Masterpieces Of The Architecture Of Different Nations.

rupted series of reigns ancl astronomical observations which lend mutual aid to each other , ancl which conduct us in ascending backwards , without any perceptible gajis , to more than 4 , 000 years ago , to the same period as the commencement of the empire of the Egyptians . People even fancy they perceive between these two nations a common

origina division of the same race ; and though several authors ascribe the origin of tlie Chinese to a colony of Scythians ancl Hindoos , there are such resemblances established by nature ancl by usages between the Egyptians and the Chinese , that one is induced to believe that they coulcl not have been , at one time , other than one and the same nation .

Without going profoundly into this question , which time alone ancl the researches of the learned may , perhaps , elucidate , we shall point out one or two of the resemblances which present themselves in the usages ancl in the productions of the ancient arts in Egypt aud in China . 1 . Iiieroglyphical writing . 2 . Tlie division , almost the same , in castes ancl tribes . 3 . Au inviolable attachment to ancient usages , i . Extreme respect for fathers , old men generally , and kings . 5 . Love of the sciences , especiall y astronomy , and the same

division of the zodiac into twelve , or twenty-four , or twentyeight . 6 . The little natural inclination of the two peoples for war ancl concpiests , which , indeed , are with difficulty reconciled to a love of the sciences and the arts , those tranquil children of peace . 7 . Belief in the metempsychosis , which it is known was got by Pythagoras in Egypt , ancl which is also

found spread abroad in several places in China . 8 . The feast of lamps , or light , which Herodotus informs us was celebrated afc Says , ancl which so closely resembles the feast of lanterns in China . 9 . Their invincible liking to pass off as the most ancient peoples in the world , ancl for the inventors of their sciences and arts . 10 . The mistrust and even repugnance

with which one and the other have always received strangers , and the difficulties which they have so often placed in the way of a free ancl open commerce . 11 . Persistency in keeping to the trades and professions of their fathers . 12 . Respect for the dead . 13 . Their ancient temples in subterranean grottoes . And lastlythe conformity of the features that can be

, perceived in the individuals of the two nations , in the comparison of their ancient sculptures . On a closer examination , many other resemblances may be found , ancl the arts will furnish us with them on more than one occasion . ( To be continued ) .

Archæology.

ARCH ? OLOGY .

ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS AT LONG WITTENHAM . Mr . Thomas Wright , in a letter to the Alltenceum gives his views on these antiquities as follows : — " Your report of Mr . Akcrman ' s discoveries in the earl y Anglo-Saxon Cemetery of Long Wittenham , invites a few remarks . I do not believe that the Anglo-Saxon cemeteries , such as that of Long Wittenhamarc other than or that they contain

, pagan , any mixture of Christian sepulture . Of course , every rule mayhave an exception , ancl it may have happened that some individual may not have been a sufficiently zealous convert to allow his new Christian feelings to overcome his old national or family attachments ; but I have not yet seen any decided evidence of such a case . Certainly , the new theory about the buckets found ni Anglo-Saxon graves , as a mark of Christianity , docs not appear to

me to carry conviction with it . Arguing from the general sentiment which influenced tbe burial of these various objects with the dead , from the circumstance that drinking-glasses are so often found iu them , and from passages of the earliest Anglo-Saxon writers , I suggested , some years ago , the explanation that these buckets were the " vats , " as the Anglo-Saxon poets called themin which the ale mead carried into the halland

, or was , from which it was poured into tbe drinking-glasses—or , perhaps , m ordinary cases horns . This explanation , as a sufficiently simple ¦ uicl reasonable one , has been accepted by antiquaries in general , both at home ancl abroad , and I need only quote in its favour one ot the very hi ghest authorities in this particular branch of antiquities , the Abbe Cochet . It has been confirmed somewhat

Archæology.

remarkably by the discovery , in a Prankish cemetery in Normandy , of such a bucket with the drinking-glass within it . Mr . Akermau proposed , first , as a counter-explanation to this , that these buckets were not intended to contain drink , but that the Anglo-Saxons ate their pottage out of them ; but he now appears to have abandoned this notion , and explains them , as I understand his paper , as vessels for holding holy water . I confess that , when

I first heard this explanation , I imagined it was intended only for a joke . I may be wrong , and I am speaking perhaps hastily , but I certainly do not recollect any instance of a Christian being buried with a bucket of holy water in his grave ; nor docs it appear to me that there would be any great utility in such a thing , as a few drops sprinkled over his body would be equally efficaciousif not more soas a bucket full . Holwater was collected

, , y in vessels in order to be distributed among a number of people . But , we are told ( I quote your report ) , 'in one instance the person buried had unquestionably been a Christian , and not improbably a boy , attached to the sacred service of the adjoining minster of Dorchester ; for by the side of this skeleton was discovered a most curious sloup , made of wood , with thin plates of bronze attached to its outsideas is not unusuallthe case in other

, y Angle-Saxon buckets . On this , however , were stamped in relief scenes from the life of Our Lord , ' & c . I can hardly imagine so large a structure as this raised upon so little ground . The object in question seems to mc to be of foreign manufacture , and I see no analogy between it and the Anglo-Saxon buckets . A small cylindrical box , plated in a similar manner , and equally ornamented with Christian subjectswas found some in the

, years ago early Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Strood , in Kent , and ivas apparently , like it , of foreign workmanship . Has it not always been a trait of affectionate kindness among the Anglo-Saxon race that when a father , or a relative , or a friend , went to visit far distant countries he brought back with him , as gifts to those whom he had left at homc ,., some curious , or rich , or beautiful objects from those

distant climes , fie had visited ? Is not the prevalence of this sentiment abundantly illustrated in the letters of Boniface early in the eighth century ? And when the Anglo-Saxons , at a much earlier period , carried their adventures into the Mediterranean and along the coast of Christian countries , if one of these sea-rovers could purchase ( or more probably steal ) some beautiful object of this kind , a handsome present to a wife or to a favourite child , is it

to be supposed that he would care much whether the figures which ornamented it were Christian or not ? Perhaps this little boy who was buried in the grave at Long Wittenham was the favourite of a father , or of an uncle , or of an elder brother , who was a bold sea-rover and had brought him home this object as a token of love , and this token ivas placed in the child ' s grave , in order that according to the sentiment ivhich guided these pagan

interments , he might carry it with him to that country beyond the grave ivhere the giver and the receiver hoped one day to meet again . This appears to mc a much more reasonable explanation than that given by Mr . Akerman . From time to time , ive find a cowry shell in an Anglo-Saxon grave , —surely wc are not to conclude that the individual buried with such an accompaniment hacl been a convert to the religion of the islanders of the Pacific Ocean , from whence this object must have been brought . We know , too , that Cufic coins of the earlier Saracenic dynasties are found on the coasts of England and the Baltic—arc wc to

assume from this circumstance that the Northmen , and probably Anglo-Saxons , too , who deposited them there , had been converted to Mohammedanism ? We may illustrate this point still more popularly . How many persons are there in England who possess and generally exhibit in a prominent position among their household ornaments at least one statuette , sculptured perhaps in jade , and an image connected with the mythology of the Chinese ,

which some thoughtful friend has brought or sent them as a curiosity from China ? What ivould be saicl of the person who concluded that every man who possessed such an image was a convert to Buddhism ? " Nor do I think that there is anymore reason for Mr . Akerman's assumption that , in these cemeteries , the two systems of cremation and the burial of the bodies uiiburnt distinguished

respectively paganism and Christianity . If this were ^ jjic case ive should have hardly any pagan interments in Kent . But this question is one of considerable importance iu an ethnological and in an historical point of view . In fact , these two modes of interment , at the time the Teutons established themselves iu this island , appear to have been distinctive of divisions of race . Among the Angles , urn-burial appears to have prevailed ; and we find it in nearly all the cemeteries of that branch of the Anglo-Saxon race which have yet been discovered . In Beowulf , which was no doubt , an early Angle poem , the dead bodies of the horses