These sketches of early manners, slight as they may be, are invaluable to us, in the absence of all other documentary record during several ages, until after the Anglo-Saxons had been converted to Christianity. During this long period we have, however, one source of invaluable information, though of a restricted kind--the barrows or graves of our primeval forefathers, which contain almost every description of article that they used when alive. In that solitary document, the poem of Beowulf, we are told of the arms which the Saxons used, of the dresses in which they were clad; of the rings, and bracelets, and ornaments, of which they were proud; of the “solid cup, the valuable drinking-vessel,” from which they quaffed the mead, or the vases from which they poured it; but we can obtain no notions of the form or character of these articles. From the graves, on the contrary, we obtain a perfect knowledge of the form and design of all these various articles, without deriving any knowledge as to the manner in which they were used. The subject now becomes a more extensive one; and in the Anglo-Saxon barrows in England, we find a mixture, in these articles, of Anglo-Saxon and Roman, which furnishes a remarkable illustration of the mixture of the races. We are all perfectly well acquainted with Roman types; and in the few examples which can be here given of articles found in early Anglo-Saxon barrows, I shall only introduce such as will enable us to judge what classes of the subsequent mediæval types were really derived from pure Saxon or Teutonic originals. [Illustration: _No. 1. Anglo-Saxon Drinking Glasses._] It is curious enough that the poet who composed the romance of Beowulf enumerates among the treasures in the ancient barrow, guarded by the dragon who was finally slain by his hero, “the dear, or precious drinking-cup” (_dryncfæt deóre_). Drinking-cups are frequently found in the Saxon barrows or graves in England. A group, representing the more usual forms, is given in our cut, No. 1, found chiefly in barrows in Kent, and preserved in the collections of lord Londesborough and Mr. Rolfe, the latter of which is now in the possession of Mr. Mayer, of Liverpool. The example to the left no doubt represents the “twisted” pattern, so often mentioned in Beowulf, and evidently the favourite ornament among the early Saxons. All these cups are of glass; they are so formed that it is evident they could not stand upright, so that it was necessary to empty them at a draught. This characteristic of the old drinking-cups is said to have given rise to the modern name of tumblers. [Illustration: _No. 2. Germano-Saxon Drinking Glasses._]