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Arma antiqua manus, ungues dentesque fuerunt,

Et lapides et item sylvarum fragmina rami;

Posterius ferri vis est, ærisque reperta,

Sed prius æris erat, quam ferri cognitus usus.[69]

Gentleman Horace is almost equally correct:—

Quum prorepserunt primis animalia terris,

Mutum et turpe pecus, glandem atque cubilia propter

Unguibus et pugnis, dein fustibus, atque ita porro

Pugnabant armis quæ post fabricaverat usus.[70]

How refreshing is the excellent anthropology of these pagans after the marvel-myths of man’s Creation propounded by the so-called ‘revealed’ religions.

THE ‘AGES.’

For the better distribution of the subject I shall here retain the obsolete and otherwise inadmissible, because misleading, terms—Age of Stone, Age of Bronze, Age of Iron.[71] From the earliest times all the metals were employed, without distinction, for weapons offensive and defensive: besides which, the three epochs intermingle in all countries, and overlap one another; they are, in fact, mostly simultaneous rather than successive. As a modern writer says, like the three principal colours of the rainbow, these three stages of civilisation shade off the one into the other; and yet their succession, as far as Western Europe[72] is concerned, appears to be equally well defined with that of the prismatic colours, though the proportion of the spectrum may vary in different countries. And, as a confusion of ideas would be created, especially when treating of the North European Sword, by neglecting this superficial method of classification, I shall retain it while proceeding to consider the development of the White Arm under their highly conventional limits.