But it is rather in Europe than in Egypt that our interest centres. As no European literature remains to us older than the sixth or seventh century B.C. (except the oral poems), it has been too readily assumed that no civilization worthy of the name could have dwelt here, and that we are indebted to the East for all our skill. So far from this being the case it now seems that we must almost reverse the view. We have in the Egyptian records the accounts of a great European confederacy, which smote Egypt again and again,--Greece, Asia Minor, Italy, and Libya, all leagued together. We now know, from the objects found in Egypt, that these peoples were dwelling there as settlers so far back as 1400 B.C., if not indeed before 2000 B.C. From the chronology of the arts now ascertained, we can date the great civilization of Mykenae to about 1600 to 1000 B.C. (as I have stated in ‘Notes on Mykenae,’ _Journal of Hellenic Studies_, 1891); and we begin to see a great past rising before us, dumb, but full of meaning. Some of the metals were known in Europe before they appear in use in Egypt: the use of bronze is quite as old in the north as on the south of the Mediterranean; and the tin of Egypt probably came from the mines of Hungary and Saxony, which most likely supplied Europe at that time. Iron appears in use in Europe as soon as in Egypt. The best forms of tools are known in Italy two or three centuries before Egypt possessed them. What then may be concluded as to Europe, from our present point of view? That Europe had an indigenous civilization, as independent of Egypt and Babylonia as was the indigenous Aryan civilization of India. That this civilization has acquired arts independently, just as much as India has, and that Europe has given to the East as much as it has borrowed from there. As early as 1600 B.C., it appears that a considerable civilization existed in Greece, which flourished in the succeeding centuries, especially in alliance with Libya. Probably it was already beginning in the period of the thirteenth dynasty, before 2000 B.C. By about 1400 B.C. a great proficiency in the arts is seen; elaborate metal-work and inlaying was made, influenced by Egyptian design, but neither made in Egypt, nor by Egyptians. Glazed pottery painted with designs was successfully made, and the arts of glazing and firing were mastered. And by 1100 B.C. this civilization was already decadent. Moreover this was not only in a corner of Europe; it had contact with the North as well as with Italy and Africa, and is at one with the culture of the bronze age, of which it is the crown and flower. Across Europe, from the Greek peninsula to the Baltic, this civilization stretches; and though in Greece it ripened to an early fall, and was destroyed by the barbaric Dorian invasion, it retained its hardy power in the North and in Italy. When we come down to about 800 B.C., we find that the arts stood high in Northern Italy. The requirements of the