The engravings (Figs. 222 to 227) showing a few of the forms taken from the illuminated MSS. of this and the succeeding period, are interesting examples. Some of these will be seen to owe their origin--as, for instance, Fig. 226--to Roman design, while others are equally as clearly Franco-Gaulish in character. The Anglo-Saxons were not, like their Roman forerunners, an artistic race. They could not draw the form of the human figure correctly, nor, indeed, that of animals; but their delineations of jugs and pitchers are proved by existing examples to be pretty accurate. Their mind, as a rule, was coarse and unpoetic as their own beer, while that of the Roman was bright and sparkling as his own champagne. [Illustration: Fig. 232.--From Kingston, in the Derby Museum. Fig. 233.--In the Norwich Museum. Fig. 234.--Ashmolean Museum.] The scene depicted on Fig. 224 exhibits some well-formed vessels in the foreground, while the dinner scene on Fig. 222 shows other varieties. For culinary purposes the Anglo-Saxons appear to have had a kind of aversion to clay, hence their bowls were principally of metal or wood--generally of ash, and their drinking-vessels were of horn or glass.[28] One form of vessel, made of coarse buff-coloured clay, is here shown (Fig. 229); and another of simple form is shown on Fig. 230. The pottery of the Anglo-Saxon grave-mounds and cemeteries consists, unlike that of the preceding periods, almost exclusively of cinerary urns, and these have, as has been already stated on a previous page, been made near the place of sepulture; and, as a natural consequence, of the clays found in the neighbourhood. This is proved, incontestably, in the case of the urns found at King’s Newton, where the bed of clay still exists, and has very recently been used for common pottery purposes.[29] [Illustration: Figs. 235 and 236.--King’s Newton.] [Illustration: Figs. 237 to 244.--Anglo-Saxon Cinerary Urns, King’s Newton.] The shape of the cinerary urns is somewhat peculiar, and partakes of the Frankish form, which may be called degraded Roman. Instead of being wide at the mouth, like the Celtic urns, they are more or less contracted, and have a kind of neck instead of the overhanging lip or rim which is so eminently characteristic of the pottery of that period. Some, however, are tolerably wide at the mouth; but these are usually low and shallow. The cinerary urns were formed by hand, not on the wheel, although on some other vessels evidence of wheel-turning is apparent. This is another proof that these sepulchral urns were made on the spot where wanted. They are as a rule, perhaps, more firmly fired than those of the Celtic period. They are usually of a dark-coloured clay, sometimes nearly black, at other times of a dark brown, and occasionally of a slate, or greenish tint, produced by surface-colouring. [Illustration: Figs. 245 to 247.--Mayer Museum.]