In the whole group of objects described in this Lecture we have a series of examples of the art which characterised the Iron Age Paganism of Scotland—the period that lies beyond the Christian time and reaches back until it merges into the Bronze Age culture. The outcome of the whole examination thus appears to be that the early Christian art of Scotland, although it had close relations with that of Ireland, was nevertheless based upon a pre-existing system of Pagan art peculiar to the area of the British Isles. Although remotely connected with certain developments of art that appear obscurely among the Iron Age relics of Central and Southern Europe, this special system of design received its highest development and attained its full maturity in the British Isles alone. There it became a distinctive school of decoration, exhibiting different aspects in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and attaining in each of these areas a separate development marked by a distinct individuality of character. Its manifestations in Scotland are those of a peculiar and highly characteristic style, confining itself to curvilinear forms, combining its simple elements in a manner that is neither rigidly geometric nor fettered by conditions of absolute symmetry, but producing by the variation and rhythmic recurrence of its peculiar features a series of designs characterised by beauty of form, balance of parts, and harmonious combination. It differs from the art of the Christian time, inasmuch as it presents no intermixture of forms and features that are common to Greek, Roman, or Etruscan art—no interlaced work, no meanders or key-patterns, or fretwork, and no similitude of foliage, or foliageous scrolls. It is zoomorphic, but its zoomorphism is chiefly apparent in the forms of the objects, and seldom exhibited in the designs with which they are decorated. It is more partial to the modelling of solid forms of ornament than to the elaborate enrichment of surface by intricate engraved work, and these solid forms of its surface ornament rarely become zoomorphic. When engraved or chased ornamentation is employed, it is used chiefly to produce broad effects by the contrast between plain spaces in the design and spaces filled with punctulations or chequers of short parallel lines. We find this peculiar style of art employed chiefly in the decoration of metal-work in bronze and gold. The objects so decorated are personal ornaments, arms, harness, and horse-trappings. The technical skill displayed in the fabrication and finish of these objects is great, and the quality of the art displayed in their decoration is high. There is implied in their production a special dexterity in preparing moulds and compounding alloys, in casting, chasing, and engraving, in the polishing and setting of jewels, in the composition and fixing of enamels. But there is further implied an artistic spirit controlling and combining the results of these various processes, giving elegance and beauty of a peculiar cast to the forms of the objects, and increasing the intrinsic elegance and beauty of the form by the harmonious blending of its special varieties of surface decoration, in which forms that are solidly modelled are intermingled with chased or engraved patterns and spaces filled with colour. A style of art characterised by such originality of design and excellence of execution must count for something in the history of a nation’s progress, must have its place to fill in the history of art itself, when once we have begun to realise the fact that art was not the exclusive privilege of classic antiquity.