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Vitrum Annulare, Pastes

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348                 NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
the thin projecting rim of glass formed by the portion superfluous and overlapping the circumference of the cast­ing-box, a convincing proof they were never set at all, or even intended for setting ; and such ought to be put down to the account of the amateur glass workers of the last century as merely made for the cabinet.
An interesting lot of the raw stock in trade of some old vitriarius once passed under my examination. It amounted to above two hundred masses of glass, in form and size resembling gooseberries of different kinds : a shape given them, as it was to the blanks in the contemporary coinage, to enable them, when semi-fused, better to take the impres­sion of the mould. Some were of rich colour, others inge­niously divided by an opaque band intended in their finished state to imitate banded Agates. The whole stock, including a remarkably fine bust of Jupiter in relief, (emerald paste) and a few rudely engraved Sards and Garnets, was said to have been found in one deposit in the vicinity of Naples. Could this account be depended upon, such a collection of the raw material would have greatly illustrated the process used in this curious art : but unfor­tunately no reliance whatever is to be placed upon the tale of the provenance of any antiques brought from that country, however well authenticated it may appear to the inex­perienced. But a long time back an instance beyond all suspicion came under my observation, of a paste prepared for the matrix. It was of a dark, translucent blue, lenti­cular in shape, and found together with a carnelian ring-stone, not engraved, and a silver ring set with a red Jasper bearing a rude intaglio, all deposited under a large stone amongst some ruins of the ancient Isca Silurum.
This single relic supplies in itself a reason for believing that the art of making paste intagli was then earned on in Britain, as we know was the case with that of bead-
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