themselves, may discover the importance of the study of the antique in this particular branch of workmanship. For herein, says Mariette, knowledge is brought under the dominion of a noble and lovely simplicity, which suffers nothing to be brought before the eye but what is required for the elevation of our ideas. And to the same effect is the remark of Gori: "What is there more pleasant than the contemplation of the works of the artists of antiquity, and to behold, shut up as it were within the narrow compass of a small, it may be of a very small gem, all the majesty of a vast design, and a most elaborate performance? The art of engraving figures upon these minute stones was as much admired by the ancients as that other sort of laborious skill which produced full-sized statues out of bronze or marble. It may even be said that gems in their eyes were of greater value by reason of the extreme smallness of the stones, and a hardness that defied the steel tool, and submitted to nothing but the power of the diamond."

In short, it may be safely affirmed that the gem engravers of the Alexandrian and Augustan ages were, in all that concerns excellence of design and composition (that is, in all those parts and principles of their art that admit of comparison), rivals of the most famous workers in marble and in bronze, however large the dimensions of their works, or perfect the finish of their workmanship. These wonderful artists contrived to enclose within the narrowness of a little agate-stone all the complicated details of an event in history, or of a fable in mythology, and to make them stand forth in beautiful relief as a Cameo, or to sink down as beautifully into depth as an Intaglio, with all that truth of design and power of expression which characterise the excellence of the largest works of the most consummate masters. Great indeed must have been his taste and talent, his power and patience,

who could make a small-sized Onyx or Carnelian bear on its surface or within its substance all those realities of place, person, or thing, which belong to historical events or fabulous traditions. It is Seneca's observation (suggested probably by the sight of some production of the gem-engraver's skill), that to enclose a whole within a small space is the work of a great artist. The remark of Sir Joshua Reynolds may also be cited on this point, as to the importance of making this whole congruous and consistent. "Excellence," says he, " in every part and in every province of our art, from the highest style of history down to the resemblances of still-life, will depend upon this power of extending the attention at once to the whole, without which the greatest diligence is vain." The gem-artists of antiquity, besides their other claims to our admiration, had regard to uniformity of design, to congruity and consistency throughout the entire work; they took care that all its parts were well fitted, and compactly distributed and disposed, and that also in all their fulness and effect.

To the archeologist, or the inquirer into the usages of domestic life amongst the ancients, engraved gems are invaluable authorities, supplying as they do the most authentic details of the forms and construction of innumerable articles connected with the uses of war, of navigation, of religious rites, of the games of the circus and the arena, and of the festivals and representations of the stage, with the costume, masks, and all the other accessaries of the scenic performance. Let any one, though totally unversed in this department of antique knowledge, cast his eye over a good collection of impressions from gems, and he will be both surprised and delighted, if a classical scholar, to perceive how much light is thrown upon ancient customs by the pictures which will there faithfully offer themselves to his view. There he will see the various pieces of the armour of the ancient Greek or Etruscan war

rior, carefully made out in their minutest details; the obscure subject of the construction of the ancient trireme has been principally elucidated by the representations thus handed down to our times, whilst the various exercises, scenes, and games of the palæstra, the theatre, and the circus, will be found abundantly illustrated by the most instructive examples. To take but a single instance out of the innumerable list that might be quoted, the hydraulis and the mode of performing upon it, of which no accurate notion can be extracted from the long and obscure description of its construction given by Vitruvius, are both plainly shown upon a plasma of Roman date, lately in the Herz Collection, but since fortunately secured for the British Museum.

Again, if we consider these gem-pictures in their relation to classic mythology and fable, we shall discover many obscure accounts left us by ancient writers on these heads, to be eked out and rendered intelligible by the means of these authentic remains of the creeds and ideas to which they refer; instances of which will be met with plentifully diffused throughout the course of these pages. Thus, the new religions of mixed origin that flourished under the Roman Empire, the Mithraic, the later Egyptian, and the various forms of Gnosticism, cannot be properly studied without a constant reference to these genuine illustrations of their doctrines; since the only written documents concerning them have been transmitted to us by either ignorant or prejudiced

adversaries, whose sole object was, to heap as many foul charges as they could collect or devise upon the members of rival sects. This is sufficiently apparent if we compare the strange discrepancy of the notices of the Gnostic belief generally, as given by the Catholic Fathers from whom I have quoted in the section upon its monuments, and the illustration of the actual doctrines so plainly set forth in the talismanic intagli engraved at the time for the use of these religionists. As for the mysterious Mithraic worship, scarcely any other source exists from which trustworthy information as to its true nature can be gathered, except from the gems, cylinders, and bas-reliefs still existing in such abundance, in spite of the careful destruction by its opponents of all the larger objects of the adoration of its votaries.

The disputed chronology of the annals of Egyptian history has been already to some extent, and will doubtless, at some future period, be yet more fully elucidated by the aid of the numerous scarabei and tablets bearing the names and titles of the kings, whenever a more satisfactory mode of interpreting their hieroglyphical legends, than the present conjectural method, shall have been discovered and applied to their investigation. These memorials will then do for the dynasties of Egypt that service already done by the light of their medals for the histories of the Greek, Roman, and Sassanian monarchs. As it is, the present almost universal mode of reading every hieroglyphic legend as though relating to Thothmes III. reminds one of the common mistake of persons not conversant with ancient coins, who attribute every Roman medal to Augustus because they see the letters AVG impressed upon it.

Again, when we arrive at the period of the full development of the glyptic art, we find a series of the most interesting representations opening upon us; and one which includes,

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besides gods, heroes, and emperors, other world-famed per sonages, poets, philosophers, and warriors; portraits of whom, as not occurring necessarily upon medals, we should otherwise be entirely deprived of, or else have the want but inadequately supplied by a defaced or dubious bust or statue. And the intaglio possesses a most important advantage over the medal in the perfect indestructibility of its impress, which no time, no wear can efface, and nothing destroy, except the utter comminution of the stone itself. Medals, on the contrary, from the high relief of their surface, and the unavoidable friction of commerce, as well as from the action of the earth upon them, frequently disappoint our expectation as to the effectiveness of the portrait they bear impressed; and besides this, they were seldom executed with the same degree of care as the costly intaglio cut on the valuable gem for the signet of the sovereign himself, or of that person of undying name whose "counterfeit presentment" it has preserved to remotest ages.

But all the pleasures and advantages to be reaped from this study have been admirably set forth by the "many-sided" Goethe, in his observations on the collection of Hemsterhuis, of which I subjoin a translation, as a most complete summary of all that can be said on the subject, and a most suitable conclusion to these prefatory remarks.

Before this, however, a few words may be permitted upon the causes of the decline of the taste for antique gems in our own age; for it is a singular fact, considering how completely this taste had become extinct in England during the last forty years, that at no previous period had it prevailed to such an extent, both here and in the other parts of Europe, as during the last half of the preceding century and the commencement of the present. Never before had camei of importance fetched such extraordinary prices (witness the fragment ascribed to Apollonides, and purchased by the Duke of