XXIII. Conjectures concerning the Instruments called Celts. By R.P. Knight, Esq. F.A.S.

Extract

An accurate and circumstantial account of a great number of these instruments, found at different times and in different places, together with the various opinions of the learned concerning the uses for which they were intended, has been published in the fifth volume of the Archaeologia by the late Dr. Lort. Many hundreds of them have been discovered in almost every part of the British islands; many, also, though not so many, in France; one only, and that probably carried thither, in Spain: and none in any of the more southern or eastern parts of the Roman empire: unless, indeed, we admit those which Count Caylus says were sent to him from Herculaneum: but as this buried city has been, from the time of its discovery to the present day, the common source, from which every Italian dealer in antiquities derives his wares, especially those of his own manufacture, and as none ever found their way into the Royal Museum of Portici, or came to the knowledge of those vigilant directors and superintendants of the subterranean researches, Camillo Paderni and Father Antonio; or to that of the no less watchful observer of their results, Sir William Hamilton, we may safely conclude that the Count was imposed upon; and that these articles, sent to him from Naples, had either been brought there from the north-western parts of Europe, or, what is more likely, made there on purpose for him: since castworks, such as these invariably are, may be counterfeited, so as to deceive more skilful judges than he was, even by less dextrous and experienced artists than those of Naples and Rome.