on special subjects submitted to his decision. He is first told what to say, and then cited by his instructors, as an authority for statements which they themselves have put into his mouth. Perhaps, under the circumstances, this may not be an exceptional manner of dealing with matters of disputed history, but it is certainly not the way to reach the truth that reveals itself to intelligence. “In workmanship,” M. Worsaae says, “the Hunterston brooch resembles the contemporary Irish and Scotch more than Scandinavian ornaments.” Now, it certainly does no such thing. It does not appear to me that as regards the Scandinavian remains of Great Britain, one like M. Worsaae groping his way darkly with the help of such lights as he can find is at all competent to pronounce dogmatic judgments. Ireland and Scotland were invaded, and subdued, and peopled by the Northmen, and brooches of the self-same character are found in the Viking interments of Scandinavia. The contemporary Irish and Scotch brooches may reasonably be presumed to be Scandinavian. The resemblance of the Hunterston brooch to that found at Tara, and to others of like character found in Scotland is certainly not greater than to the brooch in the Bergen Museum exhumed from a Viking mound at Vambheim, or to that dug up at North Trondheim in another grave of the Viking period. The inscription contained on the Hunterston brooch proves to demonstration, not only that its art, and that of all others of kindred type is Scandinavian, but that the name “Melbridg” is Norwegian. Whatever be the _origin_ of the art exhibited on the brooches, it is plain that this cannot be Celtic, inasmuch as that no one has ever shewn that the Celts possessed any knowledge of art. It is all very well to talk in an off-handed way about Celtic art, but something more than this is necessary to carry conviction. To my perceptions a Celtic statement is much improved by some form of _evidence_. Dr. Soderberg of Lund doubts if I will find many adherents among Scandinavian scholars. “We are all of us,” he says, “more or less imbued with Celticism.” So much the worse for Scandinavia, that her sons deny her legitimate claims to her own historic and archaic remains. It is not however, as I think, so much a question of scholarship as of practical sense, the capacity to deal with facts which may be weighed by anyone possessed of ordinary reasoning power or capable of speech and thought in their simplest forms. One can understand a Scotch antiquary of the Celtic type placing himself in an attitude of antagonism, just as we might imagine Professor Freeman gliding like a shark along the Saxon line ready to do battle on behalf of his cherished delusion, because that to both of these the Northman theory is total extinction. But that the Scandinavian antiquary, who as regards his national remains has no reason to falsify the facts of history, should in the interest of an exotic fable, waste his ingenuity