The storied name which stands at the head of this paper has an immense range of association and interest. Lest the gentle reader be frightened at the outset by too extensive a prospect let us define at once the limits we have set to our present inquiry.

There is a knowledge of Britain that is characteristic of this and the last century. It is a knowledge founded on the results of numberless excavations on surveys of roads, forts and cities, on intensive study of stratification and of the evidence hidden in broken pots and half obliterated coins. It is a knowledge that must have made up a remarkable whole in the mind of a scholar like the late Professor Haverfield; that still makes up such a whole in the minds of a handful of scholars still living today. For most of us this knowledge is only to be gained at second-hand from the summarized reports of the experts; at best we may be able to add a personal acquaintance with some small part of the subject. It is a knowledge that advances progressively and comprises most of the hope for the future.