The late Sir James Simpson, in the midst of his anxious professional
labours, was wont to seek for refreshment in the pursuit of subjects of
a historical and archaeological character, and to publish the results in
the Transactions of different Societies and in scientific journals.
Some of these papers are now scarce, and difficult of access; and a
desire having been expressed in various quarters for their appearance in
a collected and permanent form, I was consulted on the subject by Sir
Walter Simpson, who put into my hands copies of the various essays, with
notes on some of them by his father, which seemed to indicate that he
himself had contemplated their republication.
Having for a long time been acquainted with their merits, I did not
hesitate to express a strong opinion in favour of their publication; and
I accepted with pleasure the duty of editing them, which Sir Walter
requested me to perform.
The papers in question were the fruit of inquiries begun indeed as a
relief from weightier cares; but as it was not in their author's nature
to rest satisfied with desultory and superficial results in his
treatment of any subject, so his archaeological papers more resemble the
exhaustive treatises of a leisurely student, than the occasional efforts
of one overwhelmed in professional occupations.
In the present work will be found all the more important archaeological
papers of Sir James Simpson, collected from the various sources
indicated in the Table of Contents.
The subjects to the antiquities of which Sir James first directed his
attention were connected with his own profession; but, as time went on,
his interest in historical pursuits deepened and expanded, and the
questions discussed by him became more varied.
It has been thought best to arrange the papers of a general historical
scope in the first volume, and those connected with professional
antiquities in the second; but readers, who may wish to trace the order
in which they were written by the author, will find their various dates
in the Table.
The first paper, entitled "Archaeology, its Past and its Future Work,"
was prepared as a lecture to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
This was done with a care and elaboration which are not always
associated with such efforts; and, whether in indicating the object and
end of the archaeological student's pursuits,--sketching the past
progress of the study,--and specifying the lines of research from which
Scottish inductive archaeology may be expected to derive additional data
and facts,--nothing more thoroughly practical could be desired; while in
his resume of the difficulties and enigmas peculiar to Scottish
antiquities, he may be said to have left none of them untouched, his
passing allusions being, in many instances, suggestive of their
solution.
The paper on "An old Stone-roofed Cell or Oratory in the Island of
Inchcolm" affords an instance of the author's careful observation, and
his fertility of illustration. The humble structure in question, which,
at the time when it first attracted Sir James Simpson's notice, was used
as a pig-stye, had few external features to suggest the necessity of
farther inquiry; but after his eye had become accustomed to the
architecture of the early monastic cells in Ireland, its real character
flashed upon him, and he found that his conclusions coincided with the
facts of the early history of the island.
These he gleaned from many sources, but in grouping them into a picture
he enriched his narrative with various instructive notes; as on the "Mos
Scotticum" of our early buildings; a comparison of the ruin with the
Irish oratories; notices of other Island Retreats of Saints, and of the
Saints themselves. In one of these he gives an instructive reference to
a passage in the original Latin text of Boece about the round tower of
Brechin, which had been overlooked by his translator Bellenden, and so
was now quoted for the first time.
A copy of this paper on Inchcolm having been sent to his friend Dr.
Petrie of Dublin, author of the well-known essay on the "Early
Ecclesiastical Architecture and Round Towers of Ireland," it was
returned after a time, enriched with many notes and illustrations. In
now reprinting the paper these have been added, and are distinguished
from the author's notes by having the letter P annexed to them. The
subject of the Inchcolm oratory was one about which this great man felt
much interest, and on which he could speak from the abundance of his
knowledge and experience. The notes are therefore of special value, as
furnishing the latest views of the author on mooted points of Celtic
Ecclesiology, while they are conspicuous for the modesty and candour
which were combined with Dr. Petrie's vast learning on the subject.
Thus, in his work on the Round Towers, Dr. Petrie assigned "about the
year 1020" as the date of the round tower of Brechin, but in one of the
notes he corrects himself, and explains the origin of his mistake:--"The
recollection of the error which I made, by a carelessness not in such
matters usual with me, in assigning this date 1020, instead of between
the years 971 and 994, as I ought to have done, has long given me
annoyance, and a lesson never to trust to memory in dates; for it was
thus I fell into the mistake. I had the year 1020 on my mind, which is
the year assigned by Pinkerton for the writing of the _Chron. Pictorum_,
and, without stopping to remember or to refer, I took it for granted
that it was the year of Kenneth's death, or rather of his gift."
In writing of the Early Churches or Oratories of Ireland, Dr. Petrie
stated in his Essay--"they had a single doorway always placed in the
centre of the west wall." In one of his notes, now printed, he thus
qualifies the statement:--"I should perhaps have written _almost_
always. The very few exceptions did not at the moment occur to me."
Again, Sir James Simpson having quoted a passage from Dr. Petrie's work,
in which the writer ascribes the old small stone-roofed church at
Killaloe to the seventh century, Dr. Petrie, in his relative note,
adds--"but now considers as of the tenth, or perhaps eleventh."
To the paper on "Leprosy and Leper Hospitals in Scotland and England" is
now added a series of additional "Historical Notices," prepared by Dr.
Joseph Robertson, with the accuracy and research for which, as is well
known, my early friend was conspicuous.
The origin of the tract on "Medical Officers in the Roman Army" is
explained in the following note, prefixed to the first edition:--"A few
years ago my late colleague, Sir George Ballingall, asked me--'Was the
Roman Army provided with Medical Officers?' He was interested in the
subject as Professor of Military Surgery, and told me that he had made,
quite unsuccessfully, inquiries on the matter in various quarters, and
at various persons. I drew up for him a few remarks, which were
privately printed and circulated among his class at the time. The
present essay consists of an extension of these remarks."
The essay on the monument called "THE CATSTANE" suggested an
explanation, which naturally elicited divergent criticisms. Some of
these appear to have occasionally engaged Sir James Simpson's attention;
and from some unfinished notes among his papers, it seems plain that he
meant to notice them in an additional communication to the Society of
Antiquaries.
In these notes, after recapitulating at the outset the facts adduced in
his first paper, Sir James proceeds:--"These points of evidence, I
ventured to conclude, '_tend at least to render it probable_' that the
Catstane is a monument to Vetta, the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa.
But I did not consider the question as a settled question. I began and
ended my paper by discussing this early Saxon origin of the monument as
problematical and probable, but not fixed. At the same time, I may
perhaps take the liberty of remarking, that both in archaeology and
history we look upon some questions as sufficiently fixed and settled,
regarding which we have less inferential and direct proof than we have
respecting this solution of the enigma respecting the Catstane. The
idea, however, that it was possible for a monument to a historic Saxon
leader to be found in Scotland of a date antecedent to the advent of
Hengist and Horsa to the shores of Kent, was a notion so repugnant to
many minds, that, very naturally, various arguments have been adduced
against it, while some high authorities have declared in favour of it.
In this communication I propose to notice briefly some of the leading
arguments that have been latterly brought forward both against and for
the belief that the Catstane commemorates the ancestor of the Saxon
conquerors of Kent.
"1. One anonymous writer has maintained, that if the Catstane was a
monument to the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, the inscription upon
it should not have read 'In hoc tumulo jacet Vetta f(ilius) Victi,' but,
on the contrary, 'Victus filius Vettae.' In other words, he holds that
the inscription reverses the order of paternity as given by Bede,
Nennius, etc.[1] But all this is simply and altogether a mistake on the
part of the writer. All the ancient genealogies describe Hengist and
Horsa as the sons of Victgils, Victgils as the son of Vetta, and Vetta
as the son of Victus. The Catstane inscriptions give Vetta and Victus in
exactly the same order. When I pointed out to the writer the mistake
into which he had, perhaps inadvertently, fallen, he turned round, and
argued that in such names the vowels _e_ and _i_ were more trustworthy
as permanent elements than the consonants _c_ and _t_.[2] He argued, in
other words, that Vecta as a proper name would not be found spelled
with an _i_. If it were never so spelled with an _i_, that circumstance
was no argument in favour of the strange error of criticism into which
the writer had fallen; but the fact is, that in the famous chapter of
Bede's history, in which the names Hengist and Horsa, and their
genealogies, first occur, there is an instance given, showing that,
contrary to the opinion of this writer, a proper name having, like
_Vetta_, the letter _e_ as a component, _may_ change it to _i_. For
Bede, in telling us that the men of Kent and of the Isle of Wight
(Cantuarii et Victuarii) were sprung from the Jutes, spells the Isle of
Wight (Vecta) with an _e_, and the inhabitants of it (Victuarii) with an
_i_.
"The same writer states it as his opinion that the lettering in the
Catstane inscription is not so old as I should wish to make it. 'It is,'
says he, 'in our opinion, of later date even than Hengist himself, both
in the formula of the inscription and in the character of the writing.'
Perhaps the writer's opinion upon such a point is not worth alluding to,
as it is maintained by no proof. But Edward Lhuyd--one of the very best
judges in such questions in former days--stated the lettering to be of
the fourth or fifth century, without having any hypothesis to support or
subvert by this opinion. And the best palaeographer of our own
times--Professor Westwood--is quite of the same idea as to the mere age
of the inscription, as drawn from its palaeography and formula, an idea
in which he is joined by an antiquary who has worked much with ancient
lettering--viz. Professor Stephens of Copenhagen."
Although it is to be regretted that the contemplated remarks were not
completed, it may be doubted if the question admitted of much further
illustration; and, however unlikely the conclusion may be that the
inscription on the Catstane, VETTA F[ILIUS] VICTI, is a contemporary
commemoration of the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, it may not be
easy to suggest a solution of the question free from difficulties as
puzzling. At all events the palaeographic features of the inscription
seem plainly to associate it with a class of rude post-Roman monuments,
of which we have a good many examples in different parts of the kingdom;
and it may be remarked that Mr. Skene, who has made this period of our
history a special study, after investigating, with his usual acumen, the
evidence which exists to show that the Frisians had formed settlements
in Scotland at a period anterior to that usually assigned for the
arrival of the Saxons in England, has established the fact of the early
settlement on our northern coasts of a people called by the general name
of Saxons, but in reality an offshoot from the Frisians, whose principal
seat was on the shores of the Firth of Forth, and on the whole thinks it
not impossible that the Catstane may be the tomb of their first leader
Vitta, son of Vecta, the traditionary grandfather of Hengist and
Horsa.[3]
Besides the papers now printed, Sir James Simpson contributed many
shorter essays and reviews of books to magazines and newspapers. He also
prepared a memorandum, printed in the second volume of the "Sculptured
Stones of Scotland," of a reading of the inscription on a sculptured
cross at St. Vigeans in Forfarshire.[4] At the time of the final
adjustment of this paper Sir James was an invalid, and confined to his
bed, and I well remember the extreme, almost fastidious, care bestowed
by him on the proof-sheet, in the course of my frequent visits to his
bedroom.
It sometimes happened also that a subject originally treated in a paper
by Sir James Simpson required a volume to exhaust it. Thus, in the
spring of 1864, he read to a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland a "Notice of the Sculpturing of Cups and Concentric Rings on
Stones and Rocks in various parts of Scotland;" but materials afterwards
so grew on his hands that his original Notice came to be expanded into a
volume of nearly 200 pages, with 36 illustrative plates. His treatment
of this curious subject furnishes a model for such investigations.[5]
Setting out with a description of the principal types of the sculptures,
he investigates the chief deviations which occur. He next classifies the
various monuments on which the sculptures have been observed, as
standing-stones, cromlechs, stones in chambered tumuli, and stones in
sepulchral cists. Another chapter describes their occurrence on stones
connected with archaic habitations, as weems, fortified buildings, in
and near ancient towns and camps, and on isolated rocks and stones.
After a description of analogous sculptures in other countries, there is
a concluding chapter of general inferences founded on the facts
accumulated in the previous part of the volume.
On the occasion of a rapid journey to Liverpool, Sir James Simpson
visited a stone circle at Calder, near that city, and detected the true
character of the sculptures on the stones, a very imperfect note of
which I had recently brought under his notice. An account of this
monument, which he prepared for the Historic Society of Lancashire and
Cheshire, is printed in the Transactions of that body for 1865, and the
following passages are quoted from it:--"Many suggestions, I may
observe, have been offered in regard to the intent and import of such
lapidary cup and ring cuttings as exist on the Calder Stones; but none
of the theories proposed solve, as it seems to me, the hieroglyphic
mystery in which these sculpturings are still involved. They are old
enigmatical 'handwritings on the wall,' which no modern reader has yet
deciphered. In our present state of knowledge with regard to them, let
us be content with merely collecting and recording the facts in regard
to their appearances, relations, localities, etc.; for all early
theorising will, in all probability, end only in error. It is surely
better frankly to own that we know not what these markings mean (and
possibly may never know it), rather than wander off into that vague
mystification and conjecture which in former days often brought
discredit on the whole study of archaeology.
"But in regard to their probable era let me add one suggestion. These
cup and ring cuttings have now been traced along the whole length of the
British Isles, from Dorsetshire to Orkney, and across their whole
breadth from Yorkshire in England to Kerry in Ireland; and in many of
the inland counties in the three kingdoms. They are evidently dictated
by some common thought belonging to some common race of men. But how
very long is it since a common race--or successive waves even of a
common race--inhabited such distant districts as I have just named, and
spread over Great Britain and Ireland, from the English Channel to the
Pentland Firth, and from the shores of the German Ocean to those of the
Atlantic?"
The special value of the inductive treatment of the subject adopted by
Sir James Simpson is here conspicuous; and although no decided
conclusion was come to on the age and meaning of the sculptures, or the
people by whom they were made, yet a reader feels that the utmost has
been made of existing materials; and that, while nothing has been left
untouched which could throw light on the question, a broad and sure
foundation has been laid on which all subsequent research must rest.
One of the Appendices to this volume contains an account of some ancient
sculptures on the walls of certain caves in Fife. The essay originally
appeared as a communication to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in
January 1866, and was also soon afterwards printed separately--"Inscribed
to James Drummond, Esq., R.S.A., as a small token of the Author's very
sincere friendship and esteem."
The discovery of these cave sculptures affords an instance of the
thoroughness which Sir James carried into all his investigations. While
engaged in the preparation of his original paper for the Society of
Antiquaries on the Sculpturing of Cups and Rings, he wished to ascertain
all the localities and conditions of their occurrence. After describing
the sculptured circles and cups which had been found on the stones of
weems and "Picts' Houses," he referred to the caves on the coast of
Fife, which he suggested might be considered as natural weems or
habitations. These he had visited in the hope of discovering
cup-markings; and in one near the village of Easter Wemyss he discovered
faded appearances of some depressions or cups, with small single circles
cut on the wall, adding to his description--"Probably a more minute and
extensive search in these caves would discover many more such carvings."
This was written in 1864; and when the paper then prepared had been
expanded into the volume of 1867, the passage just quoted was
accompanied by the following note:--"I leave this sentence as it was
written above two years ago. Shortly after that period, I revisited
Wemyss, to inspect the other caves of the district, and make more
minute observations than I could do in my first hurried visit, and
discovered on the walls of some of them many carvings of animals,
'spectacle ornaments,' and other symbols exactly resembling in type and
character the similar figures represented on the ancient so-called
sculptured stones of Scotland, and, like them, probably about a thousand
years old."[6]
In like manner, after Sir Gardner Wilkinson had detected a concentric
circle of four rings sculptured on the pillar called "Long Meg," at the
great stone circle of Salkeld, in Cumberland, Sir James Simpson paid a
visit to the monument, when his scrutiny was rewarded by the discovery
on this pillar of several additional groups of sculptures.[7]
In his lecture on Archaeology, Sir James Simpson has indicated two lines
of research, from which additional data and facts for the elucidation of
past times might be expected--viz. researches beneath the surface of the
earth, and researches among older works and manuscripts. By the former
he meant the careful and systematised examinations in which the spade
and pickaxe are so important, and have done such service in late years,
and from which Sir James expected much more; and by the latter the
exploring and turning to account the many stores of written records of
early times yet untouched.
Being impressed with the value of the charters of our old religious
houses for historical purposes, he, shortly before his death, had a
transcript made of the Chartulary of the Monastery of Inchcolm, with a
design to edit it as one of a series of volumes of monastic records for
the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
But the services of Sir James Simpson to the cause of archaeological
research are not to be measured by his written contributions, remarkable
as these are. Perhaps it may be said that his influence was most
pregnant in kindling a love of research in others, by opening their eyes
to see how much yet lay undiscovered, and how much each person could do
by judicious effort in his own neighbourhood. With this view he on
various occasions delivered lectures on special subjects of antiquity,
and among his papers I found very full notes of lectures on Roman
antiquities, one of which, on the "Romans in Britain," he delivered at
Falkirk in the winter of 1862.
For many years the house of Sir James Simpson was the rendezvous of
archaeological students; and it was one of his great pleasures to bring
together at his table men from different districts and countries, but
united by the brotherhood of a common pursuit, for the discussion of
facts and the exchange of thought.
The friends who were accustomed to these easy reunions will not soon
forget the radiant geniality of the host, and his success in stimulating
the discussions most likely to draw out the special stores of his
guests. Others also, who were associated with Sir James in the visits to
historical sites which he frequently planned, in the retrospect of the
pleasant hours thus spent will feel how vain it is to hope for another
leader with the attractions which were combined in him.
In the course of his numerous professional journeys he acquired a
wonderfully accurate knowledge of the early remains of different
districts; and so contagious was his enthusiasm for their elucidation,
that both the professional brethren with whom he acted, and his
patients, were speedily found among his correspondents and allies.
His presence at the meetings of Archaeological Societies was ever
regarded as a pleasure and benefit. Besides the stated meetings of the
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, which he attended with comparative
frequency, and where he ever took a share in the discussions, he was
present on various occasions at Congresses of the Archaeological
Institute, the Cambrian Association, and other kindred bodies, by means
of which he was enabled to maintain an intercourse with contemporary
fellow-labourers in the archaeological field, and to attain that
familiarity with different classes of antiquities which he turned to
such account in the discussion and classification of the early remains
of Scotland.
I must not speak of the wonderful combination of qualities which were
conspicuous in Sir James Simpson, alongside of those which I have
mentioned. This may safely be left to the more competent hand of
Professor Duns, from whose memoir of his early friend so much may be
expected, and where a more general estimate of his character will
naturally be found. Yet, in bringing together this series of Sir James
Simpson's Archaeological Essays, it seemed not unsuitable for me to
express something of my admiration of the earnest truth-seeking spirit
with which they were undertaken, as well as of the genius and research
with which they were executed.