Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/168

86 NOTICES OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS. similarly illustrated ; for such liberality the most cordial thanks of Archae- ologists are his due, and we hope that his enlightened efforts will meet with a full share of public approval. Mr. Disney, we must add, is not to be num- bered amongst those antiquarians who devote their entire attention to the more tasteful works of classic times, to the exclusion of objects, inferior as productions of art, but more congenial to the feelings of those who love the olden times, and antiquities of their Fatherland. It is gratifying to observe that the possessor of marbles so choice as the collection preserved at The Hyde, is not insensible to the merits of the medieval sculptures of our own country: an evidence was recently given of this by Mr. Disney, in his valuable donation to the Institute of a series of beautiful drawings of the monumental effigies of his ancestors, exhibited at a recent meeting of the Society. We cannot close these observations without again expressing our most anxious hope that some of our wealthy nobility and gentrj^ will be inspired with his generosity of spirit, and enrich the literary artistic world with a few more of such Catalogues Eaisonnees of the treasures of their private museums. The invaluable museum of early Saxon remains, dis- covered in the tumuli of Kent, now in the possession of the Rev. Dr. Faussett, at Heppington, near Canterbiu-y, was opened ^vith the utmost liber- ality on the occasion of the Archaeological Congress in that city. We cannot refrain from expressing a hoj^e that at the meeting of the Institute at Salisbury, in July next, that most precious collection of British Anti- quities, formed by the learned Sir Richard Colt Hoare, may be rendered accessible with like enlightened generosity, for the mstruction and gratifi- cation of some of those Archaeologists who reverence his memory as the founder of their science, in regard to the most obscure pei'iod of our history. THE ANCIENT SCULPTURED MONUMENTS OF THE COUNTY OF ANGUS, including those at Meigle, in Perthshire, and one at Fordoun, in the Meams. Edinburgh, 1848. Elephant fol. 18 pages and 22 Plates, executed in Lithotint. (Presented to the Bannatyne Club by Patrick Chalmers, Esq., of Auldbar). The monuments, so admirably illustrated in this magnificent publication, belong to a class of remains which have hitherto received little of that careful attention requisite to enable the Archaeologist to form a correct judgment as to their age, the people by whom, and the objects for which, they were executed. It is indeed scarcely credible that, whilst such pains have been taken to describe and illustrate Roman remains found in different parts of Great Britain, whilst sculptured stones have been sought for in foreign lands, and transported to our Museums at such great expense and labour, hundreds (for we are justified in using such a numeral expres- sion) of slabs and crosses covered with beautiful and singular sculpture, and often bearing inscriptions which have to the present time bafHed the skill of the keenest antiquaries, lie scattered over Great Britain and Ireland, a few only of which have hitherto been engraved. Of these, also, the representations are so rudely executed as to render fresh drawings neces- sary. And yet it might be thought, that the circumstance of many of these monuments having been evidently executed during the period between the Roman and Norman invasions, at a time when the Christian religion was