Another application of the art of the engraver, which seems to have been practised from the most remote an tiquity, was the making of seals or signets, which were used as instruments of ratification. Mention of them is made in the sacred books as far b-ack as the times of the patriarchs, as well as in the other early writings of the ancients. It is probable they were engraved on metal, and the impressions taken from them on wax, or some such soft ductile substance. In Hindostan, the art of engraving must have been known at a very re mote period, as would appear from the specimens which we have in this country, of the state of the art with them, described by M. Lanseer. As the date of one of them is ascertained, and as the execution displays considera ble advancement, it slims that it most have been prac tised long before. a They are both deeds of transfer of land, engravers on tablets of copper, with seals append ed to them of the same metal, which seem to have been struck like coins from an intaglio matrix. They arc both in the Sanscrit language. One of them, which is now in the possession of the Earl of Mansfield, has been copied in facsimile, and inserted, with an English trans lation by Mr Wilkins, into the first volume of the Asi atic Researches. It is dated 20 years before Christ; and it is further remarkable, that the date is expressed in Ilindoo numerals, very much resembling the numerals now in use. The other, which is likewise engraved in the same manner, has the appendant seal impressed on a ponderous lump of copper, and attached to the deed itself by a massive ring of the same metal. The matrix must have been an engraving of no mean workmanship, and it exhibits a style of art similar, and not inferior, to the best of the present productions of the art of Hindos tan ; it is in alto-relievo, and being bedded in the metal, is in high preservation. Its subject is mythological; its form a circle of about ten inches in circumference; and the weight of the metal on which it is stamped not less than four or five pounds. It was presented to Mr Neave by Mirza Hazy, grandson of Shah Alum, the present Emperor of Hindostan, and was found -in dig ging a foundation within the scite of the ancient fort of Benares, on the Banks of the Ganges." The art of die-sinking for stamping coins, though by no means of so early a date as the engraving of seals, was practised at a very early period. It is uncertain whether the coining of money was invented by the Greeks or Lydians, though some suppose that the art was brought from Hindostan. The first Greek money is supposed to have been struck by Phidon, King of the Argives, whose reign is fixed by the Arundelian marbles at about eight centuries before the Christian era, or soon after the age of Homer. Many of the early Greek and Sicilian coins are beautiful, and in high relief; to this, however, the coins of Athens form a remarkable exception, being in a very inferior style of execution. The art seems to have been communi cated to the Romans in the reign of Servius Tullius, about 460 years before the commencement of our era, by the Lydian colony settled in Etruria. The best of the Roman medals are the work of Greek artists, exe cuted during the reign of Adrian.
The ancients, it has thus been shewn, possessed as much knowledge in the art of engraving, as would have enabled them, had they known the method of working off impressions, to have carried it to any extent. And the same may be said with regard to printing, when we consider the stamps for pottery or packages, and other purposes, preserved in the Ilamiltonian collection, hav ing even gone so far as to form three lines under each other. Several of these have been described and copied
by Strutt in his dictionary, and by Mr Lanseer in his Lectures on Engraving. They are in general of a com position like brass, and some of them in stone. In sonic the letters are raised, the ground being hollowed out between them to the depth of the eighth of an inch, and cut in reverse like printing types, in order that in the impression they may appear the right way. In others, the letters are cut in intaglio. One of these, copied by Strutt, supposed to be an amulet or charm, to secure the wearer from certain diseases or danger, has the fol lowing words, forming three lines, FELICIS AM VLLI GEMIL/E: another has the word HANOIAI: another cut in form of a heart, with the inscription, BASILEI SEXIS TERT. Sonic have inscriptions at full length, others only monograms. There are others in the collec tion of Mr Douce; one in intaglio, engraved on stone, with which a Roman oculist marked his medicines; and another of metal, in cameo, containing the name of the Roman tradesman who used it, TITUS VALAGINI MAVRI. Many more specimens will be found in the antiquities of Father Montfaucon, Franciscus Gori, and others, who have treated on this subject.
With regard to the state of the art amongst our Bri tish and Saxon ancestors, little is known. Like other savage nations, they possessed the art of making rude incisions on their warlike instruments, as the remains found in their ancient tumuli sufficiently testify; and their coins are evidently impressions from engravings cut on iron or steel. Under Alfred the Great, the art seems to have met with great encouragement ; and, ac cordingly, it attained to very considerable perfection in the making shrines and caskets for the reliques of saints and other pious uses, which are said to have been wrought in gold, silver, and other metals, adorned with engravings and precious stones, and to have been the admiration of all that saw them. There is still preserv ed in the museum at Oxford a valuable jewel, richly adorned with a kind of work resembling filigree, in the middle of which is seen the half-figure of a man, sup posed to be St Cuthbert. The back of this curious rem nant of antiquity is ornamented with foliage, very skil fully engraved.
Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, is said to have practised both designing and engraving, as well as the working of images and other things, in gold, silver, and brass. However, from the specimen that remains of his skill in drawing, preserved in an ancient manu script in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, we must be allowed to doubt of the great talent in this way ascribed to him by his monkish biographers.
Some time after the conquest, a new species of en graving was introduced into England, in every respect different from the work of the chaser or carver, namely, in engraving brass plates on the tomb-stones in church es. They were executed entirely with the graver, the outline being first made out, and the shadows produced by strokes crossing each other, and cut deeper, accord ing to the strength of shadow intended, precisely in the war that copperplate engraving is executed at this time. Being usually laid flat on the stones to which they be longed, they formed part of the pavement of the church ; and so being exposed to the feet of the congregation passing over them, they were necessarily executed in a coarse manner, and the strokes very deeply cut into the metal. There are some of these that often display very considerable talent in the artist.