THE COLLECTION OF BRITISH ANTIQUITIES IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
During the past year one of the new rooms in the British Museum has been set apart for a collection of British Antiquities. It has occurred to me that some account of the state and prospects of the collection might not be uninteresting to the members of the Archaeological Institute, more especially as it is in a great measure owing to the influence of the Society and of its liberal Patron, the Duke of Northumberland, that such a collection has been placed at last on a proper footing. I shall therefore notice briefly the materials already in the museum, and give a somewhat longer account of the acquisitions made during the year.
These materials are not extensive, and have been gradually accumulated from various sources during a long period of years. The only large number of objects relating to England which were obtained at one time were contained in the collection of Sir Hans Sloane: few of them, however, of great importance. The collections of Mr. Towneley and Mr. Payne Knight included some objects of great beauty, found in Britain, valued, however, by these eminent collectors rather on account of their artistic merits than of their interest to the British archaeologist.
Among the antiquities which belong to those obscurer periods of our history, known as the stone and bronze periods, may be noticed a considerable collection of weapons, &c., in those materials, collected chiefly during the Ordnance Survey of Ireland; no less than three bronze celt-moulds, and the shied[1] and dagger-sheath found in the bed of the Isis. To Robert Mylne, Esq., we are indebted for an interesting group of objects discovered at the mouth of the river Wandle, in Surrey. The perfect state of these remains and their value in being found together and probably, therefore, of contemporary workmanship render them important specimens in a collection. The sword, (fig. 1) is thirty inches long; it is of the usual type, though more carefully finished off than any I
- ↑ Archæologia, xxvii. p. 298.
