138 NATURAL HISTORY OF PRECIOUS METALS, &c.
	he was seized with a desire to emulate him, in which he perfectly succeeded. As we have only his own word for it—and his judgment upon his own merits is far from impartial—the fact of his eminence in niellatura may well he doubted. We have, indeed, abundance of small silver trinkets of his age, rings, buckles, &c, but they cannot claim to be considered works of art, but only trade-articles of a manufacture. The art yet lingers in its lowest form in Petersburgh, confined to the production 01 rude decorations upon the lids of snuff-boxes. There is a little relic in niello preserved in the Waterton Dac-tyliotheca, which yields to few in historical and in ro­mantic interest. It is the wedding-ring of Cola di Rienzi, "last of Romans," bearing in the shield his well-known device the star, repeated with a bar between, surrounded by the names nicola and Catarina (dei Easselli) hif wife, the letters relieved in the silver with a ground ol niellatura.