earlier age, they would have borne heads of Christ, or else nothing but Christian symbols-such as vines, doves or lambs. I have actually met with a plasma, on which was cut a bust of Christ, in mezzo-relievo, inscribed IC XC of very neat work, and resembling much the portraits on the early Byzantine aurei, beginning in the reign of Justinian Rhinotmetus, A.D. 685, the execution of which is still careful and by no means despicable in point of art. These huge camei often bear long legends in ill-shaped barbarous characters, the orthography of which is precisely that of an uneducated Greek of the present day, such is the confusion of the vowels and diphthongs of similar sound. Thus on one splendid Sardonyx of large size, we find Χερε και χαριτομενη instead of Χαιρε κεχαριτωμένη, each mode of spelling having exactly the same pronunciation at that time as at present in the spoken language.

Agate vases, or as they may be called cameo vases, being of such great rarity, it may be allowed me here to return to the subject in order to mention one described by Caylus; II., LXXXVI. This was a vase cut out of an Agate of three strata, 3 inches high by 2 inches wide, in form much like the Portland, but tapering more towards the bottom. The subjects upon it were Apollo and Diana, Cupid and Psyche, and a group of small cupids, some chasing butterflies, others riding through the air in cars drawn by them. This beautiful example of the art had been sold shortly before (1754) for a small price, at an auction of the refuse of the Royal Garde Mobile. When described by Peiresc, a century before, it was mounted in an elaborate Cinque-Cento setting of gold, enriched with precious stones, shewing the high estimation in which it had been held by its first possessor at that period, probably François I. The want of taste, or the avarice of the age of Louis XV., had stripped off the precious casing, but sold the far more

valuable Agate as a piece of rubbish. Besides vases and bas-reliefs in ivory of the earliest date, we have also many true came in this substance, or small medallions bearing heads in low relief on one side, and on the other numerals or letters: these were tickets for admission to places of amusement, or to entitle the bearer to certain largesses given by the emperor on days of rejoicing, as Martial :

"Nunc dat spectatas tessara longa feras."

And others may have been tessaræ hospitales, or equivalents to letters of introduction for the use of travellers. As might be expected, these small relics are much decayed by time and are liable to fall to pieces when dried after their discovery: it has, however, been found that they may be preserved from this danger by saturating them for some time in a hot solution of glue, and thus restoring to the pores of the ivory the due proportion of gelatine extracted from them by time.

Camei of barbarian origin are, as might be expected, very rare. I have, however, met with a few of apparently indubitable antiquity. One was a finely-executed Brahminee bull on Onyx, the figure white upon a transparent ground. The work was evidently Greek, not Hindoo, and therefore must have belonged to the period of the Macedonian kings of Bactria, on whose copper coinage this type sometimes appears. This cameo had been brought from India, but I could not ascertain the name of the locality where discovered. Another Indian cameo of antique workmanship was a front face of Buddha, of rude, bold work, on a brown and white Sardonyx of considerable size. But the most curious of all the examples of this style was a crouching lion, of early Persian work, extremely stiff and archaic in execution, as if the engraver had possessed but little power

to carry out his conception upon the hard gem, a large Oriental Onyx of three strata and of the finest quality.

Amongst the Pulsky camei is a fragment of a large one representing a king, in the costume of the Sassanian monarchs, engaged in combat with an animal, the figure of which has been broken off. The king's head is encircled by the diadem, terminating in broad flowing ribands so conspicuous in the rock-sculptures commemorative of Sapor I. The work of this cameo is truly excellent and equal to that of the best imperial times of Rome, and far superior to the contemporary Roman engravings; indeed, were it not for the costume of the principal figure, one would be disposed to refer it to a much earlier date. It, however, affords another proof of the statement, before advanced, of the wonderful revival of the arts under the restored Persian dynasty, and was doubtless the chef-d'œuvre of some Asiatic Greek patronized by Sapor. This composition, agreeably to the Roman style of late times, is inclosed within a border left from the upper layer of the stone, a fine Oriental Onyx.

Together with the two Indian gems above described, and said to have come also from Cabul, was a cameo on Sardonyx, Victory in a car, bold and vigorous in treatment, though by no means minutely finished, and showing every mark of an early Greek origin—a singular testimony to the diffusion of Hellenic art throughout the northern districts of India. The projecting portions of the design were much worn down and flattened by friction, perhaps among the gravel in the bed of some watercourse whence it had been rescued by the recent discoverer. The composition of the design bore a striking resemblance to the reverses of the Sicilian tetradrachms.

But the most interesting Oriental Cameo, though of a much later date, that has ever fallen under my notice was one in the Webb Collection sold by Christie and Manson

(1854). It was not, indeed, of ancient times, for the subject was Shah Jehan slaying a tiger that had killed one of his attendants, whose corpse lay upon the ground; the history of the event, in Persian characters, occupied the field of the cameo. The style of the engraving was purely Oriental, although one would rather have expected such a work to have displayed something of the Italian taste, in consequence of the constant patronage shown by the Mogul's court to the jewellers and lapidaries of that nation. The stone-a splendid Onyx of the clearest colours-was also of great size, about three inches in diameter, through which it had been pierced with a fine hole for the purpose of sewing it upon the dress, after the manner used by the Romans.

In all the collections of Europe taken together, there are certainly not a hundred gems inscribed with the genuine

6 Koehler boldly asserts that there exist but four gems bearing the indubitable signature of the engravers; but his distinctions are so arbitrary that his dictum may be regarded as a mere German paradox. An archæologist, however, of the greatest experience, and who has paid especial attention to this particular question, by the collection of the

casts and the study of the originals of all the known signed gems, is of opinion that the number may be extended to sixty. The rules which he had laid down to himself for establishing the reality of these signatures, to my great satisfaction, exactly coincided with those already written by me in the following article.

name of the artist who engraved them. And these authentic signatures are usually distinguished by this peculiarity, that they are placed at the side of the design, and engraved in minute but elegant Greek characters. Many antique stones also occur in which these names have been added by a modern hand in order to augment the value of the gem; but these forged names can generally be detected by their great inferiority in neatness of execution to the genuine. The ancient artist evidently attempted to distinguish his own signature, both by its position and by the miniature size of the letters, from the common inscriptions so abundant upon intagli, especially those of Roman times, which consist of the initials or the name of the owner, and sometimes that of the town of his domicile; or, still more frequently, invocations to the deities whose figures are represented upon the

The legends occasionally seen on Etruscan intagli, and which add considerably to their value, are the names of the gods or heroes engraved upon them, according to the usual practice of that people in their other works of art, as on painted vases and the backs of their metallic mirrors. The Greeks, on the contrary, with their usual good taste, never impaired the effect of the design by an explanatory inscription: all that they allowed themselves, and that but very rarely, was to hand down the artist's name in the most modest and unpretending manner possible.