Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/219

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SEPULCHRAL BRASSES, AND INCISED SLABS.
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altar-tomb may be seen at Tenby, to which a brass, representing a bishop, was formerly affixed, supposed to have been the memorial of Tully, bishop of St. David's. The brasses at Swansea, representing Sir Hugh Jones, knight of the Holy Sepulchre, and at Whitchurch, representing Richard, father of the famous Sir Hugh Middleton, and governor of Denbigh castle, with his numerous family, are almost the only specimens of interest which occur in the Principality. The curious engraved portraits of the Wynne family, executed by Silvanus Crewe in the seventeenth century, and preserved in the Gwydir chapel at Llanrwst, Denbighshire, although of monumental character, can hardly be included with sepulchral brasses.

The information which may be derived from incised memorials is so various, and the features of interest which they present are so attractive to persons of many different tastes and pursuits, in connexion with antiquarian researches, that, encouraged by the singular facility of taking from works of this kind impressions or rubbings, and obtaining at a very small sacrifice of time and trouble a most accurate fac-simile, the number of collectors who have in recent times diligently devoted their leisure to the investigation of sepulchral brasses is very large, and daily increases. The simple process by which such fac-similes are to be made is probably well known to the majority of our readers; to some persons, however, a few observations on the subject may not be unacceptable. It was only about the year 1780, when Gough was engaged in amassing materials for his great work on sepulchral monuments, that any notice was bestowed upon brasses. The first person who began to form a collection was Craven Ord, who, accompanied by Sir John Cullum and the Rev. Thomas Cole, bestowed no small time and labour in obtaining impressions, or "blackings," as they termed them, from the numerous fine examples which attracted their attention in the eastern counties. Their united collections are now presented in the print-room at the British Museum; they were purchased at the death of Craven Ord, in 1830, by the late Francis Douce, Esq., for the sum of £43, and by him bequeathed to the national collection, where they were deposited in 1834. This series of fine specimens is the more valuable, because it comprises several brasses which have subsequently been destroyed or mutilated, such, for instance, as the curious memorials of Sir Hugh Hastings, at Elsing, in Norfolk, and of the aldermen of Lynn,