which grew worse and worse, till at last, as far as ingenuity appears, they hardly deserve the name of a coin-seeming rather the work of a common smith than a graver, and manifest their being coined in a hurry." Besides money of the common species, various other coins or tokens, which have been called obsidional or siege pieces, were issued by the royalists during the civil war. Among these were the stamped pieces, stamped at Newark in 1643 and 1646, which are in the shape of a lozenge, (like the ace of diamonds :) those stamped at the siege of Carlisle, 1645, are octangular: the Pontefract pieces are some round, some lozenge, and some octangular shaped; others, such as Scarborough, Colchester, and Beeston Castle pieces, consist merely of bits of silver plate, about an inch and a half long, with a rude representation of a castle, supposed to be that of Scarborough.

In the beginning of the quarrel with King Charles I. the parliament (having the Tower mint in their possession) coined both gold and silver money, bearing the usual impressions, and only distinguished from that issued by the king by their having the letter P (for parliament) stamped upon them as a mint mark. They afterward coined gold and silver pieces of the usual denominations, some of them having on the obverse an antique shield, with St. George's cross, encircled with a palm and a laurel branch, and circumscribed THE COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND; on the reverse, two antique shields conjoined, the first with St. George's cross, the other with a harp, circumscribed GOD WITH US. Most of this was hammered money; but one milled half crown, dated 1650, which is the earliest English completely milled silver coinage, (the milled money of Elizabeth and Charles I. being only marked upon the flat edge,) has inscribed upon the rim, IN THE THIRD YEAR OF FREEDOM, BY GOD'S BLESSING RESTORED; another has TRUTH AND PEACE, 1651. Peter Blondacus, inventor fecit. These appear to have been rival productions—the former by the regular moneyers of the Tower, the latter by the Frenchman, Peter Blondacus, who came over and offered his services to the committee of the council of state in 1649, but never was employed farther than to give this specimen of his skill, although he appears to have remained in the country about three years, and was probably not well used by the government. The earliest money bearing the effigy of Cromwell has the date 1656, though it was not till the following year he took upon himself the authority, in conformity with "the petition and advice," of being Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland. "They are," says Leake, " by Symonds, (or Simonds,) a masterly hand, exceeding anything done since the Romans;

and in like manner he appears thereon, his bust Cæsar-like, laureate, looking to the right, with whiskers, and a small tuft upon the under lip." The circumscription around the head of the protector is, OLIVAR D. G. R. P. ANG. SCO. HIB., &c., PRO. On the reverse, under a royal crown, is a shield, bearing in the first and fourth quarters St. George's cross; in the second quarter, St. Andrew's cross; and, in the third, a harp, with the protector's paternal arms, viz., a lion rampant on an escutcheon in the centre; the circumscription is, PAX. QUAERITUR. BELLO., with the date 1656, (or 1658.)

The coins of Scotland and Ireland in the time of the commonwealth were the same as those of England. At the restoration of Charles II. this money was all called in.

Under Cromwell, while the arts in general met with such poor and uncertain patronage, it could scarcely be expected the coins would be better than usual This was not only the case, but they were the most exquisite and beautiful ever in any age produced.

The coin called guinea was first struck in 1662. Its current value was 21s. It had no graining on the rim. It was so called from being made of gold brought from the coast of Guinea by the African company, who, as an encouragement to them to bring over gold to be coined, were permitted by their charter to have their stamp of an elephant impressed, under the head of the king, upon whatever piece should be struck from the metal they imported.

On all the English money of Charles II. coined after 1662, his head is made to look to the left, being the opposite direction to that in which his father's head is placed; and ever since it has been observed as a rule, to make two successive sovereigns look in opposite ways on their respective coinages.

In the first coinage of Charles II. the pieces were formed by the ancient method of hammering; the ministers who had been employed in coining Cromwell's milled money having, it is supposed, withdrawn or concealed themselves (1660) in apprehension of punishment, and probably also carried their machinery away with them. Milled money, however, was again coined in 1662, and of a superior sort to any that had as yet been produced; having graining or letters upon the rim, an improvement which had not appeared upon the milled money either of Queen Elizabeth or of Charles I.

Private half pence and farthings of copper and brass, such as were formerly common, had again come into use in the time of the commonwealth; and they continued to circulate after the restoration, till they were supplanted by an issue of the same description from the royal mint in 1672. In 1684 Charles

coined farthings of tin, with only a small quantity of copper in the centre. The figure (still retained) of Britannia sitting on a globe, holding in her right hand an olive branch and in her left a spear and shield, first appears on the copper coinage of this reign, having been modelled, it is said, after the celebrated court beauty, Miss Stewart, afterward Duchess of Richmond. The coinage of Queen Anne was the work of Croker, an English medallist, second only to Simonds: in this department at least native artists have done honour to the country. Croker also executed a series of medals on the glorious events of that queen's reign. Of his coins the celebrated farthings are well known and of great scarcity, yet at this time of no more intrinsic value than the amount they pass for current: some of them were executed as pattern pieces, and but few issued: no doubt the whole of them are now safely lodged in the cabinets of the curious.

WOOD ENGRAVING.

Ar this period wood-cutting shone forth in bold and beautiful relief. Grinling Gibbons is decidedly the most surprising artist, as his carvings, numerous and elaborate as they are, proclaim to this day. His delineations of foliage and flowers have never been equalled in England, and probably never surpassed by any foreign artist. The stalls in St. Paul's cathedral are by him, which, as a large mass, excite the admiration of foreignThere are a few more splendid specimens of pulpits and sounding boards over them, and some screens, by him, in which the stems of the flowers are so delicately cut as,

ers.

"Like sister flowers of one sweet shade,
With the same breeze they bend."

Sir Robert Walpole, speaking of the altar-piece of St. Mary's Abchurch, says "there is no instance before him of any other artist who gave to wood the airy lightness of flowers." These carvings were originally painted by Sir James Thornhill, after nature: they are at this time as fresh and beautiful as ever, though they have been cut more than a century. They are, in common with the rest of the screen, by him and some of his equally talented pupils, of the colour of cak.

There are many specimens of Gibbons's unrivalled chisel in wood at Windsor Castle, Burleigh House, and Chatsworth. He also cut the marble statue of Charles II., that used to occupy the centre of the late Royal Exchange.

The art of etching commenced about the time of Albert Durer, an artist of universal talent. There is an etching of Christ praying on the mount, of the date of 1515, and a landscape by Durer, 1518.

The art of mezzotinto, in which the English have greatly excelled, commenced about 1643. In the British museum there is a mezzotinto portrait of the Princess Amelia Elizabeth of that date, by Louis Count Von Siegen.

Aquatinta was invented by a German named Le Prince, born at Mentz in 1723. This style is capable of the greatest beauties, as the plates in the "Hunchback," by W. Daniel, and also by others, will testify.

Francis Vivans was the father of English landscape engraving.

One of the earliest books with copper-plates was Sir John Harrington's translation of "Orlando's Furioso," in 1690.

I cannot pass over this interesting subject without availing myself of a beautiful passage from "The Parthenon." It will be a sort of preface to the orders issued by the vandal parliament. "Religious worship," says this sprightly writer, "seems everywhere to have furnished the first impulse to the arts of sculpture and painting, as heroic deeds and warlike achievements appear to have done to poetry; was likewise the source of their revival in Europe. The tangible form of sculpture, which has always been of earlier growth than painting, while it reduced the mysteries of religion to a distinct and permanent idea, at the same time flattered the vanity of men by likening to themselves the objects of their adoration. But when the treasures of the palette began to extend the narrow limits of bare design, when the eye was seen beaming with liquid lustre, the lips to be tinged with the crimson of nature, and the hair to descend in glossy ringlets from the brow, it is easy to conceive how much admiration of the newly discovered art must have increased attachment to the objects of its representation. The ministers of religion have never been slow to perceive the advantages which might arise from this combination of feelings, and have never failed to avail themselves of it whenever they have possessed the power. In process of time the arts which at first were devoted to the worship of the gods, came also to be employed in celebrating the actions of men, and found their encouragement in the policy of states or the luxury of individuals. It is manifestly to these principles, and not to the influence of climate or the spirit of liberty, as Winkelman absurdly maintains, that the establishment of the fine arts in any country is to be attributed. The fact is, the success of the fine arts will always keep pace with their encouragement; and

it is equally certain that their encouragement depends more on circumstances of a fortuitous nature than on fixed principle of local or political influences. Public wealth and a taste for luxury are the only indispensable conditions in the advancement of the arts; and these may exist in a state of political slavery as well as of political wisdom. It may be true that a system of encouragement of the fine arts, founded not on the whim of a prince or the fashion of a court, but on the sound, moral, and political principles of a free and enlightened people, would prove to be the most effective as well as the most permanent. But the page of history furnishes us with no example of so desirable a consummation. Possibly in future ages, when the narrow prejudices which still oppose improvement shall have passed away, such a system may prevail. The historian who shall have to record so brilliant an epoch in the history of human civilization, may then look back to trace the fitful glimmerings of former arts, and grieve to find how imperfectly its true value was understood even at those periods which presented examples of the nearest approach toward rational freedom."

In the year 1645 came forth the following orders from the parliament:

Ordered, That all such pictures and statues there (at Whitehall) as are without any superstition, shall be forthwith sold for the benefit of Ireland and the north.

Ordered, That all such pictures there as have the representation of the second person in the Trinity upon them, shall be forthwith burnt.

Ordered, That all such pictures there as have the representation of the Virgin Mary upon them, shall be forthwith burnt. Well might Charles himself, a few weeks before his death, write,

"The corner-stone's misplaced by every paviour,
With such a bloody method and behaviour
Their ancestors did crucifie our Saviour."

The parliamentary leaders adopted this scheme from the same infamous motives that actuated a similar set at the time of "the wife-killer," viz., to get a chance of embezzling them and adding them to their own collections. Lambert was an artist. Fairfax was an enthusiast and an antiquarian. Cromwell* secured the cartoons for the price of £300; yet many

* The Edinborough Review states that this extraordinary man told Lely to "paint me as I am; if you leave out the scars and wrinkles, I will not pay you a shilling." Even in such trifles the protector showed both his good sense and magnanimity. He did not wish all that was characteristic in his countenance to be lost in the vain attempt to give him the regular features