The early Christian monuments of Scotland have not received the attention which they deserve since Romilly Allen published his descriptive catalogue in 1903. New discoveries since that date, and a fuller study of the analogous carvings in neighbouring areas, have made necessary some revision of the ideas then current. The investigation is rendered more difficult by the individual character of the series and by the rarity of stones bearing inscriptions. Mrs Curle, in a recent paper has boldly attacked the main problem, that of the monuments north of the Forth, the symbol stones and cross-slabs generally attributed to the Picts. Her thesis does not attempt to cover the whole field but is rather ‘an endeavour to establish a classification and a tentative chronology and to review the comparative material’ (p. 60). The conclusions to which her survey have led the author show a wide divergence from those of earlier writers, and the chronology proposed is revolutionary.

Malta has never lacked history. That melancholy fact is indeed all too apparent today and must be held to justify the publication of the necessarily ill-digested record of a preliminary survey of its antiquities undertaken during the six months before the outbreak of war. If further excuse be needed, it must be sought in the intrinsic interest of the prehistoric remains, as well as in the important bearing which they have upon wider problems of Mediterranean archaeology. Much work still remains to be done on these remains; but a brief summary of the results achieved in the last twenty years is not perhaps out of place at the present time.

The situation of Southampton has many geographical resemblances to that of London. Both are at the head of estuaries to which the main drainage systems of their hinterland converge. Both towns were separated from that hinterland by large tracts of forest and scrub, and both are built on hard ground near channels of deep water. Southampton has, throughout most of its history, been a Channel port, looking across the Channel to France and Spain whence came the traders and raiders of the Middle Ages, just as London looked to the Low Countries.

The regions of England in which the Anglo-Saxons first settled have their separate histories. In more than one of these recent archaeological discovery has brought new ideas of how the invasion took place; in the East Midlands, however, what may be called the standard interpretation of the invasion lags somewhat behind the general structure of theory which has been accepted for other areas. As offering a new approach to the study of this region no apology is proffered for the submission of fragmentary evidence which has by chance come to light, incomplete though any form of archaeological study must necessarily be in time of war. It does not, however, follow that no apology is due for the temerity with which the facts have been interpreted ; for this latter only indulgence can be claimed, in that the time and circumstance justify some hazarded interpretation which may be fortunate enough to survive until more adequate examination and digestion are possible.

In the first published description of the Capel Garmon fire-dog (PLATE, p. 64), J. Evans quotes a view concerning its use: ‘I would suggest that this instrument is intended to hold the spits for roasting fowls, game or other small animals. … The loops on the side are evidently intended for that purpose, and it is probable that the horns of the two heads are intended for supporting a larger one’.

On the other hand, in the latest description of the same fire-dog, it is suggested that this fire-dog formed one of a pair: ‘The evidence of the Welwyn and other finds suggests that two fire-dogs was the normal equipment of the Celtic (central) hearth, whether secular or sacred, and it needs little imagination to appreciate the effect of a pair of “Capel Garmon” fire-dogs with flaming logs between’.

More thoroughly silly questions have been asked about Homer than about any other man or topic. Did Homer exist? Was there one Homer or two Homers? Were the Homeric poems composed by a syndicate or by one man? and so on and so on. Only in thoroughly academic minds could such questions generate. Only minds dead to poetry and the modes of its composition would waste themselves on such mental trivialities, on such extravagant fantasies.

Of one thing we are sure, that the Odyssey and the Iliad are at once the first and the greatest of all European epics, that they were composed deliberately, and that they deal with the deeds of men who might have lived, or did actually live, in an age of which we are fortunate enough to know a good deal more than the mere historical outlines.