Old England: A Pictorial Museum (page 10/52)

58.—British Coracles.

“The primitive inhabitants of all sea-girt countries are fishermen. It is impossible not to believe that the people of Britain, having at their command the treasures of wide æstuaries and deep rivers, were fishermen to a large extent. The Britons must always have [...]Severn and the Wye have still their coracles—little boats so peculiar in their construction that we may readily conceive them to belong to a remote antiquity. Gibson, the translator and best editor of Camden, has described these boats upon the Severn: [more...] [$]

59.—British Pearl Shells. Natural Size.

a. Duck fresh-water Pearl Mussel (Anodon Anatinus). b. Swan ditto (Anodon Cygneus).

“The pearl-fishery of Britain must have existed before the Roman invasion, for Suetonius says that the hope of acquiring pearls was a main inducement to Cæsar to attempt the conquest of the country. The great conqueror himself, according to Pliny, the naturalist, dedicated to Venus a breastplate studded with British pearls, and suspended it in her temple at Rome. In a later age the pearls of Caledonia were poetically termed by Ausonius the white shell-berries. Camden thus describes the pearls of the little river Irt in Cumberland: “In this brook the shell-fish, eagerly sucking in the dew, conceive and bring forth pearls, or, to use the poet’s words, shell-berries. These the inhabitants gather up at low-water; and the jewellers buy them of the poor people for a trifle, but sell them at a good price. Of these, and such like, Marbodæus seems to speak in that verse,

The British pearls were not found in the shells of the oyster, as is often thought, but in those of a peculiar [more...] [$]

60.—Woad (Isatis Tinctoria)

“The dresses of the inhabitants of Britain before the Roman invasion are not, like those of the people of ancient Egypt, and other countries advanced in the practice of the imitative arts, to be traced in painting or sculpture. In Roman statues we have the figures of ancient Gauls, which give us the characteristic dress of the Celtic nations: the braccæ, or close trowsers, the tunic, and the sagum, or short cloak (Figs. 61, 62, 63). The dye of the woad was [more...] [$]

61.—Gaulish Costume.

“The dresses of the inhabitants of Britain before the Roman invasion are not, like those of the people of ancient Egypt, and other countries advanced in the practice of the imitative arts, to be traced in painting or sculpture. In Roman statues we have the figures of ancient Gauls, which give us the characteristic dress of the Celtic nations: the braccæ, or close trowsers, [more...] [$]

62.—Gaulish Costume.

“The dresses of the inhabitants of Britain before the Roman invasion are not, like those of the people of ancient Egypt, and other countries advanced in the practice of the imitative arts, to be traced in painting or sculpture. In Roman statues we have the figures of ancient Gauls, which give us the characteristic dress of the Celtic nations: the braccæ, or close trowsers, [more...] [$]

63.—Gaulish Costume.

“The dresses of the inhabitants of Britain before the Roman invasion are not, like those of the people of ancient Egypt, and other countries advanced in the practice of the imitative arts, to be traced in painting or sculpture. In Roman statues we have the figures of ancient Gauls, which give us the characteristic dress of the Celtic nations: the braccæ, or close trowsers, [more...] [$]

64.—Breast Plate

“It is difficult to assign an exact period to their use of cloth in preference to skins. It is equally difficult to determine the date of those valuable relics which have been found in various places, exhibiting a taste for symmetry and nice workmanship in the fabrication of their weapons, offensive and defensive, and the ruder decorations of their [...]Flintshire, now in the British Museum (Fig. 64).” (p. 22) [more...] [$]

65.—Shield in the British Museum.

“It is equally difficult to determine the date of those valuable relics which have been found in various places, exhibiting a taste for symmetry and nice workmanship in the fabrication of their weapons, offensive and defensive, and the ruder decorations of their persons. Such are the [...]Flintshire, now in the British Museum (Fig. 64). Such are the shields (Figs. 65, 66, 67), of one of which (Fig. 67) Sir Samuel Meyrick, its possessor, says, “It is impossible to contemplate the artistic portions without feeling convinced that there is a mixture of British ornaments with such resemblances to the elegant designs on Roman works as would be produced by a people in a state of less civilization.” (p. 22) [more...] [$]