The Bessborough modern intaglios were not remarkable, except the very excellent portrait of Agrippina the younger as Ceres, on a fine large red sard, signed ACIACIOT, but probably engraved by Sirletti.

After subtracting the stones, some 419 in number—which more or less certainly formed the Arundel and Bessborough sections-and leaving out of account the forty Cæsars by Natter, and a few works in metal which swell the list, it would appear that the third Duke of Marlborough must have added to his cabinet by separate purchases about 300 gems. It will, I think, be generally conceded that the Duke's own acquisitions were fully equal in importance to those of his predecessors in collecting. His cameos are quite on the same level as those of the Earl of Bessborough, and his intaglios comprise many of the highest value. In this respect his collection surpassed each of the others.

Chief among the antique cameos, for size at least, was the relatively vast sardonyx (No. 482), 6 inches in height and 83 inches in width, which is reputed to be among the five largest in existence, and as a gem-stone the finest of these five. It represents in flat relief the bust portraits in profile, face to face, of two rather late Roman imperial personages, who have not yet been conclusively identified. They figure with the attributes of Jupiter Ammon and Ceres. Formerly they were called 'Didius Julianus' and 'Manlia Scantilla,' but some savants perceive in them Julian the Apostate and Helena, while Mr. Story-Maskelyne suggests the names of Marcus Aurelius and Faustina. This great cameo, broken anciently into four fragments, without suffering much real damage, is mounted in a cinque-cento silver-gilt frame which bears on the back a rather pompous Latin inscription testifying that this 'Ingens anaglyphicum opus' was purchased from the Saunesian' dukes and preserved in the 'Fontesian cabinet.' The stone appears to have ultimately come into the hands of that Marquis de Fuentes who was ambassador from Portugal to Rome early in the last century, but the channel by which it passed to the Duke of Marlborough remains unknown. At the sale this important specimen was secured by the British Museum for the price of 3,300l.

Of large Roman imperial cameo portraits the Duke possessed two more. One is the imposing onyx head of Augustus deified (No. 390), wearing the radiate crown which, in its cinque-cento enamelled setting resembling that of the Claudius (No. 422), but wanting the beautiful design at the back, found a purchaser at the very good price, for a gem not quite certainly antique, of 2,350l. The other is the Claudius (rather than Tiberius) (No. 407), a bold work on a fine chalcedony of two layers, the upper bluish white and the lower translucent yellowish brown.

But for artistic merit few cameos in the whole collection can be

placed in competition with the beautiful bacchanal subject No. 226, a work of thoroughly antique character, though in a surprisingly intact state of preservation. It is mounted in a pretty seventeenth-century enamelled frame, and was sold for 380 guineas. Of the smaller cameos (No. 46), an Isis head on Egyptian green jasper; (No. 158) two cupids struggling for a palm branch; the Silenus (No. 209), a fragment only, the exquisite little 'Hebe' (No. 258); the Victory crowning a warrior in a biga (No. 264), with the incised name, AA HOΣ; the Hercules (No. 308), of very bold work on a poor stone; and the Theseus and Antiope (No. 327) are all notable. Two others cannot be surpassed in their own kind: the lovely Amazon supporting a dead comrade (No. 326), so fine as to deserve the benefit of any doubt concerning its antiquity; and the no less wonderful lion seizing a bull (No. 716), which must surely be purely Greek. Even these ought not to conclude the list.

Looking at the more modern cameos of the third Duke's selection, one was immediately struck by the large profile head (No. 538) called 'Phocion,' cut in bold relief with careless but spirited workmanship, and attributed to Alessandro Cesati. Charmingly mounted in an enamelled setting, it reached the good price of 300l., at which the public-spirited munificence of Mr. Charles Butler enabled it to be secured for the British Museum, together with the excellent Cinque-cento cameo head of Lucius Verus (No. 478) (a Bessborough gem), acquired for 700l. The latter is mounted in a most admirable contemporary setting of enamelled gold, set with small table diamonds, which is at least as fine an example of goldsmith's work as any in the whole Marlborough cabinet. The head of a child in high relief (No. 145) attracted notice, and with its pretty setting it was not undervalued at 620 guineas. The cameos (Nos. 177 and 499) are good sixteenth-century works, as also the capital portrait (No. 565); and Horatius Cocles defending the bridge (No. 596) is an interesting example of minute finish; while the cavalry combat' (No. 616) is very finely arranged upon the stone.

The

Of the Duke's antique intaglios, nine or ten are in the foremost rank, while at least twenty more ask for special study. Hermes (No. 167), a full-length figure on a small yellow sard, though perhaps never a transcendent work of art, and repolished almost to extinction, still retains what is generally considered as one of the few authentic signatures of the famous Greco-Roman gemengraver Dioscourides, and has a pedigree going back as far as 1589. Small as it is, its glyptic importance was recognised when a discriminating collector bid 175l. for it. Another fine gem was sold for 721., the sard (No. 187), with front faced figures of Bacchus and Ariadne, accompanied by Cupid and a dolphin, and bearing the inscription TAAOT. Whether contemporary or not, this signature is found on two or three other boldly and finely worked antique gems of

similar technique. Only 70l. was paid for the beautiful Greek intaglio on a golden sard, the Hermes playing the lyre (No. 165), which, though repolished, bears evident traces of its pristine excellence. The bust ΝΙΚΑΝΔΡΟΣ portrait known as the 'daughter of Titus,' signed ΕΠΟΕΙ (No. 447), deeply and severely engraved on a brilliant hyacinthine sard, is a large and most authentic Greek gem, in an absolutely genuine state, though part of the crown of the head has had to be restored. with gold. It sold for 70l. The fine Sabina (No. 455), sold for 92l., and the Hercules Bibax (No. 296), with the inscription AAMON, probably the name of an owner, which fetched 60l., are excellent Roman gems, and the Paris and Enone (No. 340), though much repolished, looks like a good Greek work. Its price was 46l. So also the finely preserved and very beautiful Bacchante on amethyst (No. 228), which was knocked down at the sale for 621. Not less important than any is the well-known fragment showing the bust of Antinous in profile, cut very deeply, and in a true and simple style, in a black sard (No. 500). This was sold for 60l., and the portrait of Demetrius Philopator (No. 364), engraved in a Greek manner on a sard, fetched 52l. I mention these prices because, without being extravagant, they represent what connoisseurs of experience are, on occasions ike this sale, willing to pay for exceptional antique intaglios, valued for their merit alone, and not for a showy exterior or merely for a splendid setting.

Other interesting gems are the Aphrodite (No. 115); the Cupid on crystal, inscribed ATAOT (No. 138); the Psyche (161); the Satyr's head on amethyst (No. 211); the Bacchante on a plasma (No. 230); the Omphale (No. 315); the Domitia (No. 480); the Antinous on red sard (No. 501), inscribed ANTINOOZ on the face

LAI

and on the back (one of four gems for which the Duke gave

LIA

6001.); and the Greek horseman (No. 614) on a large convex circular onyx.

The modern intaglios did not include any gem of importance engraved before Natter's time. No. 31 is a splendid example of his work, and there were some admirable copies, by the English engravers Burch and Marchant, taken from antique gems or statues. Antiquity is claimed for the celebrated Sirius (No. 270), which an examination of the gem itself hardly bears out; but at least it is a fine example of glyptic technique, and the stone is a lovely Siriam garnet. Of course, if the bust of Pallas (No. 81) had been generally accepted as the original stone bearing the signature of Eutyches, son of Dioscourides, so often described in gem-books, it would have been sold for many times as much as the 35l. which was actually given for it. Enough has been said to show that the Marlborough gems, though among their number were many of no account, yet included so many

magnificent works of a quality to be rarely found outside the walls of national collections, as to make it matter for congratulation to find that after a sale of world-wide interest, not only has Mr. A. S. Murray succeeded in adding to the treasures of the British Museum some of the most important gems, but of the other fine things, the great majority at least is retained in private collections in Great Britain.

That the public exhibition of so many masterpieces will give an impulse to the appreciation of fine gems is quite certain, and equally so that a race of new collectors will arise. Is it useless to hope that the charming glyptic art, once practised with so much success in England, and now almost extinct there, may again come into repute, and that the very few gem-engravers remaining who preserve the traditions of its technique, may be remunerated for their work with sufficient liberality to enable them to pursue their vocation as real artists, and not as the employees of tradesmen, mere cutters of banal monograms and formal coats of arms?

CHARLES NEWTON-ROBINSON.

WHY ARE OUR BRAINS DETERIORATING?

I

THE great diffusion of knowledge in the nineteenth century, the enormous and increasing output of books and literature on every imaginable subject, the universal spread of primary education and of some kind of reading-these all tend to create and foster a widespread popular error. This is, that our brains in modern days are better than those of our fathers. Most people seem to fail to draw a sufficient distinction in their minds between brain power in itself, in the individual in any given age, and the result of that brain power as applied to the then existing stock of inherited knowledge. The latter in our age is enormous and continually increasing, so that our intellects, whether good or bad, get a far better chance of material to work upon and assimilate than ever before. But of course it does not in the least follow that the brains themselves are any better than they were in former times. In considering this matter we should make a fair allowance for the vastly increased number of the educated millions in modern times, as compared with the educated thousands or hundreds in past centuries, wherein the populations were far smaller and much more backward. We should also allow for the much greater facility for the expression of any real original talent in the individual, which gives every specially talented man nowadays a far fairer chance of bringing out what is in him. We shall then, I think, be driven to the conclusion that the average development of any real creative capacity or original talent is steadily decreasingthat is, that our best brain power is deteriorating.

Mr. Gladstone, who was by no means a pessimist or a laudator temporis acti, and who, from his omnivorous reading, was in a very good position to form a judgment, has told us that he was disappointed with the brains of the modern generation of Britons, and considered that they showed a deterioration of brain power, as compared with that of our forefathers in the days of Queen Elizabeth.

Moreover, it is generally agreed among those scholars and learned men who are best capable of forming an opinion upon the question that the modern intellect generally cannot compare with that of the ancient Greeks. Indeed, if we fairly consider the millions of educated