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request your attention to the first portion of these general observations, and also to the commencement of those particular notices of individual brasses which I hope to be enabled, on subsequent occasions, to extend to every individual brass which time has spared to the county of Surrey. It will be understood, that by the term "Brass," or "Monumental Brass," is implied a commemorative memorial of some person or persons, engraven either upon a rectangular plate of metal, or upon several pieces of similar metal cut out to correspond with the main outlines of the design, the incised metal being, in both cases, let into a marble or stone slab, so placed as to form a part of the pavement of a church, or occasionally elevated upon an altar-tomb. The occasional deviation from the last condition which led, at a late period, to brasses being affixed to the walls of churches, must be regarded as both an exceptional and an inconsistent usage. We are able to show that these brasses were in use, as well in England as on the continent, very early in the 13th century; and it seems to be probable that, with the advance of that century, they were in (at least comparatively) general use. Thus, these incised monumental plates were produced in considerable numbers, and they also attained to a high degree of perfection more than two centuries before the discovery by the Florentine goldsmith, Maso Finiguerra (A.D. 1460), of the art of engraving plates of metal for the purpose of producing facsimile copies by means of impression. The same remark applies to the delicate and beautiful works in true line engraving, executed by artists who flourished at a far earlier period, for the decoration of the metallic hand-mirrors used by the ladies of ancient Rome. In searching for the origin of commemorative works of this class amongst the monu-