which to hang his hypercriticism. I hardly know why it is incumbent on me before delivering my views on the Celtic myth to know all that has been explained on collateral subjects by Mr. Knight Watson. I found neither note nor marginal reference declaratory of this gentleman’s critical acumen, or of the great service he had rendered to archæology in resolving this enigma, nor if I had should I have introduced it into my treatise. My remark in regard to the Vulgate is an incidental reference of the vaguest description on which nothing depends. To borrow the expression of an eminent individual, Would the critic of the _Literary World_ “be surprised to learn” that by a defect of information, quite as glaring as that which he imputes to me, he has entirely missed the point of my stricture which is directed against the executive of the _Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_. At page 11 of its _Catalogue of Antiquities_, printed in 1876, it is stated as the heading of a section, “STONE CELTS OR AXE HEADS.” Behind the word “Celts,” an asterisk, and underneath, a footnote corresponding thereto the explanation “Celtis, a chisel,” of all which the critic shows himself to be entirely ignorant. He mentions the Gothic word _afar_. Thomson calls it _hafar_. I can only conjecture that the critic may have first seen the light within the vibrations of certain well-known sounds, and that he habitually drops the letter _h_. In the course of my “polemic,” he thinks, I “undoubtedly score a point here and there in matters of detail.” “Thus,” he says, “he maintains what ought to be obvious enough [but which to the Celtic expositor it never is] that remains inscribed in Northern runes must be attributed to the Scandinavians.” I give, he says, “and this appears to be my _chef d’œuvre_, a very probable reading (GRIMKITIL THANE RAIST, Grimkitil engraved this) to a fragmentary inscription ( ... KITIL TH ...) on what is known as the bronze plate of Laws. And inasmuch as” that this critic “formed a similar opinion many years ago, he is bound to approve my suggestion that the old Greek and runic alphabets were derived from some common source, and not either from the other.” He is “bound to approve.” How very condescending! It is evident he does not perceive the effect of his own conclusion. If my reading of the inscription on the Laws plate be correct it involves something more than a mere matter of detail. It is the solution of a problem which has perplexed and bewildered most antiquaries of the present century, because it demonstrates the symbols of the Laws crescent plate, and those of the Scotch sculptured stones to be the work of the Scandinavians. This has long been my individual opinion, though I doubt if the critic of the _Literary World_ will make many converts among antiquaries on the other side of the Tweed. When I attempt to establish “my own peculiar views,” he says, I seem to “break down.” Are not the points on which--to borrow