BRASSES (sepulchral), large plates of brass, or of the mixed metal called latten or lafon, inlaid on slabs of stone, and usually forming part of the pavement of a church. The figure of the person intended to be commemorated was generally represented either by the form of the brass itself, or by lines engraven on it. Such, however, was not always the case, an ornamented or foliated cross, with other sacred emblems, being frequently substituted for the figure. Nor was the practice of imbedding them in the pavement uniform, as we sometimes find them elevated on what were called altar-tombs. It has been ascertained that the incised lines on these 13, were originally tilled up with some black resinous substance, and that in the case of armorial decorations, and the like, the field or background was often cut out by the chisel, and filled up with sonic species of coarse enamel, by which means the appropriate tinctures were produced. In England, the brass was usually of the form of the figure, the polished slab forming the ground, and the ornaments, arms, inscription, etc., were also inserted each as a separate ate piece. On the continent, ere the metal was more abundant, the B. were one long unbroken surface, formed of plates soldered together, on which were engraved all the objects represented, the portions of the plate not so occupied being ornamented by elaborate flower-work. B. are known to have been used for monumental purposes from a very early period, though there are no existing traces of them in England previous to the middle of the 13th century. There is reason to think, that if not imported from France, they were at first executed by French artists. Latterly, the art took rout in England, and English B., like English architecture, acquired a distinctive national char acter. The oldest complzae specimen in England is that on the monument of sir John d'Aubernoun, at Stoke Dabernon. The knight died in 127.1, and his probable that the brass was executed shortly after that date. Next in antiquity are those of sir Roger 'de Trumpingtou, who died in 12S9, and sir Richard de Buslingthorpe, 1290; the former at Trumpington in Cambridgeshire, the latter at Buslingthorpe in Lincolnshire. In addi tion to the interest which they possess from their age, these B. are remarkable as being still unsurpassed in the beauty of the workmanship and the spirit of the design. As regards the earliest English B., it is further wi.rthy of note that they are so similar, both
in design and execution, as to lead to the conjecture that they are the work of one artist; whilst from their differing in many respects from the B. which were executed on the continent at the same period, it would seem Unit this artist, if not an Englishman, at all events worked exclusively in this country. In the following century (13'25), on the brass of sir John de Creke, at Westley Waterless, in Cambridgeshire, the artist's mark is affixed by a stamp—a fact which has been regarded as a proof that his craft had attained to some importance, and that his services were pretty frequently called into requisition. But in this case, as in every other, with one exception,-the name of the artist lets perished. The exceptional case is that of the brass which once covered the tomb of bishop Philip, in the church of the Jacobins at Evreuux, in Normandy, where the inscription ended with the words, "Guillaume de Plalli me fecit." Many of the B. executed in England in the 14th c. are probably Flemish; and in the churches at Bruges some exist which appear to be by the same hand with others which are found in England. There can be little question, indeed, that for this, as for most of the other departments of the arts, which were afterwards successfully cultivated in England, we were indebted to continental artists. Nor will it surprise those who know the results of recent archaeological investigations in similar subjects, to learn that the artists of France and Flanders in their turn were debtors to those of the worn-out empire of the east. As in painting, sculpture, and architecture itself, so in the art of working in brass, the sparks of antique genius which smoldered in Bysautium were the means of kindling those which afterwards burned so brightly in modern Europe. The taste for lingering Among the knightly brasses of the graves, And by the cold lac facets of the dead, has grown to something like a passion of late, and there are few subjects which have been more carefully illustrated than that of sepulchral brasses. References to most of the leading works, too numerous to be mentioned here, will be found in Parker's Glossary if Archilcc'ture, in an article in which their results have been carefully condensed. Of modern B., the most remarkable is that in the cathedral at Cologne, engraved in 1837, as a monument to the late archbishop.