66 And we are told that he "put the golden altar in the tent of the congregation before the vail: and he burnt sweet incense thereon." (ver. 26, 27). Censers were also used for taking the fire off the altar in, with incense put thereon. (Levit. x. 1, 2). John saw a golden altar before the throne; an angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer: and there was given unto him much incense. . . . the smoke of the incense . . . . . . with the prayers of the saints ascended up before God out of the angel's hand: and the angel took the censer, and filled it with the fire of the altar." (Rev. viii. 3-5). Surely we have here the type and the reality. .... But there was also a large brazen laver, or sea, which Solomon made, called "the molten sea:" this "he set on the right side of the east end over against the south.” (2 Chron. iv. 2, 10). It must be more than mere coincidence, that John saw in heaven, " as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire, and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God, and they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb." (Rev. xv. 2, 3). These are not all the coincidences, but they are some of the principal ones. Can we suppose them unimportant? Can we deny the strong evidence that the Word of God affords, of the fact that the types of the Jewish law refer to the glorious realities of Heaven itself? For what pains God took in ordering the arrangements of the tabernacle: Moses made all things according to the pattern showed him in the mount, called by St. Paul" patterns of things in heavenly places," figures of the true:" and David was inspired by the Holy Ghost to write down all the detail, in order that he might hand it over to his son Solomon. Should we not, therefore pause, ere we evaporate such substantial, such transcendantly glorious truths, into dim shadowy spiritualities? A shadow may be a shadow of a substance; but a substance, such as the types undoubtedly were, cannot be a substance of a shadow. While, therefore, for worlds we would not lessen the anticipated happiness and glory of the future state of the believer, we cannot conceive why the sublimating process is to be applied to every promise, type, and description of existing or future realties in heaven or in heavenly places; and of this we may be sure, without being carnal or gross materialists, that if, as we profess to believe, there is to be a resurrection of the body in a tangible, although incorruptible, form and state, the place of its habi 99 66 tation, and the enjoyments, and the happiness, will be adapted to its powers and capabilities: nor can imagination conceive a higher or more glorious future than the creative state of Eden, with all its innocence and loveliness, and unbroken communion with God, amalgamated with, heightened, intensified and glorified by, the eternal and unfading glories of Redemption. ART. VII.-1. Transactions of the Surrey Archæological Society for the Years 1854, 1855. Vol. I., Part I. London: printed for the Society by J. Russell Smith, 36, Soho Square. 1856. 2. Transactions of the Middlesex Archæological Society1855, 1856. Vol. I., Part I. Vol. I., Part I. London: printed for the Society by J. Russell Smith, 36, Soho Square. 1856. IT is not with any intention of criticising the contents of these two publications that we have placed them at the head of this article. They are excellent in themselves, save a very second-hand and second-rate essay on the archæology of the county of Surrey; but we place them here as proofs of the increasing taste for that branch of study which they represent. When we contemplate that portion of a library devoted to the ancient historians, we shall be struck with the smallness of their number and the brevity of their narrations. About a hundred volumes will comprise the whole series; and yet we have all the prominent facts related, and all the salient characters described, with a vividness which leaves nothing to be desired. We do not mean to assert that we should regard as worthless a collection of despatches of Alexander or Julius Cæsar as voluminous as those of the late illustrious Duke of Wellington, but their value would be of a different character; they would in most respects decrease in importance as they increased in antiquity, and it is absolutely certain that we obtain a far more comprehensive knowledge of ancient history through the comparatively small number of volumes which the ancient writers have left us, than we should have were the events of each reign, or each campaign, related with the minuteness of a Gurwood or an Alison. But if we have a knowledge of ancient history, on the whole so far from unsatisfactory, it is not merely to the historians that we owe it. Greece and Rome we knew of old VOL. XLI. L Nineveh and Babylon we know now-have written their history in imperishable brass, and still more imperishable marble. As their seats of empire are brought to light after the magic slumber of nearly thirty centuries, we feel that it is not merely a series of royal names which are enrolled before us, the chronicle of conquests more or less important, the lists of vanquished nations, and the foundation of provincial cities; but we have the history of a mighty people; we see them in their homes and at their devotions; we follow them to their wars and behold their exploits; and when the conquest has been achieved, we return with them to their magnificent metropolis; we join in their triumphal procession, and we enter with them into the temples where they pay their grateful homage to their country's gods. Nor is this all; the pomp and splendour of their courts, the progress of the arts, useful and ornamental, the daily acts of life, its cares and its commerce, all spring up around us into a vital reality. As, in the gorgeous language of the poet, we are enabled to say "The vision comes upon me-to my soul The days of old return. I breathe the air I hear the music of her banquetings: I hear the laugh, the whisper, and the sigh. A sound of stately treading toward me comes, A silken wafting on the cedar floor: As from Arabia's flowery groves, an air Delicious breathes around. Tall, lofty-browed, In vesture gorgeous as the clouds of morn, With slow, proud step, her glorious dames sweep by." Atherstone. Splendid as is this passage, it is, nevertheless, not more so than the discoveries of the archæologist require. Its conditions are fulfilled, and long before we are able to decipher the names of the rulers and the glory of their deeds, the life of the nation rises as a reality around us. And what is here done for the long buried cities of the East, is being done day by day for our own Roman, Saxon, Danish, and Norman ancestors. Every barrow that is opened, every illuminated MS. that is preserved, every mural painting recovered, is either reading us a new chapter in their lives, or confirming those which we have already mastered. These are the things which add colour to the historical picture, which exhibit to us "The very shape and body of the time." Milton, speaking of the wars waged by our Anglo-Saxon progenitors, declares that they are of no more interest than the combats of kites and crows: regarded from his point of view, they were indeed as he described them. Who would not rather take a chapter from that most extraordinary of all romances-" Geoffry of Monmouth's History of England" -than a chapter from the Anglo-Saxon period of Rapin. The one, in its circumstantial error, giving us the real notions of our forefathers, enabling us to rejoice with them in victory and to sorrow with them in defeat; while the other, in the aridness of its truth, so far as it is true, is scarcely deserving a place in our remembrance-it teaches nothing. History was of old said to have two eyes-Geography and Chronology. Of what value would it be to know the facts of the battle of Hastings, unless we knew also the situation of the field and the importance of the position? How could we arrange for any practical purpose the causes and the results of any historical transaction unless we were able also to fix the time at which it occurred. But these two eyes are neither the only nor even the chief eyes of History. She has a third, greater than either, fixed, like that of the Cyclops, in the middle of her forehead, and the name of this eye is Archæology. Let us now imagine that we are desirous to picture to our own minds one of those combats of which our great poet speaks so contemptuously. Are we to treat the elements of the combat as mathematicians treat the symbols they use things of no value in themselves, and only useful inasmuch. as they are conducive to some certain result? Surely not; in our case the chief value lies in the symbols themselves. We care little or nothing whether Osbert or Sebert be the victor; but if we can represent to ourselves the appearance of the Saxon ranks, their arms and banners-if we can go into their camp and note the life of the warrior-if we can trace the plan of the commander, and observe how far it is effectually carried out if we can hear the war cry, and note what care is taken of the wounded soldier-then we have acquired information which will be valuable in itself, and which will be doubly valuable when we come to apply it to the later periods of Alfred and Canute. In time of war, we want not only to know that both sides fought and that one side conquered, but we want to know how they fought and what they fought for-what desires animated them, on what principles they acted. We want, in fact, to put ourselves for a time in their position; to see with their eyes and to hear with their ears. This archæology enables us to do. But perhaps one of the most ready ways in which we can point out the advantages and the importance of the study, is to show the dangers which attend its neglect. The first and chief is, that we must inevitably mistake the spirit of an age, its forms of life and its modes of thought. How far from the truth would he be who should imagine an Anglo-Saxon army having the same notions, or governed by the same discipline, as the standing armies of modern times? Who should look on landlords and tenants under the feudal system as having much analogy with those who bear the same titles in our own day? or imagine that the same relation existed between the various branches of the constitution in the days of the first Edward which prevails now? Nations grow as a whole, each member partakes of the common advantage; and the England of to-day is no more the England of Henry VIII. than the man of forty is the same as the child of ten. Anachronisms too, and sometimes of the most ludicrous character, attest the want of the study of archæology. The well known jeu d'esprit attributed in Oxford to a Cambridge man, and in Cambridge to an Oxonian,—who being asked what was the meaning of an anachronism, replied, "it is the attribution to one age of the practices, persons, and habits of another; just as if one should say that Julius Cæsar signed Magna Charta after the battle of Waterloo,"-does not go one jot beyond the truth as to the incongruities actually perpetrated. There are said to be in Holland some specimens of painted glass, representing the history of the patriarchs and prophets. In one is seen Abraham about to slay his son; but instead of the sacrificial knife, he is depicted with a blunderbuss; and the mode in which he is turned away from his purpose is by the appearance of an angel armed with a huge pair of bellows, with which he blows the priming out of the |