worked into the intagli with the end of the instrument (a fine wooden spatula is the best), will be found to yield a cast quite free from bubbles, and easily detached from the intaglio without risk of fracture. If the cast be dipped, when dry, into strong tea, it will take a light brown tint, much more agreeable to the eye than the glaring white of the plaster itself. I have also found that by laying upon the cast a coat of a strong solution of gum arabic, which it will soon absorb, a considerable degree of hardness as well as a pleasing marble-like gloss is imparted to the otherwise tender material; a valuable addition to casts that are exposed to much handling from the careless. Casts of sulphur, coloured with vermilion, are made by melting it slowly in a ladle, and pouring it into plaster moulds made from the impressions of the gems in sealing wax. These are useful when one has no opportunity of taking casts from the gems themselves; otherwise the sulphur does not show the minute details of the intaglio so faithfully as the cast in plaster. A lump of modelling wax is the indispensable companion of every collector in the examination of gems before making a purchase or passing judgment upon them, as by its aid alone can the work upon opaque substances be accurately examined. It is made by dissolving beeswax with one-tenth of its weight of tallow, adding a little powdered rosin to the melted mixture, and stirring all well together; when of the proper consistency it will not adhere to the fingers when handled. It may be coloured red or black, according to what colour is preferred, by adding vermilion or lamp-black to the mass when liquid. This composition, when moulded between the fingers, readily softens, so as to take the most accurate impression from an intaglio previously moistened by breathing upon it for a short time. These impressions, if protected from friction, will remain perfect for any length of time, whereas those taken in sealing wax waste away with the heat of summer. For immediate use modelling wax may be made by adding a few drops of turpentine to wax melted and coloured to taste; this answers well enough for a few days, before the spirit has all evaporated, when it becomes too hard for use. It is, however, an excellent substance for preserving impressions in, as it resists the effects of heat and light, and looks remarkably well when made up into a series of casts arranged under glass. This was the wax employed for the medieval seals, which have come down to us uninjured from very remote times. Our present sealing wax, or more properly sealing lac, as the Germans call it, was unknown in Europe until brought by the Dutch from India in the seventeenth century. Alexander, the prophet of Abonitichos, used, as Lucian tells us, to take casts of the seals of the letters deposited upon the altar of his temple, in a mixture of quicklime and glue. With this extemporised stamp he resealed the letters after having opened them; and thus was enabled to return answers adapted to the questions they contained, while the letters were returned to his dupes, to all appearance unopened. Death of Eschylus, THE LAPIDARIUM OF MARBODUS. THIS poem was probably composed by the abbot Marbodus (Marboeuf), when master of the Cathedral School of Anjou, an office he held from 1067 to 1081, in which last year he was made Bishop of Rennes. The substance of it is taken in part from Pliny, but chiefly from Solinus, of whom he paraphrases entire sentences. He also borrows largely from the so-called Orpheus, a work composed probably in the third century. This acquaintance of Marbodus with a Greek author is somewhat at variance with the prevailing opinion of the state of western literature at that period; but it is evident that he both understood that language, and was very proud of his knowledge, to judge from the number of Greek words he introduces into his text, and his careful interpretations of the names of gems derived from the Greek. It is my belief that Greek as a spoken tongue must have lingered in the south of France long after the fall of the Roman Empire. To its very close we find that language still flourishing there; thus, Ausonius says of his father, a physician of Bordeaux, that he could not express himself fluently in Latin, but was a ready speaker in Greek, "Sermone impromptus Latio verum Attica lingua All the Gauls of this and later periods whose names are not Latin bear Greek cognomina, apparently translations of their own Celtic designations, as having generally a sylvan or rustic meaning; as, for instance, Agrius Cimarus for Aypios Xuxpos, the wild goat, to be seen on a sepulchral tablet at Caerleon, Syagrius, the last Roman prince of Soissons; Drepanius, Staphylius, Aeonia, Calippio, Dryadia, Euromius, Talisius, Cataphronia, Melania, Idalia; these latter all relations of the poet of Bourdeaux, Ausonius. Charlemagne, though quite illiterate, is said to have understood and spoken Greek, which would imply that it was necessary in his intercourse with some of his own subjects. In fact, as the large Greek cities of Provence, such as Marseilles, retained their independence under the Gothic kings to a very great extent, the extinction of their cherished language must have been both gradual and slow. Marbodus indeed ascribes the original of his poem to Evax, and gives his dedicatory letter to Tiberius, written in very mediæval Latin, which last is evidently a composition of his own. But this attribution must be regarded merely as a poetical license, to give credit to the work in the eyes of the learned of those times; for he makes no difficulty of mentioning Nero (the sixth from Julius), when speaking of the properties of the emerald. Doubtless many ancient authors' 1 Such as Metrodorus, whom he quotes by name under "Coral" and Zachalias of Babylon, who is mentioned by Pliny as having dedicated a treatise on gems to Mithri dates, in which he defined their influence over human destiny, gemmis humana fata attribuit.”— xxxvii. 60. were extant when he wrote besides Solinus and Orpheus, from whom he gleaned the rest of the curious superstitions as to the mystic and medicinal virtues of gems, in addition to those detailed by these two writers. Camillo Leonardo has borrowed largely from Marbodus in his treatise on the qualities of the gems in themselves, but the latter makes no mention in this poem of the virtues of the sigils cut upon them. THE LAPIDARIUM OF MARBODUS. THE lore of Evax, rich Arabia's king, |
