still four marks, the various cycles of alphabets succeeding each other at intervals of twenty years, except that the cycle which terminates abruptly in 1696 is shorn of its last letter. About 1545 the lion passant first appears. Before its appearance the marks were three, and this probably has been their number ever since the year 1336, when the sayer's mark, which we take to be annual letter, was first introduced. In 1300 we first hear of the leopard's head, which in 1336 is mentioned as crowned. Before 1300, and back to an indefinite period, the good and honest maker put his own mark on his wares. This question of the maker's mark, and the maker's mark alone, brings us to another point in which we find little information in Mr. Chaffers. It is this, that the rules and cycles which we have given apply to plate made in the metropolis alone. As we have already said, this implies by far the greater proportion of all the plate made in these islands. But though this rule applies to London at the present day, it is not so conclusive when we speak of earlier times. Modern London is an Aaron's rod, which has swallowed up those of most of our provincial cities. But it was not so of old. Then York and Winchester, and Lincoln and Bristol, and Exeter and Norwich, and Newcastle and Chester, all had mints, and all had marks of their own, sometimes quite differing, and at others only varying, from those of London. Our great towns and cities in those days were so many provincial centres of attraction to the inhabitants of the district around them. Nowadays they are chiefly frequented by farmers going to market, of which the Saturday market in Norwich is a good example. But in old times the nobles and gentry round Chester, or Norwich, or York, not to mention any more, had their townhouses in each of those cities, to which at certain times of the year they regularly repaired.

We have seen that William III.'s statute of 1696 speaks of his Majesty's mints in the plural. There were then mints not in London alone, but in many of the great cities, of which that at Norwich existed till comparatively quite recent times. But where the mints were there was bullion, and where there was coin there would be sure to be plate. Nowadays we write to Garrard's or Hancock's from the Land's End or from Newcastle, and order those constant wedding presents, which have grown into such a tax within the memory of this generation, and we duly receive them by parcel or post. But it was not so in ancient days; then the ways were deep and miry, robbers frequented the main roads, carriers were often robbed or murdered. In a word, communication with the metropolis was uncertain and insecure. Instead of one great devouring centre we had many local centres.

Then,

Then, to return more strictly to our inquiry, our great cities had their plate and plate-marks, even Calais asserting its right in this respect. Mr. Chaffers seems to think that because William III. regulated the marks of many of the provincial towns, they had made no plate, and had no marks before that time; but it is evident that the intention of the King was only to revise and rearrange a system which had existed time out of mind, and the book of Mr. Chaffers is the best proof of this, for he speaks of marks in use at Norwich and York and Chester long before the time of King William. We may be quite sure that even before the days of Henry VI., who expressly mentions 'the touches of York, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Lincoln, Norwich, Bristol, Salisbury, and Coventry,' most of the great cities had their own marks. To these cities a statute of Henry VII. adds Calais, Canterbury, and Durham, as having mints. The inquiry into these provincial marks is difficult but interesting, and all the more so as some of the cleverest modern forgeries profess to represent them. We are pretty sure of the castle at Norwich, with the lion issuing from its gate; of the gerbs of Chester; of the five lions on a cross of York; and of the castles, varying in shape and form, of Exeter, Newcastle, and Edinburgh. But even in these cases, when we come to the annual-date letters, which they undoubtedly used, we are very much at sea. One or two pieces stamped with dates and letters enable us to identify one cycle at Norwich in Elizabeth's reign; but this, so far as we are aware, is the solitary instance of the restoration of the cycle of a provincial town. Some pieces, again, are stamped with marks evidently English, but which have not been identified as belonging to any particular town. Plate, for instance, occasionally occurs bearing a mark composed of half a fleur-de-lis and half a Tudor double-seeded rose. This Mr. Chaffers in despair, at p. 137, doubtfully assigns to York, forgetting that at p. 64 he had rightly mentioned the old mark of that city as five lions on a cross. Judging from a beaker in our own possession, we have thought it might be the old Calais mark, but without further proof identification is uncertain. This is the direction which future inquiry ought to take. We are now tolerably certain about the metropolis; the provinces still remain to be explored. It is, we imagine, hopeless to identify, except as undoubtedly English, the many pieces, spoons especially, which are stamped only with a maker's mark. All over the country, as we have already pointed out, there were silversmiths, who, not being bound by the Acts which affected the metropolis, honestly made their wares and stamped them with their own mark. These the dealers, usually the most

ignorant

ignorant of men, often call foreign, though their English character stares one in the face. One such maker, or rather two such makers, have been identified at the close of the sixteenth century at Exeter, or, at any rate, in the West. Several silvermounted earthenware pots and numerous spoons exist which are stamped with X, surmounted by a crown and surrounded by pellets. In some instances the names of Easton or Radcliffe are added, as if these were the names of the workmen, who taking the crowned X to denote Exeter, added their own name as their mark. It unfortunately happens that, as in the case of the provincial cities, these doubtful maker's marks are just those on which the forger delights to practise his art.

We have now nearly reached the limits of our space, though we have not nearly exhausted the interest of the subject. We cannot however refrain from speaking at some length of the frequent forgeries of old English plate, over which Mr. Chaffers laments in a separate chapter, and to which we have already alluded. It is, perhaps, impossible that such base simulations should not spring up in an age when fabulous prices are given for old English plate. In the chapter in question, headed Plate marked with False Punches, and other Offences,' Mr. Chaffers gives some very valuable information to collectors in the matter of forgeries. It must not be supposed that there were not fraudulent dealings in plate in old times; but those crimes were not forgeries in our sense of the word. If the laws which regulated the goldsmith's trade were rigorously enforced, it was rather because the gold and silver employed were sometimes below the standard of purity required by the statutes of the realm and the ordinances of the Company. When in 1369, in the reign of Edward III., William de Mulsho and John de Newenham were commanded to examine by the touch,' or by other methods, certain vessels of silver and belts of gold which no less a personage than William de Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, had caused to be made by goldsmiths in London, the inquiry was directed to ascertaining whether the metal used was of less fineness than the ordinances required. During successive reigns the same complaint arises invariably as to frauds committed by the debasing of the standard. As soon as Elizabeth had reformed the national coinage, the Wardens and Master of the Goldsmiths' Company were called before the same Commissioners as those who had reported on the condition of the currency, that it might be seen how far they had complied with the standard; and though it does not appear that any of their wares were found to be so debased as the coin, they were compelled to give security that in future no gold wares should be of less fineness than 22 carats, and silver wares 11 oz. 2 dwts.

in the pound, whence it will be seen that the old gold standard was reduced by 2 carats, while that for silver remained the same. That these injunctions were not idle appears from the records of the Company, which on the 4th of May, 1597, gave an account of an information, filed against two goldsmiths, for fraud in making divers parcels of counterfeit plate debased and worse than her Majesty's standard; and to give appearance to the said counterfeit plate being good and lawful, did unite, put, and counterfeit the marks of her Majesty's lion, the leopard's head, limited by statute, and the alphabetical mark approved by ordinance among themselves, which are the private marks of the Goldsmiths' Hall . . . and did afterwards sell the same for good and sufficient plate, to the defrauding of her Majesty's subjects.' These offenders of the sixteenth century were thereupon convicted and sentenced to stand in the pillory at Westminster, with their ears nailed thereto, and with papers above their heads, stating their offence to be 'for making false plate and counterfeiting her Majesty's touch.' They were then put in the pillory at Cheapside, that the City as well as Westminster should witness their punishment; had one ear cut off, and were taken through Foster Lane to Fleet Prison, and had to pay a fine of ten marks. This passing through Foster Lane was peculiarly appropriate, for there stood, as it still stands, the Hall of the Goldsmiths' Company. In Flanders, as we are informed by Mr. Chaffers, a similar punishment was inflicted for a like offence. There the fraudulent worker in plate had his ear nailed to a post in the market-place, where he remained till he summoned up sufficient resolution to tear himself away from the post, leaving a portion of his ear behind him.

It will be observed that the frauds of these early criminals were directed towards counterfeiting the marks of the Company, and stamping them on plate made of debased metal. It was, too, on new plate that they exercised their wicked practices. Equally criminal, but different in kind, are the machinations of our modern forgers. Their art and mystery is the manufacture not of new, but of antique plate, and their attention has been directed to this industry by the enormous prices which Early English plate has hitherto fetched. To judge by the number of pieces pretending to be Elizabethan and Jacobean and Caroline which have come under our observation, we should say that the Act of the 7 and 8 Victoria, ch. 22, passed in the year 1844, is practically powerless. It is in vain that section 2 declares each of the following offences to be felony, and punishable with transportation for seven or fourteen years; or to be imprisoned, with or without hard labour, for any term not exceeding two

years

years:-1. Forging or counterfeiting any die used by any of the Companies of Goldsmiths, or knowingly uttering them; 2. Marking wares with forged dies, or uttering them; 3. Marking wares with forged dies, or uttering them; 4. Transposing marks from one ware of gold and silver to another, or to a ware of base metal; 5. Having possession, without lawful excuse, and knowingly, of a forged die, or of any ware bearing the mark of a forged die or a transposed mark; 6. Cutting off marks with intent to affix them to other wares; 7. Affixing to any ware a mark cut from another; 8. Fraudulently using genuine dies. By the third section, any dealer in gold or silver wares selling, exchanging, or exposing for sale, or having in his possession, without lawful excuse, any wares with forged marks or dies, is liable to a penalty of 107. for each offence. These and the other sections of the Act afford, one would think, ample protection to the collector of plate. And yet this is a statute through the meshes of which many offenders have broken. According to Mr. Chaffers, a single case under this statute was tried before Lord Denman at the Taunton Assizes in 1849. On a prosecution instituted by the Goldsmiths' Company of London, two silversmiths were indicted for having in their possession a silver spoon having thereon a mark of a die used by the Goldsmiths' Company which had been transposed from a silver skewer. There was a similar charge in respect, too, of a silver soup-ladle. The spoon and ladle were of modern make, but bore the mark of the year 1774; that is, they had only four marks, and wanted the King's head. An officer of the Goldsmiths' Company proved that on clearing off the gilding and using a blow-pipe, he found that the spoon and ladle were not made in one piece, but that the parts bearing the marks were inserted, or brought on.' A working silversmith proved that, by direction of the prisoners, he had made and sent to them two silver bowls for spoons; that they were afterwards returned to him, with the handles attached, to be gilt, and when he burnished them, he perceived the old hall-marks; he also proved that bowls and stems, or handles, were generally made together. The defence was that the facts proved did not amount to a transposition, but were an addition, and as such the offence was not a felony, but came under the fifth section of the Act, which imposed a pecuniary penalty for the offence. It was suggested, on behalf of the prisoners, that the spoon and ladle were made by using old silver skewers with the old hall-mark for the stems, and adding to them bowls and figures at the top called 'apostles,' in order to give them an appearance of old plate, and that this was an addition. This was admitted by the prisoners' counsel to

be