soft, self-indulgent, voluptuous, weak, debased, and superstitious. "It (Indian art) will not draw a man, but an eight-armed monster; it will not draw a flower, but only a spiral or zigzag." A spiral or zigzag is just what the Norman carver executed, and yet Mr. Ruskin is loath to admit that he worked only from a corrupt heart and evil fancy; a conclusion in which it is easy to agree, though his mouldings seem to come under the same condemnation as the work of the Eastern designer. Were it necessary by the way to defend the Indian artist, we might point to Mr. Birdwood's Industrial Art of India, and even to Mr. Ferguson's Indian Temples, for sufficient evidence that his art was not all selfevolved, but that often there was a loving appreciation of external nature, the floral ornamentation especially being at times almost pre-Raphaelite in its honesty, while the human figure with a simple duality of arms may constantly be seen, though in hardly so emaciated condition as in Christian art. Mr. Ruskin's apology for Norman arabesque is found in the fact that it was wrought by "persons practised in carving men, monsters, wild animals, birds and flowers in overwhelming redundance." With some limitation perhaps as to redundance, the same excuse applies to Indian art, which, however, in accordance with a different theology developed into other forms than those of Romanesque. The latter gained "in truth, and therefore in grace, until just at the moment of transition into the pointed style you have the consummate type of the sculpture of the school given you in the west front of the Cathedral of Chartres." That façade is undoubtedly one of the most splendid results of the style of the first half of the 12th century; the doorways being thought by Sir G. Scott to "be probably the finest remaining of the transitional period"; it being as he remarks a characteristic of French art to lavish all the resources of decorative inventiveness upon the portals. Such exquisite work in combining human figures with the aspiring foliage and diapered ornament conveys its own apology for existence; but it may be admitted that a hardly less noble example is to be found in the north-west doorway of Lincoln Cathedral, though the enrichment is simply arabesque or rather Byzantine, the Corinthian capitals of the columns, however, being hardly in harmony with the chevron and other mouldings, with which they are related. If Lincoln be received to favour there can be no difficulty in pleading for the style in general. Not indeed that sculptured mouldings are necessary

to produce the finest effects of the Norman arch. If simplicity and dignity compose the sublime in writing, sublimity in architecture. results from the like combination. There can be no better English example of this remark than the western front of Tewkesbury Abbey, where six slender receding columns bound up to support an equally receding arch, whose apex is no less than 65 feet from the ground. In the composition there is nothing small, mean, or trivial; but without any parade of ornament there is an effect like that of some lofty cliff, whose "high and bending head looks dreadful down," the loftiness in both cases being the cause of the impression. In the stately arch of Tewkesbury ornament is no more required than in the overhanging crag in order to excite awe and admiration; but when as at Malmesbury the elevation is unimposing, there is need to awaken the attention by art device. Like the rock-cut temples of the East, the cavernous south porch of Malmesbury, exuberantly enriched both within and without, derives its effect from art treatment. A bold, plain-moulded exterior arch enshrines a series of carved mouldings of eight orders which recede and diminish till the deep interior is reached. Within the porch we find a Norman arcade with chevron moulded heads, above which on either side is a mass of barbaric sculpture in keeping with the even more rudely embellished archway which forms the immediate entrance to the church. This is perhaps the most elaborate example of a Norman entrance in England, though other noble illustrations of the kind are abundant. The lavish decoration of Adel Church, near Leeds, has given the late vicar of that church a fine opportunity of indulging his fancy for symbolic interpretation. In his Archæologia Adelensis he finds that the seven receding arches of the doorway are the "rainbow round the throne like unto an emerald," and are in some way related to the seven lamps of fire burning before the same exalted seat, which "are the seven spirits of God"; the zigzag or other indented mouldings giving the idea of brilliancy, while a plain moulding contained in the composition is the simplicity of the gospel of Christ. Where subtle parables are, there is the subtle vicar, who is no doubt right in interpreting the figures of the bull and the eagle, the lion and the human face beneath the pediment of the porch to be the symbols of the four evangelists. But when he discovers the patriarchal covenant, the law and the prophets, the four rivers of paradise, the four gospels, the rose of

Sharon, the devil, emblems of Persian fire worship, with significations of blessedness, peace, hope and faith, and charity of the bond of matrimony, of the bond and the unity of the church of brotherly love, and union expressed in certain straight or intertwisted lives, we hesitate to proceed, and rather believe that the interpreter's judgment is overmastered by his imagination.

NOTE.-Illustrations of some of the Doorways, &c., mentioned in Mr. Taylor's paper, may be found in the following works :

:

Sompting Church, Norman capitals, "Archæological Journal," vol. I., p. 34. Monkswearmouth Church, W. door, Bloxam's "Gothic Architecture," 11th ed. v. II. p. 1.

Kilpeck Church. Lewis's "Illustrations of Kilpeck," plates 13, 15, 21.

St. Augustine's Gateway, Bristol. Seyer's "Bristol," vol. II. p. 215; and "Archæologia," vol. XVI, plate 65.

Chartres Cathedral. Nesfield's "Specimens," plates 21, 23, 24, &c.

Lincoln Cathedral. Winkle's "Cathedrals," vol. II., plate 56.

Tewkesbury Abbey. Lysons' "Gloucestershire Antiquities," plate 70. "The Builder," Jan. 3rd, 1885.

Malmesbury Abbey, Porch. Knight's "Old England,” fig. 1038.

Some fine specimens of Norman doorways in Gloucestershire churches are figured by Lysons, plates 8, 36, 38, 44; and by Mr. J. P. Moore in his recently published "Architectural Sketches."

A. E. H.

Jan, your mort fackifele

Юки тази

Remarks on the

Constructors of Stanton Drew Circles, Maes Knoll Camp and the Wansdyke.

BY JOHN BEDDOE, M.D., F.R.S.

(Read at Stanton Drew, May 28th, 1884.)

I SHOULD ascribe the circles at Stanton Drew, and the other megalithic remains in that neighbourhood, to the neolithic race, some of whom were buried in the long barrows and chambered tumuli of our own and other countries, from Barbary to Scotland inclusive. This race seems to have been almost uniformly longheaded, well-featured, but of rather small stature and physical development. It is probably represented now-a-days, in more or less purity, by the Berbers, the Basques, and some of the Spaniards, and by the well proportioned handsome men, usually of small stature, and with dark hair, who occur pretty numerously in South Wales and the West Highlands, and in Connemara.

Maes Knoll and the Wansdyke are generally believed (and I agree with the verdict of the majority) to have been the work of the Belgæ, i.e., of a tribe of Belgic origin who crossing the Channel, subdued the prior occupants of parts of Hampshire, Wiltshire, Somerset and East Dorset. Other Belgic tribes, as the Attrebates in Berkshire, brought over their tribal names; but as the Belgic Gauls of the continent formed a confederation, it may very well be that this special conquest was made by settlers from several of the Belgic tribes, and therefore retained the appellation of the whole confederacy.

There has been a good deal of disputing as to who the continental Belga were, ethnologically speaking, and you will from time to time see them set down, ex cathedrâ, as Germans or as Celts, according to the exigencies of the argument, or the leanings

of the writer. A good deal of partisanship and even of national feeling has been imported into the question.

I have a pretty decided opinion of my own, but, mindful of what seems to me the ill-founded confidence of some other ethnologists, I do not put it forth dogmatically. I believe the Belgae to have been constituted as follows. First a stratum of the early dolmenbuilding race, the same who erected Stanton Drew, Avebury and Stoney Littleton; then one of the true Celtic, broad-headed race, who for a time prevailed; then one or more thin strata of a comparatively tall and fair race, more or less akin to the true GothoGermans, who became the military aristocracy of the Belgæ, but who, if even they spoke German, of which there is no proof, did not transmit that language to their subjects. The Belgæ, I do not doubt, spoke what is commonly called a Celtic tongue; whether it was a dialect nearer to the Gaelic or to the Kymric I cannot say. Dr. Guest thought it approached the Gaelic, and though that is not the prevailing opinion, I own to a great respect for Dr. Guest's views.

It is generally supposed that the Wansdyke, together with the gigantic earth fortress called Maes Knoll, which we have been exploring, were meant by the Belge to be a barrier against the Dobuni or Boduni, and that these latter, the people of Gloucestershire, were at the time of their construction still a people of, mainly, the old neolithic type. I think it was Mr. Hyde Clarke who pointed out that the Boduni pretty early submitted to the Romans, and that their doing so was consistent with the idea of their being an Iberian tribe, who had been "unterwerfen" and somewhat tyrannized over by their Belgo-Gallic neighbours. I am not aware of any craniological evidence against this conjecture.

NOTE. The megalithic circles at Stanton Drew were visited in 1664 by John Aubrey, who is the first writer who mentions them. Perhaps the best account of the monument is that by the late Mr. William Long, F.S. A., in the “Archæological Journal,” vol. XV., pp. 199-215, and the most correct plan of the remains yet published is that of Mr. C. W. Dymond, in the Journal of the British Archæological Association, vol. XXXIII, p. 300.