of Roman greatness, yet even here the temple, the amphitheatre and the bath are not unknown; and in our little Pompeii at Wroxeter we have, if my memory deceive me not, some vestiges of fresco-painting, an art of which we have such beautiful Roman examples elsewhere. But everywhere we stumble upon camps and villas; everywhere
The tesselated pavements shew
Where Roman lamps were wont to glow.
And of these lamps themselves we have an infinite number and variety, and on many of them representations of the games of the circus and of various other things, formed in relief; a remark which may also be made of their fine and valuable red Samian ware; fragments of which are commonly met with, but the vases are rarely entire. Of their other pottery, and of their glass and personal ornaments, and miscellaneous objects, I must hardly say any thing; but only observe that the Romans have left us a very interesting series of coins relating to Britain; Claudius records in gold the arch he raised in triumphant victory over us: in the same way Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Septimius Severus, besides building their great walls against us, have, as well as Caracalla and Geta, struck many pieces in silver and copper to commemorate our tardy subjugation. The British emperors or usurpers, Carausius and Allectus, have also left us very ample series of coins, and indeed it is by these, much more than by the monuments of letters, that their histories are known. In the fourth and fifth centuries the monetary art declined greatly in the Western Empire, and was on the whole at a very low ebb in the Eastern or Byzantine Empire, and in the middle ages, generally, throughout Europe.
At Constantinople a new school of Roman art arose, which exercised a powerful influence on medieval art in general. Soon after the foundation of Constantinople, Roman artists worked there in several departments with a skill by no means contemptible, though of a strangely conventional and grotesque character; and from them, as it would seem, the medieval artists of Central and Western Europe caught the love of the same crafts, and carried them to much higher excellence. I would allude in the first place, as being among the earliest, to ivory carvings, principally consular diptychs. From the time of the emperors it was the custom for consuls and other curule magistrates to make presents both to officials and their friends of ivory diptychs, which folded together like a pair of book-covers, on which sculptures in low relief were carved, as a mode of announcing their elevation. From the fourth and fifth centuries down to the fourteenth we find them, some of the earliest with classical subjects, as the triumph of Bacchus, probably of the fourth century; but mostly with Scriptural ones, or with representations of consuls. Some of these are enriched with jewellery. The inscriptions accompanying them are either in Greek or in Latin. In Germany they occur in the Carlovingian period, though rarely, and in France and Italy later still. Perhaps it should be mentioned that the ivory episcopal chair of St Maximian at Ravenna, a work of the sixth century, is the finest example extant of this class of antiques, and is doubly interesting as being one of the very few extant specimens of furniture during the first three centuries of the middle ages. Various casts of medieval ivories, it may be added, have been executed and circulated by the Arundel Society.
Another art learnt from Rome in her decline, or from Constantinople, is the illumination of MSS., which the calligraphers of the middle ages in all countries throughout Europe carried to a very high perfection. Perhaps the earliest example to be named is the Greek MS. of Genesis in the LXX, now preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna, probably of the fourth century. The vellum is stained purple, and the MS. is decorated with pictures executed in a quaint, but vigorous style. In these, we find (as M. Labarte[[19]], a great authority for medieval art, assures us) all the characters of Roman art in its decline, such as it was imported to Constantinople by the artists whom Constantine called to his new capital; and “they have served,” as he adds, “for a point of departure” in the examination which he has made of the tendencies and destinies of Byzantine art. Compare the Vatican MSS. of Terence and Virgil. I cannot be expected to enter into details about illuminations; they occur in MSS. of all sorts, more or less, in Europe, down to the sixteenth century, but especially in sacred books, such as were used in Divine service. I need only call to your remembrance the beautiful assemblage exhibited in the Fitzwilliam Museum and in the University Library, to say nothing of the treasures possessed by our different colleges.