ASTR. The Scots Magazine. THE METAL WORK IN SCOTLAND. BY C. MENMUIR. M.A. (Edin.) PART I. ITS HISTORICAL ASPECTS. HE place that metals have occupied in advancing the material welfare of the human race may well be cited as a sufficient excuse for any attempt at tracing the progress of the arts relating thereto. The science of archæology has already accomplished so much in this, as in the other departments of human activity embraced in its sphere, that a general survey is not only possible, but may, perhaps, be profitable to those readers who may not have had the opportunity of doing more than merely enjoy the many advantages that these crafts now place within their reach. Those who may not grudge the time certainly will not fail to find something to interest them in the long chain that links together the triumphs of to-day and the triumphs, no less honourable nor to some less wonderful, of a long forgotten past. Man, the seeker-out of many inventions, should surely in all fairness be allowed now and again at least to appeal to our gratitude from out those years when that was slowly but surely being sown which in the present has given us such a harvest. Skill in craftsmanship is less than ever now the monopoly of a generation; patience and loving hands did as honest work in making bronze swords and in shaping and adorning Celtic brooches, as they ever have done with all the added advantages that improved methods can bring to the aid of the workman we may meet at the factory door. The beginnings may have been small, and the thoughtless observer may be tempted to turn from the broken relics of our museum cases with the belief that the age of miracles must have reached us long after these silent witnesses were called into being; but let him try to imagine the environment of the worker, let him think of his tools and pity his many limitations, and I am perfectly sure that the interest, thus newly awakened in the student, will make him the first to praise the workman, to admire the artist, and to respect the man. The earliest evidences of metal-work in Scotland, as in many other countries, notably Ireland, Scandinavia, France, and Germany, are by no means so meagre as the person unacquainted with these matters might imagine. Not only have we at hand a comparatively varied number of types, but, what is perhaps as important, we have great variety within each of these classes of articles, for they range from the roughest up to the most finely finished specimens. Thus we can trace the bronze axe from its earliest and simplest form as a flat axe (in many examples it has exceeding beauty of outline to recommend it, if it has nothing else in the way of artistic treatment) through its intermediate shape as a flanged axe, which in addition to its increased ingenuity of form frequently adds a variety of hammered patterns whose fertility of design speaks for the artist's conscious effort at beautifying his work. The flanged axe in time is displaced by the socketed axe, which demanded, on the part of its maker, additional knowledge in the art of moulding and a deeper insight into the ends to be secured from a form whose complexity of shape might necessitate greater skill in manufacture, although at the same time it would give greater power and usefulness in the weapon. Many of these socketed axe-heads are really fine specimens of the founder's skill, paralleled only by the equally noteworthy bronze spear-heads and sword-blades which in their plainness have all the dignity that perfection of shape lends to the best examples. Compare these beautifully tapered blades with the sword of later times, and they do not come out badly in the comparison. Add to this the feeling that they give the observer of their exquisite balance, and we must admit that the old worker had little to learn in the craft he was such a master of, because he so rarely failed to unite a beautiful form with an unerring sense of what was due to the material itself. No small part indeed of the fine proportions |