gold), with musk and ambergris under the stone; whoever carries about with him such a gem, all people of both sexes will incline to him, the Spirits shall be obedient unto him, he shall augment his substance and gather together great riches.

If he look

28. Man seated on an eagle, with a wand in his hand; if cut on Hephæstite, or on Crystal, must be set in a brass or copper ring. Whoso looketh upon this stone on a Sunday before sunrise shall have the victory over all his enemies. upon it on a Thursday all men shall obey him willingly. But the wearer must be clothed in white garments and abstain from eating pigeons.

29. Man on horseback, holding a bridle and a bent bow; engraved on Pyrites makes the wearer irresistible in battle.

30. Woman with her hair hanging loose over her breasts, and a man approaching and making a sign of love to her; if cut on a Jacinth or Crystal, must be set in gold, and put under the stone ambergris, aloes, and the herb called polium: him that carrieth this stone in a ring all shall obey; and if you touch a woman with it she shall do your will forthwith. When you go to sleep put this under your head, and you shall see whatever things you desire in your dreams.

31. Man seated on a fish, and on the man's head a peacock, engraved on a red stone: if you put this under the table, no man that eateth with his right hand shall be able to satisfy himself.

32. Man, naked, with his arm round the shoulders of a maid whose hair is gathered round her head, and with his other hand upon her breast, the man looking into her face while she looks down upon the ground; cut on any stone, and set in an iron ring and under the stone a bit of the tongue of a sparrow, of a hoopoe, alum, and human blood in equal quantities, renders the wearer invincible by man or beast, and cures epilepsy. Also red wax stamped with it and hung round a dog's neck will prevent him from barking.

33. Man holding flowers; engraved on Carnelian, and set in a tin ring made on a Monday or Friday, at the first, eighth, or twelfth hour: touch whomsoever you will with this ring, and he shall obey you.

34. Man, bearded, with long face and arched eyebrows, sitting

upon a plough, between two bulls, with a vulture on his hand, has virtue in the planting of trees and the finding of hid treasure, drives away serpents, and delivers from the fear and troubling of evil spirits. It must be set in an iron ring, and so worn.

35. Man holding a hook over his head, and under his feet a crocodile, set in a leaden ring with a little of the herb squill under the stone whoever carries this gem will be secure from robbers on a journey.

36. Man holding a sword, and seated on a dragon, cut on Amethyst being set in an iron or leaden ring, and worn on the finger, all spirits shall be obedient unto him, shall reveal the place of hidden treasures, and shall answer all his questions.

37. Eagle standing, engraved on Ethica (ætites), being set in a lead ring gives good luck in fishing.

38. Man standing, and holding a spike (dart); engraved on Onyx makes the wearer to be honoured by all lords and princes. 39. Hare, on Jasper, preserves the wearer from the shade of demons, so that it hurts him not.

40. Man, carrying a palm, on any gem, makes the wearer agreeable to princes and great men.

There is a Rabbinical legend that Moses engraved the names of the tribes upon the precious stones of the High Priest's breastplate, by means of the blood of the worm Samir, a liquid of such wonderful potency as immediately to corrode and dissolve the hardest substances. Solomon, therefore, when about to build his Temple out of stones upon which no tool was to be lifted up, was naturally desirous of obtaining

a supply of this most efficient menstruum, the source whence Moses had obtained it having been lost in antiquity. He, therefore, had recourse to the following ingenious expedient: he inclosed the chick of an ostrich, or, as some say, of a hoopoe, in a glass bottle, and placed trusty persons to watch it. The parent bird, finding all her efforts to liberate her young in vain, flew off to the desert, and returning with the miraculous worm, by means of its blood soon dissolved the glass prison, and escaped with the captive. By repeating this process as occasion required, Solomon obtained the needful supply of this most useful solvent.

This legend is entirely based on the fact of the Smir, or Smiris (emery) used by the antique engravers; the name Samir being merely the Hebrew form of the Greek word. Hence, the fanciful rabbis having heard of the smir as the indispensable agent of the gem engraver, without further inquiry invented this ingenious legend as a most satisfactory solution of the question. They may, however, have been influenced by some faint tradition derived from Egypt, as to the existence of some solvent capable of rendering the hardest stones easy to be worked upon; a secret which, as we have already noticed, there are some grounds of believing was possessed by the ancient Egyptians.

OBSERVATIONS UPON THESE SIGILLA.

In looking over the foregoing list we recognise, as might naturally be expected, many of the usual Gnostic types, as in the 66 Man with vipers for legs" the Pantheistic deity Abraxas; the "Winged Man upon a serpent," probably the Athor or Sate of the same class; as is likewise the "Man standing on a serpent and holding its head in his hand." The "Names of God" on a gem must mean the

invocations usually occurring on the reverses of these stones. It will be also observed how large a proportion of these potent sigils are specified as occurring on Jasper, a stone which the slightest acquaintance with these intagli shews to have been the favourite material for the talismanic engravings of the Lower Empire.

There is, however, an omission of one class of subjects from the list which appears at first extremely unaccountable; a class too which one would have thought the most likely to strike the fancy of the medieval astrologer or alchemist, as fraught with the deepest mysteries of antiquity. These are the so-called chimerae or monsters, made up of the parts of various animals united into one consistent whole, which represents the outline of a bird or horse; and usually (however various the manner of combination) composed of nearly the same elements: the ram's head, Silenus' mask, elephant's trunk, rabbit, cornucopia, and lizard. In fact, since the Revival, these very stones have been commonly looked upon as amulets, and are still frequently described in catalogues as "Basilidan Gems," although in reality they have no connexion with that family; a point which their good and early style of work would alone be sufficient to prove, not to mention the invariable absence of the peculiar legends accompanying the sacred emblems of those religionists. But as we cannot suppose that the medieval doctors were influenced by any such archæological motives in their distinction between the potent and magical, and the merely fanciful or, as they termed them, "voluntary" designs of ancient artists, there must have existed some well grounded reason for rejecting engravings, the very appearance of which is the perfection of all that is mystic and magical. Can it be that at the close of the Empire, when gems began to be prized for their supernatural properties alone, a tradition still existed that

these well-defined subjects were mere grylli or caprices of the artist's fancy?

It will also be remarked that many of these talismanic figures have a real or supposed relation to the various Signs, and Constellations from which they derived their virtue; whilst others represent the ancient gods who were still believed by the astrologers to rule the planets in the character of Genii, although the unaccommodating orthodoxy of the age had summarily converted them into the demons of the new Tartarus.

The origin and invention of these Sigilla were naturally assigned to the ancient Israelites, on account of the numerous Hebrew words and titles of the Deity that occur on the Gnostic intagli, which the mediaval adept very consistently inferred could not have been the work of a race so degraded as the Jews had become, after that the sceptre had departed from Israel. It is very amusing to notice the curious interpretations put by these writers upon many of the common representations of ancient mythology, as on the group of Hercules and Iole, and of Hercules and the Hydra. The "King on a chair, his hands outstretched, and borne up by four figures," is the Manichean Ormuzd, supported by the angels of the elements: a type not unfrequent on Gnostic gems. The Lancer also is a favourite late Persian subject, which often bears the legend of "The Seal of God." But it is needless to point out more instances of the original meaning of these common subjects: the odd interpretation of many of them by the medieval sages will amuse the reader who has any knowledge of antique gems; and this has been my chief motive for transcribing a portion of the somewhat tedious catalogue of the worthy physician of Pesaro."

The Ortocides Sultans of Amida and Mardin, as well as the Atabeghs

of Irak, put on the obverse of their coins the types of the reverses of