In the same collection is a sard engraved with a head of Lucilla, mediocre in execution, but set in a ring worthy of Cellini, to whose age the workmanship belongs. It is certainly the most artistic example of this ornament that has ever come under the Rev. Mr. King’s notice. Two nude figures, one seen in front, the other from behind, carved out in flat relief upon the shoulders of the shank, bear torches in either hand, which wind round the setting; doves and flowers fill up the interval between them. The perfection of these minute chasings is beyond all description, each is a finished statuette; curious, too, is the elegance with which they are employed, so as to fall naturally into the curvature required by their position. These extracts from the paper in the ‘Archæological Journal,’ by the Rev. C. W. King, will suffice to show the great value and beauty of these precious objects. The famous ring of Chariclea is thus mentioned by the Rev. C. W. King in his ‘Handbook of Engraved Gems.’ It is ‘an extract from the flowery pages of the tasteful Bishop of Tricca, Heliodorus, who, though writing amidst the fast-gathering clouds of the fourth century, still retained a tinge of early culture, and could not extinguish a sinful admiration for artistic beauty. Like other educated men of his, and even lower, times, he was still able to appreciate the productions of an art, even then, nearly extinct, for with what enthusiasm does he enlarge upon the description of the ring worn by his heroine Chariclea (‘Æthiop.’ v. 13), possibly a work the beauty of which he had himself admired in reality, or, perhaps, actually possessed! “Such is the appearance of all amethysts coming from India and Ethiopia; but that which Calasiris now presented to Nausicles was far above them in value, for it was enriched with an engraving, and worked out into an imitation of nature. The subject was a boy tending his flocks, himself standing upon a low rock for the sake of looking about him, and guiding his sheep to their pasture by the music of his Pandean pipe. The flock seemed obedient to the signal, and submitted themselves readily to be conducted by the guidance of his notes. One would say they were themselves laden with fleeces of gold, and those not of the artist’s giving, but due to the amethyst itself, which painted their backs with a blush of its own. Pictured also were the tender skippings of the lambs; whilst some running up against the rock in troops, others, turning in frolicsome turnings around the shepherd, converted the rising ground into an appearance of a pastoral theatre. Others, again, revelling in the blaze of the amethyst, as if in the beams of the sun, were pawing and scraping the rock with the points of their hoofs, as if they bounded up against it. Such amongst them as were the first born, and the more audacious, seemed as if they were wishing to leap over this round of the gem, but were kept