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arose the Italian proverb, “ Al buon vino non bisogna frasca." From the Romans undoubtedly our forefathers adopted the sign-board. A thousand-or-so years ago reading was a rare acquirement with the commonalty; consequently to write the trader's or owner's name would be of little avail. Those that could, advertised their names by rebuses; thus, for instance, a hare and a bottle stood for Harebottle, and two cocks for Cox. Others, whose names no rebus could represent, adopted pictorial objects according as genius or imagination suggested. What more convenient than for an innkeeper to emblazon on his signboard the family crest of the lord of the estate whereon he lived! Luther was generally represented by the symbol of a swan; thus, "The Bible and Swan" was the characteristic sign of an inn in honor of Luther. Did not Lord Mountgarrat derive his title from the fact that one of his ancestors was a man of letters, probably a briefless barrister who had his dwelling in an attic? Temporary or accidental emblems have ofttimes become permanent associations, as in the case of the style of paper termed foolscap. In the reign of Charles the First, all English paper bore in water-marks the royal arms. Cromwell's parliament, to cast indignity upon the memory of that unhappy monarch, substituted the fool's cap and bells. Although in the course of time those symbols were discontinued, the name sticks.

§ 7. It may not seem irrelevant here to allude to the interesting law-case which was decided by a water-mark on paper. On the demise of a wealthy person, a forged will was produced so cunningly executed, that, although by the parties concerned it was known to be false, the fact could not be legally proven. As the counsel of the rightful heir sat studying the case over one night in his office, he chanced to hold the document up before the candle, and there, to his deep satisfaction, he discovered in water-marks the figures of the year in which the paper was made. It was a period of several years after the date in which the false will was said to have been executed.

§ 8. If one kind of workman might profitably employ individual marks, so might any other. The mechanics in the quarries, making ready stones for the temple of Solomon, availed themselves of this mode of proving their claims to wages. Recent discoveries confirm the tradition. The cinders of burnt Jerusalem have been cut through, and turned up to the light. The seal of Haggai, in ancient Hebrew characters, has been picked up out of the siftings of the rich moulds deposited by the treasures of Jewish pride. The first courses of stones, deposited by Phenician builders, have been reached. Quarry-marks, put on in vermilion, have been copied, -known to be quarry-marks by the trickling drops of the paint, still visible; only they are above the letters, showing that when they were affixed the stones lay with the underside uppermost.1 The same practice continues in vogue to this very day where many men are employed. The engineer and the architect know each mark, and thus can instantly fix the origin of every piece of work. The practices of antiquity are exhib ited and copied by our own artisans, who stop not to think whether they are not pursuing the practices of other forerunners of several thousand years ago. We see the tile-maker stamp his products with his private mark; and sometimes the common building-brick is impressed with its author's seal, rude though it be. The most ancient bricks recovered from the ruins of the temples of Nineveh and Egypt have many kinds of marks of origin.

§ 9. The condition of man as an inhabitant of the earth, and the relations and intercourse of men as members of a community, involved the necessity of a circulating medium. A tertium quid a third commodity of a certain value - became necessary as a medium of exchange. At different periods the medium of exchange has been represented by various commodities, which at this day would be the very objects of barter.

1 See the First Statement of the Palestine Exploration Society, 1871.

The ancient Greeks, with a limited commercial intercourse, used as a currency the cattle that grazed upon their land. These had one advantage, that of being able to transport themselves, under charge of drivers. Homer (in his episode of Glaucus and Diomed, where the former is represented as having given his golden armor, worth a hundred oxen, for the brazen armor of the latter, worth but nine 1) chronicles the use of cattle as a medium of exchange. Yet at that time the Greeks had talents of gold, but they were too valuable to use as current specie. Then as the use of coin superseded the more cumbrous living standard of value, the term "oxen " or " cattle" was transferred to the representative coin. They used stamped bars, the rude mark serving the same end that the image and superscription did at a later period. That plan again failed to receive full confidence, so it was supplanted by actual coinage, which many authorities date from about seven centuries before the Christian era.2 Homer, however, speaks of brass money as being in existence nearly twelve centuries B.C. To the Lydians is ascribed the invention of gold and silver coin. At Rome, under Servius Tullius, money was coined about 578 B.C. Julius Cæsar was the first person who obtained permission from the senate to stamp his image on the national coin; that honor having previously been reserved for the gods or defunct heroes. It was probably about the time that Daniel was cast into the lions' den that those famous pieces of gold called Darics, from Darius the Mede, were coined; their fineness and beauty causing them to be preferred to all other money throughout the whole East. Spanheim informs us that upon the coins of Tenedos and those of other cities a field-mouse is engraven; together with Apollo Smintheus, the driver away of field-mice, on account of his being supposed to have freed certain tracts of ground from those animals. Shekels that have Samaritan inscriptions were generally coined by Simon the

1 Gillie's Ancient Greece, vol. i. p. 11.

2 Snowden's Mint Manual of All Nations.

Maccabee. The first money coined in England was under the Romans at Colchester.

§ 10. There must have been an interval of over one thousand years during which the precious metals were known and used before the ingenuity of man was able to apply them to the purposes of coinage. 1860 years B.C., Abraham, for a burialplace for his wife Sarah, purchased the cave of Machpelah; "and," says inspired writ, " Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant."1 We must conjecture that the money alluded to was the simple bullion, perhaps marked but not coined. A currency of authenticated coin has always been an essential element of civilization.

§ 11. It is an indisputable fact that in all ages of the world, and among all races of men, some form of symbolical expression has been in use and in favor. It was the badge of good faith. Caveat emptor! Let the purchaser beware! See that the seal is on the bale of goods, the marks on the fabrics! The people of the ancient nations had need of symbols as well as we. Until within the last few years the arts practised in India were nearly as numerous as those known in Europe and America. The Persians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and the still more ancient Egyptians, had their multifarious products of skilled labor. In Nineveh, the people made warlike arms, and worked in gold. They glazed earth, made beads, and wrought famous embroideries. The Etruscans were eminently skilled in the arts both of use and beauty. All those nations maintained commerce. Much of the prosperity of the cities of Asia Minor was due to the trade with India. We find that the Hindoos, a manufacturing and mercantile people, 1200 or 1300 years B.C., had their emblematic marks for merchandise. Those persons who were unable to write used the most distin

1 Gen. xxiii. 14-16.

guishing symbol of their craft. Thus, the cultivator used the plough; the carpenter, the gimlet; the iron-smith, a pair of pincers; the shopkeeper, a pair of scales; the musical instrument maker, a lyre, a pipe, or a trumpet. The learned used symbols that might be intelligible to the unlearned. In short, a monogram, a letter, some device drawn on the article made, to denote the place of its manufacture, the artist employed, the date, was all that was requisite to constitute a proprietary mark.

§ 12. Fragments of pottery bearing peculiar marks of workmen are everywhere found in the ancient cities of the East; "pottery," as Brogniart has remarked, "affording the best records of the early ages of man, as bones do of the earth." 1 Commerce required its hieroglyphics, and commerce was universal. The situation of Babylon, at the head of the Persian Gulf, was admirably adapted for trading purposes; hence, from the time of its destruction, it was succeeded by other cities until the foundation of Bagdad. Thus spices, ivory, ebony, dyes, gums, pearls, leather, silk, and cotton-stuffs, every sort of serviceable commodity, were floated on the Euphrates and the Tigris, or brought in caravans of camels to the grand central mart, each species of product bearing some unmistakable impress of the mercantile enterprise which exported it. We read of Babylonish carpets and tapestry, and the various other tissues and cloths so famed for brilliancy and richness of hues; and as early as the time of Joshua, mention is made among the spoils of Jericho of "a goodly Babylonish garment."

§ 13. Many relics of pottery found in different parts of the Assyrian empire exhibit upon their surfaces marks which prove that an engraved mould had been employed in their manufacture. The Chinese, the only people who profess to possess an exact chronology from the remotest antiquity to the present

1 See Lecture by Prof. J. Forbes Boyle, F.R.S., on Arts and Manufactures of India.