SPEECH AT VILLAGE HOMES.

285

morning, and attended the parish school, where religious instruction was imparted in accordance with the doctrine and articles of the Church of England.

He felt anxious that their religious training should be such that, with God's blessing, it might shield them in a world of temptation and sin. From what he had seen that day he felt sure their meeting would result in the uprearing of two or three more blocks of buildings.

CHAPTER XV.

1856, ADDRESS BY DR BRUCE IN EDINBURGH ·

1857, HE VISITS NORMANDY WITH SUSSEX ARCHEOLOGICAL SOCIETY ATTENDS DINNER TO MR GEORGE B. BRUCE-1858, LECTURE ON TRAJAN'S COLUMN— 1863, HANDBOOK TO NEWCASTLE UNDERTAKES TO PREPARE BOOK ON CONCENTRIC CIRCLES COMMENCES CATALOGUE OF BRITISH ANTIQUITIES AT ALNWICK CASTLE-1868-1872, LETTERS TO HIS WIFE1869, COMPLETION OF BOOK ON CONCENTRIC CIRCLES - 1877-1888, LETTERS ΤΟ HIS SON 1881, CATALOGUE OF ALNWICK MUSEUM PRINTED.

IN July 1856 the Annual Meeting of the Archæological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland was held in Edinburgh under the presidency of Lord Talbot de Malahide. Dr Bruce was invited to give an address on the practical advantages accruing from the study of archæology. At that time public feeling was highly excited by the notorious mismanagement of the Crimean War-especially with the defects of the Commissariat Department; and Dr Bruce's lecture, which was delivered on 23rd July 1856, and was of a popular character, and mainly based upon well-known examples taken from ancient history, struck a note which touched a readily responsive chord in public feeling, and was received with rapturous applause. The newspapers of the day were full of it, and extracts from the lecture found their way into journals published in all parts of

the kingdom. Some passages from the lecture are inserted here.

"Utilitarians tell us that they have too much
to do with the stern realities of life to dream
over the events of the past. Let us see, how-
ever, if the study of antiquities has not some
solid, tangible, commercial advantages. In the
attempt to show that it has, I shall confine
myself to one branch of the subject, and will
direct your attention to the Roman division of
the great field cultivated by the Archæological
Institute and other kindred societies.
If any
one had said to the Prime Minister of England,
when he declared war against Russia, 'My Lord,
let me advise you, before you take a single
step in the prosecution of this momentous en-
terprise, to spend at least one week in the
study of Roman antiquities,' what would have
been thought of him? And yet, if we look
into it, the suggestion is not so supremely
ridiculous as at first sight appears. Supposing
Lord Aberdeen had come into Northumberland
and had placed himself under the guidance of
our local Society. The first thing, probably,

that we should have done would have been
to have shown him the Watling Street and
some other lines of Roman roads which there
exist in a state of considerable perfection. We
should have said to him, 'You see here the
practice of the Romans.
In advancing upon
an enemy they uniformly made the construc-
tion of a road keep pace with the progress of
This they did in order to keep up

the army.

the communication with their reserves in the rear, that their supplies might be duly forwarded, and that, in the case of sudden disaster, they might make good their retreat. Unfortunately, however, the Prime Minister of that day was too busy to study antiquities. It was not until after our army had suffered the severest calamities that a road was made from Balaklava to the camp.

"Again, we should probably after this have taken him to some of our Roman stations on the Wall and shown him the care with which a Roman army intrenched itself when it rested even for a night. We should have confirmed this opinion by referring him to the sculptures on Trajan's Column, which represent the soldiers employed in the Dacian campaign as being very extensively employed in building stone dwellings. We should then have pressed upon his Lordship the necessity of securing strong and warm habitations for the army the moment that they had reached the ground which they were to occupy even for a moderate length of time. Our soldiery were exposed on the heights of Sebastopol in a way that a Roman army never would have been. Further, we should probably have drawn his attention very particularly to the Roman method of heating their apartments by hypocausts, and we should have suggested to him the adoption of a similar method of enabling the army to endure the rigours of a Crimean winter. But there was not time to study antiquities, and our army was left to bear up

COMMISSARIAT OF ROMAN ARMY.

289

against the extreme rigours of winter as best they could.

"As to the commissariat of the Roman army, our stations on the lines of the walls of Hadrian and Antoninus do not teach us much; but the instructive coil around the column of Trajan makes up for the deficiency. We should have called his Lordship's attention to the important fact that foremost in the preparations which Trajan is there represented as making for his campaign in Dacia is laying in a store of hay for his horses. Doubtless if the horses were cared for the men would not be neglected. But our rulers had no time to throw away upon the study of antiquities, and our noble horses were left on the heights above Sebastopol, at a temperature not much above zero, to eat one another's manes and tails.

"After this country had suffered two or three times from that dreadful scourge, the Asiatic cholera, our rulers were taught the necessity of attending to the sewage of towns and of prohibiting intramural interments. If they had studied antiquities, and had profited by the experience of the Romans, that dreadful infliction, so far as it is dependent upon second causes, might in a great measure have been avoided. The most perfect Roman station that I have had an opportunity of examining is Bremenium, the modern High Rochester. On excavating the station we found that it had been rebuilt on two different occasions; but below the lowest foundation were carefully con

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