possession of it with others; a pleasure too which was often greatly embittered. There are people who endeavour to display their penetrating sagacity by appearing to doubt the genuineness of every work of art laid before them, and by casting suspicion upon the same. In order not to expose himself repeatedly to such mortifications, he preferred foregoing the eagerly-desired acquisition of the cabinet."

On this letter Goethe makes the following truly appropriate observations:

"It is highly vexatious to see a thing, though the most perfect, received with doubt; for the doubter sets himself up above the trouble of proof, although he demands it from the assertor of the authenticity of the work. But in such cases on what does the proof rest, except upon a certain inward feeling, supported by a practised eye, which may be able to detect particular signs, as well as upon the proved probability of certain historical requisitions, and in fact upon many other circumstances which we, taking collectively, by their means convince only ourselves at the last, but do not bring conviction into the mind of another? But as things are, the love of doubting finds nowhere a more ample field to display itself in than precisely in the case of engraved gems; now, one is termed an ancient, now a modern copy, a repetition, an imitation; sometimes the stone itself excites suspicion, sometimes the inscription, which ought to have been of especial value; and hence it is more dangerous to indulge in collecting gems than ancient coins, though even in the latter great circumspection will be required, when, for instance, the point is to distinguish certain Paduan imitations from the genuine originals. The keepers of the French Cabinet of Medals have long ago observed that private collections brought up to Paris from the provinces contain a large proportion of forgeries, because the owner, in his confined sphere of

observation, has not been enabled to practise his eye sufficiently, and has proceeded in his operations chiefly according to his inclinations and his prejudices. In fine, on considering the matter with exactness, this holds good of all kinds of collections, and every possessor of one will be ready to own that he has paid many a heavy apprentice fee for experience before his eyes have been opened."

It is a curious fact that whilst the ancient mythologists have ascribed to some particular divinity or hero the invention of every useful or ornamental art, and of the instruments employed therein (as the loom to Minerva, the saw and auger to Dædalus, the working in metal with the hammer and the anvil to Cinyras the Cyprian, the lathe to Theodorus of Samos), they should have left unrecorded the inventor of the various processes of gem-engraving, a thing too so supremely important in their estimation, from its subservience to the uses of public and private life, as much as to those of taste and ornament. This silence on the part of the Greek mythographers, always ready as they were to claim for their own countrymen the credit of every discovery or invention in science or manufactures, even when evidently due to foreigners

and merely naturalized and perfected on the Hellenic soil, sufficiently proves both the Oriental origin of this art and its comparatively recent introduction into Greece and Italy. The negative testimony also of Homer upon this point is justly adduced by Pliny (xxxiii. 4), who observes that no mention whatever of signet-rings occurs in his minute descriptions of works in the precious metals and of jewellery, though he particularly specifies necklaces, earrings, and headornaments; and as a still more convincing proof that they were not known in his age, whenever he speaks of the securing of treasures it is always as being effected by means of an artfully tied knot only understood by the fastener, not by the impression of a seal, the usual Greek and Roman substitute for a lock. Again, when he speaks of the letter carried by Bellerophon he makes no mention of a seal upon it, simply calling it a "folded tablet ;" and when the warriors cast lots, it is done with marked sticks and not with their signet-rings, the univer sal method after the latter had come into general use. But on the other side, as far back as historical records go, signets appear as holding a most important place among the Egyptians and Assyrians: the signet of Pharaoh, given to Joseph as the mark of investiture with ministerial office; the treasure-cell of Rhampsinitus secured by his seal (Herod. ii. 121); the signet of Judah given as a pledge; the temple of Belus sealed with the royal signet, &c. &c.-circumstances all showing that the use of these means of security had been known in the East from time immemorial, and to have been almost coeval with the institution of the rights of property. For in both these centres of primeval civilization it must be remembered that the soft clay of the two parent rivers, the Nile and the Tigris, supplied the first inhabitants with a material for almost every requirement, their houses, store vessels, coffins, &c.; and it must have suggested itself to the

first individual who deposited his property in a closed vessel that it might be secured against pilferers by a plaster of clay laid on the junction of the lid and rolled flat by a joint of a cane, and hence the first origin of the perforated cylinder. Something analogous meets us even so late as the days of Aristophanes, when we find similar nature-seals (wormeaten bits of wood) recommended as signets proof against all forgery, to which the more elaborate productions of the engraver were then so liable. From the natural impressions on the canejoint, or wood employed to stamp the clay, the transition was easy, to some definite design scratched around its circumference by the owner, and appropriated by himself as his peculiar device. This instinct of possession, extending itself to the assertion of exclusive property in certain figures or combinations of lines, is a natural impulse, and found to exist amongst all tribes, when first discovered, wherever the first traces of social life have begun to develop themselves. Thus the Red Indian has the mark of his nation, and that of the individual (his totem), to identify his property or his game; the South Sea islander the tattooed pattern (amoco) that distinguishes his family impressed upon his skin. These simple signets preceded by a long space the invention of hieroglyphics or any arbitrary signs for denoting ideas, for the earliest Assyrian cylinders have nothing but rude figures cut upon them, and bear none of those cuneiform inscriptions so frequently added to the design upon those of later date. And this later date is yet prior by some centuries to the first appearance of anything like an engraved stone amongst the first-civilized nations of Europe. Again, if we look to Egypt, the incredible numbers of scarabs in clay and soft stone (of the same date as these cylinders) still remaining, manifest sufficiently the long-established use and the great importance of the purposes for which they were employed amongst all

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