In this group of objects in bronze and gold we have characteristic examples of the work of this early school of decorative art, which in some of its features bears certain relations to the work of the later school of Celtic art of the Christian time. But the elements of its decoration are fewer. It has no interlaced work and no fret—nothing but curves and spirals. It does not systematically break up its surfaces in panels, but distributes its decorative effects in spaces that are circular or oval, or bounded by intersecting curves. Its prevailing features are not the production of intricately symmetrical and geometrically regulated patterns, but the production of effects of balance and beauty by the rhythmic recurrence and variation of curves and spaces with solid forms which, though not symmetrical, are similar. Their characteristic curves, as seen in the outlines of their figures and the sections of their solid forms, are specially peculiar, while the marked preference for relief in metal-work is in striking contrast to the general prevalence of chased and engraved designs in the later school. It is to this characteristic treatment of the decoration of their metal-work by this early school of Celtic art that Mr. Kemble refers in the following remarks:—“When, as is often the case in metal, this principle of the diverging spiral line is carried out in _repoussé_—when you have those singularly beautiful curves, more beautiful perhaps in the parts that are not seen than in those that meet the eye, and whose beauty is revealed in shadow more than in form—you have a peculiar characteristic, a form of beauty which belongs to no nation but our own, and to no portion of our nation but the Celtic portion. It deals with curves which are not arcs of a circle; its figures are not of the class we usually designate by the term geometrical; and above all it calls in the aid of enamel to perfect its work—not _cloisonné_ like the enamel of the East; not mosaic work of tesseræ like so many so-called enamels of the Romans, but enamel _champléve_ as Philostratus has described the island barbarians to have invented it. The engraved spiral line, with double winding, is found from America to the Baltic, from Greece to Norway, but the divergent spiral _repoussé_ in metal and ornamented with _champléve_ enamel, is found in these British Islands alone.” * * * * * I now proceed to notice another group of objects in metal possessing peculiar features still more strongly marked, but exhibiting also the distinctive characteristics of the same style of art. [Illustration: Fig. 115.—Bronze Armlet, with enamelled ornaments (one of a pair), found at Castle Newe, Aberdeenshire. Front view (5¾ inches in diameter).] [Illustration: Fig. 116.—Bronze Armlet, found at Castle Newe, Aberdeenshire. Back view (5¾ inches in diameter).]