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mental memorials in use at a still earlier period, we are led to trace the introduction of the engraven metallic plates, in the first instance, to the enamels of the continental artists of the 12th century; those enamels having been themselves introduced, apparently, through Venice, from Byzantium into Europe; while the greater durability of the metal, and its superior beauty also to incised monumental slabs, would insure its favourable reception and extended adoption. The monuments in use in our own country anterior to the introduction of brasses, which now claim our first regard, were upright crosses, adorned with various rude devices of interlaced work, sometimes intermingled with figures of animals. Contemporary with these crosses were small stone tablets, bearing Runic characters. Flat slabs, of larger dimensions, appear to have been also in use at the same period. On all these the devices and letters were produced, either by cutting lines into the stone, that is by incising or engraving them, or by removing the adjoining portions of the face of the stone, and so leaving the designs and inscriptions themselves in quasi-relief. The great Christian symbol, the cross, appears incised upon some of the earliest slabs. Somewhat later, the cross, with its accompanying ornaments, was worked in a true, but still a low relief; and now the actual lid of the stone coffin became, in many instances, the monumental memorial; on other occasions, the large rectangular slab was still retained. Shortly after the Norman conquest, monumental inscriptions fell into disuse, if we may judge from the scarcity of examples; and about the commencement of the 12th century we find the first traces of attempts to give a representation of the person of the deceased, either upon the lid of his stone coffin or on a sepulchral slab. These early effigies, though