EARTHENWARE.-AMBER-PEARLS. 377 though the ancient Britons were not unacquainted with the manufacture, but certainly made urns and other vessels of forms not inelegant, and ornamented sometimes with considerable taste, they appear to have been unable to supply themselves without other assistance; earthenware being one of the commodities they received in their barter with others. Perhaps those vessels imported were superior to the native workmanship-the sepulchres disclose many varieties of urns and other Adɔmnan says the Picts used vessels of glass for drinking, and it is recorded of St. Patrick that he used a chalice of this material. We also find that Rederch, king of Strathclyde, possessed gold, precious stones, &c. and a cup made by Guielandus, of the town of Sigenius. Turgot says of Queen Margaret that she caused the king, Malcolm, in 1093, to be served in dishes silvered and gilt. The ingeniously-formed and prettily-ornamented wooden and horn vessels of the Gaël have been noticed in a preceding page. vases. Saguntum, in Spain, was famous for the manufacture of earthenware cups, but Gauls, Lusitanians, and Celtiberians were accustomed to use vessels of wax. The Celts sometimes used cups made of the skulls of their enemies, and ornamented with gold. The Scyths were also accustomed to use these cups, and among the Isedones it was the skulls of their relations that were so appropriated. The old Irish are accused of a similar practice, but there may be a misapprehension of the term, for skull was formerly applied to a drinking cup.§ It seems originally to have signified any capacious vessel, and is, in the present day, applied by the fishermen in the north to a sort of basket. The Thracians used wooden platters and cups of the same materials, and also of horn, according to the manner of the Getes. In Gaul there were a sort of vases for travellers to carry their wine, made of yew tree, which, in Pliny's time, had lost their repute from the poisonous nature of the wood, by which some had lost their lives.¶ The Britons had some vessels of amber, and it was believed by the ancients that it distilled from the trees in Great Britain.** This curious substance, which was called glessum,†† was gathered in the territories of the Suevi, who were the only people who dealt in it, and who carried on a considerable trade in it, taking it by the way of Pannonia to Rome. The women in the villages around the Po wore collars of it, as a preventive of the goitre. Lapis specularis was originally found in Celtiberia, and formed an article of export to Rome.§§ It appears to have been the glass of the ancients, and different from Mica.|||| The British pearls were anciently very famous. The hope of obtain tt Pliny, xxxvii. 3. The Scyths called it sacrium, as one would say, “ecoulement Ju pays des saces."-Note on ditto, xii. 202. ed. 1783. ‡‡ Pliny ut sup. §§ Ibid. xxxvi. 22. Note on Pliny, xii. p. 76, ed. 1782. 378 ARTICLES OF ORNAMENT. ing a rich booty of them is said to have been a chief motive for the Ro man invasion, and when Cæsar returned to Rome, he dedicated a military ornament, embellished with British pearls, to Venus. Tacitus and Marcellinus, however, do not speak highly of their value. Pearls are found in many rivers in Scotland, but they are said to be more rare than formerly. In 1120, Nicholas, an English ecclesiastic writing to the Bishop of St. Andrews, begs a number of pearls, particularly four large ones, and if the Bishop had them not, he requests him to procure them from the king, who had, he knew, an abundant store.* Sir Thomas Menzies, of Cults, procured a famous pearl in the water of Kellie, in Aberdeenshire, which, having been informed was of great value, he went to London and presented it to the king, who rewarded him with twelve chaldrons of grain and the customs of Aberdeen for life.† The Gauls formed precious stones into ornaments for their persons, and even sometimes employed them for hatchets and other implements. They were soon taught by their conquerors the value of such articles, and when they discovered how advantageously they could dispose of such articles, they established a prosperous trade, and began to impose on their credulous customers many articles of little value as wonderful productions. The old Highlanders set precious stones in their rings,§ and, in treating of their costume, many of their other ornaments have been noticed. The most ingenious and beautiful article that has, perhaps, ever been discovered in these islands, is that supposed to have been the handle of a dagger, richly embellished with innumerable minute gold pins, described and engraved in Sir Richard Hoare's splendid work on ancient Wiltshire. That the Celts, and particularly the Britons, were able to construct very ingenious works in carpentry, is evinced by their chariots and agricultural implements. On some of the coins of Cunobeline, struck between the first and second Roman invasion, seats or chairs, with backs, four feet, &c., are distinctly represented. The Irish are said to have been anciently much celebrated for their skill in working of wood, great quantities of which they exported. The Celtic artisans were hereditary, like all other professions. Much has been said in favor of and against this system; if it is calculated to prevent improvement, which is not apparent, it must be remembered that Celtic civilisation was long stationary, and there was no stimulus to invention. An Englishman was astonished to find that every employment passed by descent, not excepting the Rhimer. "Every profession," says Riche of the Irish, "hath his particular decorum - their virtue is, they will do nothing but what their fathers have done before them." The case was the same with the Scotish Gaël. *Hailes's Annals, i. 58. + Survey of the city of Aberdeen, 1685. This pearl was reported to have been placed in the crown. Pliny, xxxvii. 11. § D. Smith, in Trans. High. Soc. i. 340. HIGHLANDS ADAPTED FOR MANUFACTURES. 379 The Britons were particularly ingenious in the manufacture of osier utensils, or basket work, which they executed so neatly, that it became an article in much demand at Rome, to which large quantities were exported. In a Gaulish monument, discovered at Blois, in 1710, a feinale figure is seated in a chair of wicker or straw plaited,* with a high_back, similar to those I have seen for sale in Dublin. The Highlanders are naturally ingenious, and of a mechanical turn of mind. It has been stated that they make their own agricultural and other implements; they also carry their simple but useful manufactures to fairs for sale, by which they are able to procure those articles which their own country does not produce. Besides the exportation of cattle and wool, with much kelp, the manufacture of which is a late introduction, hames of hair, and sometimes of twisted thongs of raw hides, brakings, and collars for horses and oxen, made of straw, waights, caises, sumacs or fleats, &c; sacks formed of skin, tartan cloth, kersey, blankets, carpets, and woollen yarn, and the produce of their dairy, are all disposed of, and carried occasionally in some quantities out of the country. The short wood in the glens is worked into various useful articles, and disposed of in the Low country. In the month of August there is a timber market held in Aberdeen for several days, which is of ancient origin, and to which the Highlanders bring ladders, harrows, tubs, pails, and many other articles; those who have nothing else, bringing rods of hazle and other young wood, with sackfuls of aitnach or juniper and other mountain berries. There is a market somewhat similar in Edinburgh. It seems with reference to this, that a proclamation, 11th of August, 1564, commands that in Aberdeen, Banff, Elgin, Inverness, Forres, and Nairn, "nane sell timber but in open market." The wooden locks of the Highlanders are so ingeniously contrived by notches, made at unequal distances, that it is impossible to open them but with the wooden key that belongs to them. In a former chapter, when treating of costume, the abilities of the Highland dyers and weavers were noticed with some attention, and several of the excellent coloring substances produced in the country were enumerated. It is matter of much regret that the adaptation of the Highlands for the establishment and successful pursuit of manufactures is so unaccountably overlooked, for it is evident that they could be carried on to much national advantage. The Scotish mountains afford an abundant supply of various articles, capable of imparting the most beautiful dyes, and which can be procured without trouble, and at the least possible expense. A command of water for any machinery is in most places at all times to be found, and the cheapness of living would keep wages very low. It is surprising that Highland proprietors have paid. so little attention to so obvious a means of enriching themselves. With how much advantage could the carpet manufacture, for instance, be carried on, where the wool is always at hand, as well as the materials Montf. x. pl. 136. * 380 SPECIMENS OF EARTHEN WARE. for dying it. Mr. Cuthbert Gordon, before mentioned, declared that he had made a discovery which would lead to the incalculable benefit of Scotland, but as he unfortunately did not meet with sufficient encouragement to mature his plans, which I believe related to dye stuffs, the valuable secret was never communicated to his countrymen. There can be no doubt but that the Highland weavers, who indeed, as it is, occasionally make carpets of great beauty of design and goodness of fabric, if properly encouraged, would soon rival, if not much surpass, the manufacturers of Kidderminster. The vessels represented underneath are selected from various discoveries as specimens of the earthenware manufactures of the ancient Celtic tribes of Britain, and must be allowed to be not altogether deficient either in beauty of form or ornament. That in the centre is the most usual form of the funereal urn. THE estimation in which poetry was held by the ancients is well known. It is the original vehicle in which the knowledge of past events is carried down to posterity, and the medium through which laws are at first promulgated. Legislation and religion are at first intimately connected, and poetry is the excellent auxiliary of both. Hesiod and other Greek poets lived ages before Pherecides, who, according to Pliny, was the first who wrote in prose, and the compositions of Homer were preserved in detached pieces by oral tradition, long before they were collected and embodied in the regular form which they now present. In the first stages of civilisation the characters of priest and legislator are combined, whence arises the connexion of poetry with the first institutions of society, for the ministers of religion are both poets and musicians, and the service of their gods and precepts of morality are equally rendered in verse. Before the era of written record, the Greeks preserved their laws in traditionary rhymes, the same word in their language signifying a law and a song.* The statutes of this people continued * Walker's Irish Bards, who quotes Wood on the genius of Homer. |