Sommers, having delivered his despatches to Cecil, exhibited the images of the Cæsars. Cautious Cecil merely observed that ‘he liked them very well, but was not skilful of their antiquity;’ he would refer the question, he said, ‘to some cunning body,’ but ‘would not yet believe that it was _æs Corinthium_. He had seen such works of ancient art, in gold, silver, and brass, but not in such metal as this. He thought, moreover, that 600 crowns would be far too high a price to expect the Queen to disburse for them. The loyal Sommers, anxious that Elizabeth should not be suspected of meanness, suggested that Cecil should invent any excuse for returning them rather than let Vergetius suppose ‘that the Queen would stick for 600 crowns to have such a thing of price.’ Thereupon Cecil took Sommers to the Park at St. James’s, where he knew the Queen was walking, and there the messenger, with the box of ‘images’ under his cloak, was presented to Elizabeth, who gave him her hand to kiss, asked how Lady Throckmorton ‘could away with France?’ glanced at his despatches, said she would read them in her chamber, and then, perceiving that Sommers had something under his cloak, ended with a ‘What have ye there?’ Sommers informed her; but when he named the price she protested with a ‘Marry!’ that she had the same set already in silver, but she bade him, as it was growing late, to bring them for inspection on the morrow. Accordingly, Sommers attended on her at the palace, and she laughed at seeing them so daintily handled, all curiously arranged in a gilt box, ‘in the holes made for that purpose,’ and covered over with a piece of crimson velvet. Then she told over the names as she looked at each portrait, and scanned as many of the devices as she, with Sommers’ aid, could decipher. She would come to no terms, however. He must leave them with Cecil for a while. She would consider of it. Cecil kept the medallion portraits, waiting in vain for a chymist or artificer with skill enough to ‘touch’ them and tell him of what metal they were fashioned. Chaloner looked at them, and did not bring the matter nearer to a solution by remarking, ‘If I were rich, I would give a hundred crowns for them myself.’ The queen wrote with her own hand to Throckmorton. She has seen, she says, ‘the twelve medallions of the emperors, whereof she does not make such estimation as the price assigned. She returns them, and wills him to thank Vergetius for the same, telling him that she has caused certain closets and cabinets of her father to be searched, wherein a great number of such monuments in gold, silver, and copper have been found, and amongst them very fair monuments of the said emperors.’ And so ends this picturesque episode of the imperial ‘images.’ The park scene might suggest a picture to Frith or Ward, if either should ever happen to be in want of a subject.