The coffins found in England are not so much Roman as strictly Anglo-Roman, for far more have been found here than in any other country, such as have been found in France are near our shores as if certainly made of our lead, and the ornamentation of the English examples has a common likeness in the use of the scallop shell which is not represented abroad. The comparison can best be made in a little book by the learned archæologist Abbé Cochet of Rouen, _Les Cercueils de Plomb_ (1871), in which the examples found in France are figured. These English coffins and sepulchral cists are mostly in the British Museum and at Colchester. The cists are plain circular boxes some ten inches diameter by fourteen inches high; one of these is decorated by simple circles and another has crossed rods of “reel and bead,” with applied small panels of chariots and horses. [Illustration: FIGS. 16 and 17.--Cists, British Museum.] The coffins have been found chiefly in the London district--in the Minories, Stepney, Stratford; at East Ham, Plumstead in Kent (this last is now in Maidstone Museum)--at Southfleet and at Colchester and Norwich. They are decorated by rods of “bead and reel” differently arranged on the lids in zig-zags or lozenges, with scallop shells and plain rings placed in the spaces. The rods and shells were evidently separately impressed into the flat field of the sand mould and that with the artful carelessness which shows that the designer and the workmen were one and the same person, an artist. With these simple elements compositions are made of quite classic distinction and grace. Mr. Alma-Tadema apparently drew the fine leaden oleander tub in his picture from these coffins, and it makes a perfect flower-pot. A coffin found at Pettham in Kent was decorated by a simple cord which passed around once transversely in the middle and then each of the spaces thus formed on lid, sides, and ends had diagonals of cord. A fragment of one in the museum at Cirencester is more finished and refined, it has a saltire of the twisted bars with terminations at their ends, and in one of the spaces is a small female head. The coffins are made like a modern paper box with a lid lapping over the sides. Some sketches are given from those in the British Museum. That shown in Fig. 19 was of full length (6 ft.) but only a part of the lid remains. The other two (Figs. 18 and 20) are less than 4 ft., one of which is ornamented with rings and ropes and curious forms like the letter B. Those at Colchester are like the former. These coffins are all very white with oxide. [Illustration: FIGS. 18 and 19.--Roman Coffins, British Museum.]