[570] Much stranger relics than Roman coins or medicine-stamps have been found in Ireland. Above fifty Chinese porcelain seals, with legends, etc., inscribed upon them in ancient Chinese characters, have now been discovered in different parts of Ireland, and generally in localities indicating that they had lain entombed for many long ages. See Smith in _London and Edinburgh Philosophical Journal_ for March 1840; and Getty’s _Notices of Chinese Seals found in Ireland_, Belfast, 1850. [571] See Ledwich’s _Antiquities of Ireland_, p. 45—Roman coins found at New Grange. A celebrated passage in Tacitus proves that, even as early as the first century of the Christian era, the Irish seaports were better known to the merchants of these times than those of Britain were—(“Melius aditus, portusque per commercia, et negotiatores cogniti”). See _Agricolæ Vita_. [572] Hildebrand states, that in the northern or Scandinavian districts of Europe there have been found “Roman silver coins from about the middle of the first to the commencement of the third century (Vespasianus to Severus Alexander); but especially those of Hadrianus, Antoninus Pius, Aurelius, and Commodus. Along with them,” he continues, “are sometimes found various bronze articles, as statuettes, vases, and ornaments of various kinds of Roman workmanship, and apparently of the same age. These coins, etc., are usually found about the islands of Gothland and Oland, and in Scanïa. The coins are worn and clipped, so that often the legends and reverses are defaced, and the portrait alone tells by whom they were struck. The reason of this is (he suggests), that the coins came to the north after long voyages. As the Roman eagles were never planted on Swedish soil, these coins, etc., must either have been brought by the northern pirates from Roman possessions, or by merchants trading with Roman subjects. Only one gold coin (of Titus), and one ? (of Faustina the elder), are as yet known to have been found in the North.” See Hildebrand’s _Monnaies Anglo-Saxonnes du Cabinet Royal de Stockholm_. Introduction, pp. vi. vii. note. [573] See the _Pharmacopœia Londonensis_ for 1662, p. 48. [574] See Ainslie’s _Materia Indica_, vol. i. p. 513; and Royle’s _Antiquities of Hindoo Medicine_, p. 102.