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IN A LETTER FROM ROACH SMITH, ESQ., TO THE
HONORARY SECRETARY.
[Read at the Meeting at Canterbury.]
MY DEAR SIR,
In no branch of archaeology has greater or sounder
progress been made than in that which comprises the Saxon
antiquities of this country, and the Frankish antiquities
of the Continent. Contemporaneous in date, closely analogous in
general character, belonging to peoples descended from a common
parentage, they are mutually illustrative, and throw a strong and
unsuspected light upon the conditions of our ancestors, at a
period when historical information is particularly meagre and
obscure. And yet, until within the last twenty or thirty years,
these monuments of the grave, so authentic and expressive, were
but little understood. The researches of Douglas1 in Kent, well
published and illustrated, failed in enlisting followers from
among his contemporaries ; and the excavations of Bryan Faussett,
although they were partially brought under the observation and
criticism of Douglas, remained unpublished and but little known.
Our neighbours in France and Germany
1 Nenia Britannica; or, a
Sepulchral History of Great Britain; from
tlie Earliest Period to the General Conversion to Christianity. By
the
Rev. James Douglas, F.A.S. London. 1793.
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