skeletons, the ornaments, to particular persons is rash. And, on the other hand, the time is hardly come for those who take a general view of history to commit themselves to any decided judgment as to the place which these objects have in the history of art, or as to their relation to objects found in other lands. It is well that the specialists should for a little time longer have that branch of the subject in their keeping. Some new light will doubtless be thrown on the matter by the find which has just been made in Attica. When all these points have been thoroughly sifted, the historian will be glad to accept the results. As it is, it is enough for him that here are the tombs of the Mykênaian lords of Hellas, that here are the objects which the creed of their days deemed becoming offerings of reverence for the dead. Besides the field which these objects open for the more direct student of art, they open also a field of almost higher interest for the historian of customs. The mode of disposing of the dead seems to have been a strange kind of compromise between burning and burying. If we rightly understand the process, the bodies were placed in the tombs; they were then half burned; lastly the masks were placed upon them, and the tombs were filled up with the vases and other objects. Here indeed is work for Mr. Tylor and any other labourers in that field. The effect of the masks is wonderful. Whether they are really likenesses or not, we accept them as such while we look on them; we feel ourselves brought more directly into the presence of the men of old than we are even by the sight of the skeleton. Physically the actual bones of the man are more truly part of himself; but we really feel brought nearer to him as we see the thin covering which has rested on his face, and which seems at least to profess to keep the stamp of his features. We will not dare to call him Agamemnôn or any other name. We look at least on what would be the likeness of one of those on whom our own Alfred so happily bestowed the name of the Cæsars that were to be, on one whose historic position is best brought home to us if we call him, in Alfred’s tongue, the Bretwalda of primæval Hellas.