chral memorials, they furnish evidence of the slate, not only of the art by which they were executed, but likewise of those of ornamentation and design in general, and also illustrate the costumes of different classes of society at various periods; and in their legends they exemplify the peculiar kinds of letters, and divers unusual modes of abbreviation and forms of expression that were from time to time in use. In addition to which, a large variety of personal seals, remarkable for their allusive and facetious legends and devices, reflect the taste, fancy, humour, and occasionally the superstitions of the age, as well as of the individuals. In an historical point of view, it is not too much to say that seals bear the same relation to subjects, both as individuals and communities, that coins and medals (on whose historical value it is needless to dwell) do to sovereigns and states; while royal and municipal seals may in this respect rank with coins and medals themselves. Accordingly Peiresc, who had diligently studied these things both in France and this country, and corresponded with Camden, was accustomed to say (as Chifflet writes), "Sigilla, numismata, aliaque id genus, testes esse antiquitatis incorruptos, quodque ex iis addiscerentur, quæ frustra requireret quis ex historiographis omnibus." Anastas. Childeric. cap. vii., p. 113.
In Germany and France, where diplomatics, or the art of deciphering charters and the like, and of discriminating the genuine from the false, have for many years been regarded as a science, the subject of seals, which constitutes so important a branch of it, has received a corresponding share of attention, and their history and characteristics have been discussed in a manner unparalleled in this country.[1] But the seals which have been studied by the foreign diplomatists have been chiefly those of sovereigns and the higher orders of the nobility and clergy; while comparatively little consideration has been bestowed on the personal seals of the inferior nobles and ecclesiastics, and of the humbler classes of the people; which may be partly owing to the greater importance belonging to other seals, and partly to the fact of personal seals having been much less extensively used in
- ↑ I must here mention, as an eminent exception to the general manner in which such subjects have been treated by English writers, the very able and instructive paper on the Great Seals of England, by Professor Willis, in the second volume of this Journal.
