classes of the inhabitants of that land, the fountain-head of European civilization.

Hitherto, however, we have come upon no traces, in these earliest signets, of the true process of gem-engraving, for all the designs they bear have been carved by means of some cutting instrument upon a comparatively soft material-the earliest Assyrian cylinders being of Serpentine, the Egyptian scarabs of clay or Steaschist. The invention of this most beautiful art is undoubtedly due to the sealengravers of Nineveh, shortly before the reign of Sargon, the date at which cylinders first appear made out of the "Hard Stones"-Crystal, Onyx, Agate,-charged with engravings executed precisely in the style of the archaic Greek intagli, and marked by the same minuteness of detail and elaborateness of finish. Amongst these, the signet of Sennacherib may be quoted as an example most fully illustrative of this assertion; for it is made of one of the hardest substances known to the lapidary, the Amazon-stone, and bears an intaglio which by its extreme minuteness and the precision of the drawing displays the excellence to which the art had already attained, indicative of the long practice of the artist capable of such a work. Cylinders of nearly equal merit to this, and a large number of fair execution, done in the same style and by the same perfected process, continued

to be produced during the whole succeeding period, down to the very close of the Persian empire. The Egyptians, however, did not generally adopt this new but more laborious process, but continued to carve or chisel their rude hieroglyphics on soft materials until the age of the Ptolemies, the signets of the kings and nobles being engraved on gold, those of the lower classes on the softer substances, and by the means already mentioned. The circumstance that even in the age of Theophrastus the best stone for engraving gems with was still imported from Armenia, points of itself to that locality as the place where its use was first discovered and generally adopted by the workers in this line. Although neglected by the Egyptians, the new mode of engraving upon Hard Stones was speedily taken up by the Phenicians, the allies or tributaries of the Assyrian and Persian kings; for many seals of a purely Phenician character, yet of the earliest. date, are found, bearing also legends in Semitic letters (of which they were the first inventors), and even some cylinders are preserved clearly attributable to the same people. They diffused the knowledge of this, together with the other arts, among the Asiatic and Insular Greeks. Homer frequently mentions the Tyrian merchant-ships voyaging amongst the islands of the Egean, and trafficking in ornaments and jewellery with the inhabitants (Odys. xv. 460); and the first intagli produced amongst the cities of the sea-board still bear the impress of an Assyrian origin in the stiff drawing yet careful execution of the animals (bulls or lions for the most part), the favourite devices upon the signets of the newly-planted Ionian or Eolian colonist. And this was to be expected, for it will be observed that the designs upon the scarabs of the Phenicians themselves deviate but little from the strict rules of the Assyrian code of art-for instance, in the numerous gems from their cemeteries at Tharros. Thence to Greece Proper

the transition was rapid, and the signet, now for the first time universally worn in a finger-ring, came into general favour throughout all the population; a new manner this of securing the seal, for its oriental inventors had invariably worn their cylinder or stamp as the ornament of a bracelet or necklace. That the invention of the finger-ring is ascribed to Prometheus, a Greek hero, and its name, SaxTUλOV (a word of native origin unlike those of other personal ornaments evidently of foreign root, as uzvaxns and eλλov), prove this to have been a purely Grecian fashion. In addition to this is the express statement of Pliny that the use of finger-rings was introduced among the Romans from Greece, and though gems of the most archaic style come to light on the mainland, yet scarabs are only disinterred in the cemeteries of the islands, and thus may have belonged to Phenician or Etruscan visitors. Be this as it may, signet-rings must have attained universal popularity in Greece before 600 B.C., soon after which date Solon, amongst his other laws, passed one prohibiting the gem-engravers (already constituting a distinct trade) from keeping by them the impression of any signet once sold, in order to prevent the forgery of a counterpart or replica of the first for fraudulent purposes. And about this time also Herodotus mentions the famous emerald of Polycrates and the reputation of its engraver, the jeweller and metal-worker Theodorus of Samos.

Proceeding now to consider the contemporary class of Etruscan scarabs, we discover in them also the most evident traces of an Asiatic origin. Like the Phenician, they retain to the last the form of the beetle. The subjects cut upon the earliest sort are exclusively animals, domestic and wild; it was only after their intercourse with the Greeks had been long established that they represent the figures and scenes derived from the mythology of that people. This may be

explained on the ancient theory, that the ruling Etruscan caste were a civilizing band of colonists from Asia, who introduced among the Celtic (Pelasgian) aborigines of Central Italy an art already flourishing in their native country. At a later period the Hellenic settlers in Magna Græcia seem, from their constant intercourse with the Etruscans, to have borrowed from them the form of the scarab (doubtless still venerated as a religious symbol),' but to have imparted to the intagli engraved upon its base that elegance and finish due to their own natural taste and advancement in modelling, painting, and statuary. Hence arises the circumstance, at first sight so difficult of explanation, of the co-existence of two contemporary classes of scarabs, one extremely rude, the other highly finished as regards the intagli.

In Sicily and Magna Græcia gem-engraving, like the cognate art of die-sinking, attained to its highest perfection first. Greece itself was ever a poor country, and distracted by perpetual wars, whilst the colonies sent out from it were advancing, through commerce and agriculture, to an incredible degree of prosperity. In one Dorian colony, Cyrene, Ælian expressly notices the wonderful skill (or numbers) of the gem-engravers; and Ismenias is reported to have sent from Athens to Cyprus to purchase an emerald engraved with Amymone, the description of which had taken his fancy. Most of the finest gems in our collections show, by the identity of their style, that they proceed from the same hands that cut the coin-dies for the mintage of these same cities. After this, the establishment of the Macedonian dynasty in Asia, and the command of unbounded wealth, conduced greatly to the encouragement of this art, pre-eminently the handmaid

I Worshipped by the Egyptians as the symbol of the Sun, by its forming the balls, depositories of its

eggs, typifying the creation of the globe. (Plin. xxx. 30.)

to elegant luxury. This age gives us for the first time the portraits of princes, whose likenesses now occupy the gem in the place of that of the national deity; and from many allusions of ancient authors (hereafter to be noticed), it would appear that the usual signet of any personage of importance was the likeness of himself. The example of this substitution was probably set by Alexander, and connected with his own assumption of divinity, which will also explain his restriction of the privilege of engraving his sacred portrait to Pyrgoteles, the first artist of the day in that branch; for the numerous heads of this hero now extant are almost invariably of much later date, and belonging to the times of the Roman empire, when they used to be worn as amulets. With his age also begins the series of camei, the earliest known being the grand Odescalchi Sardonyx of Ptolemy and Berenice, evidently a contemporary work. Before this time, to judge from the confused expressions of Theophrastus, the Sardonyx had been almost unknown to the Greeks, and apparently supposed to be an artificial composition of the Indian jeweller.

Thus the art went on in its rapid progress to its culminating point, its professors ranking high amongst the artists of the day, and their works deemed worthy of commemoration by the court-poets, as the Galene of Tryphon sung by Addæus. They were patronised by the greatest princes; Mithridates