ollet a double pante
passemente dor et argent)."

The finest old Teutonic cross in Scotland is the well-known pillar which
stands in the churchyard of Ruthwell, in Dumfriesshire. It was
ignominiously thrown down, by a decree of the General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church, in 1642; but its broken fragments were collected,
as far as possible, and the cross itself again erected, by the late
clergyman of the parish, Dr. Henry Duncan, who published in the
Transactions of this Society correct drawings of the Runic inscription
on this ancient monument. Two Danish antiquaries, Repp and Finn
Magnusen, tried to read these Runic lines, and tortured them into very
opposite, and let me simply add, very ridiculous meanings, about a grant
of land and cows in Ashlafardhal, and Offa, a kinsman of Woden,
transferring property to Ashloff, etc., all which they duly published.
That great antiquary and Saxon scholar, the late Mr. Kemble, then
happened to turn his attention to the Ruthwell inscription, and saw the
runes or language to be Anglo-Saxon, and in no ways Scandinavian, as had
been supposed. He found that the inscription consisted of a poem, or
extracts from a poem, in Anglo-Saxon, in which the stone cross, speaking
in the first person, described itself as overwhelmed with sorrow because
it had borne Christ raised upon it at His crucifixion, had been stained
with the blood poured from His side, and had witnessed His agonies,--

"I raised the powerful King,
The Lord of the heavens;
I dared not fall down," etc. etc.

Who was to decide between the very diverse opinions, and still more
diverse readings, of this inscription by the English antiquary and his
Danish rivals? An accidental discovery in an old manuscript may be
justly considered as having settled the whole question. For, two or
three years after Mr. Kemble had published his reading of the
inscription, the identical Anglo-Saxon poem which he had found written
on the Ruthwell cross was casually discovered in an extended form under
the title of the "Dream of the Rood." The old MS. volume of Saxon
homilies and religious lays from which the book containing it was
printed, was found by Dr. Blum in a library at Vercelli, in Italy.

With these rambling remarks I have already detained you far too long.
Ere concluding, however, bear with me for a minute or two longer, while
I shortly speak of one clamant subject--viz. the strong necessity of
this Society, and of every S