The works of such classicists as Marchant, who studied in Rome many years, and of his successor, Burch, a Royal Academician, extending over a period of years from 1750 to 1815 or thereabouts, are well worth while, and would reveal an excellence of execution unsurpassed. Then followed such men as Weigall, Bragg, Grew, and in our own day the Rentons, who engraved intaglii for members of the royal family. Since the heraldic style has followed the classic, interest in the art of intaglio-engraving has waned tremendously and can be brought back only by the revival of that classic spirit which, after all, underlies everything that is best the world over, in art or in literature. The substances employed by the gem-engravers are amethyst, hyacinth, agate, carnelian, chalcedony, crystal, and other precious gems. In our own day almost every stone is employed. The lapidary must not be confused with the gem-engraver. The first prepares the stone to receive the work of the second, just as the wood-sawyer prepares the material for the carpenter, or the man at the quarry the block for the sculptor. Pliny described at some length the process of gem-engraving in his day. As to the ancient mode of engraving gems, in which the drill wheel and diamond point were used, the use of the wheel is especially noticeable in the lenticular Island gems; it was a small bronze disk set on a shaft of metal worked like the drill with a bow and tube of emery powder; its purpose was for cutting lines to connect the points made by the drill, or else for broad, sunken surfaces. The diamond point, on the other hand, was used like a pencil, with the hand alone; it resembles the modern glass-cutting diamond and was employed for giving an artistic finish to the design, which could of course be best done with the free hand. The use of this tool required great technical skill, the results of which may clearly be seen on some gems of the best period. In passing it is interesting to note the devices to which makers of fraudulent “antique” intaglii have been known to resort. As an instance, that misty dullness of the stone which only age is supposed to give is produced in Italy by forcing the smaller engraved gems down the unwilling gullets of defenceless turkeys, whereupon the action of the gastric juice and the gritty substances in the gizzard outdo the devices of Time himself, as the funeral of the unhappy bird reveals to the dissecting and dishonest fabricator. CHAPTER XXXVI FRAUDULENT ART OBJECTS The detection of fraudulent antiques and curios and other bogus works of art has become a science. Phædrus, who lived and wrote in the time of Tiberius Cæsar, tells in his fiftieth fable of how his contemporaries carved the name of Praxiteles on their marbles and the name of Myron on everything they wrought in silver, in order that their productions might pass as masterpieces of those supreme Hellenic artists.