Diameter, 0.95 inch; struck in silver. R. S. Poole, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Swiss Coins in the South Kensington Museum (the Townshend Collection of Swiss Coins), London, 1878, p. 45, No. 15.

Rev.-Skull and crossed bones; above which, rose-tree with flower and buds; beneath, hour-glass. Inscription: HEUT. RODT. MORN. DODT ("To-day red, to-morrow dead"). (Fig. 69.)

Diameter, 0.8 inch; struck in silver. R. S. Poole, op. cit., p. 45, No. 16.

(I. and VIII.)

Obv.-Branch with three roses.

Inscription: HEVT SENID

WIER ROT ("Heut sind wir roth "-"To-day we are red ").

FIG. 70.-Medalet struck at Basel in the seventeenth century.

Rev. Dead stag to left, transfixed with arrow, beneath trees. Inscription: UND MORGEN TODT ("And to-morrow dead"). (Fig. 70.)

Diameter, 0.6 inch; struck in silver. R. S. Poole, op. cit., p. 45, No. 17.

(II.)

Obv.-View of the city of Basel.

Rev. Phoenix in burning nest (emblem of the resurrection of the body, and the immortality of the soul). Inscription: MORIAR UT VIVAM ("I will die that I may live"). (Fig. 71.)

Diameter, 12 inches; struck in silver. R. S. Poole, op. cit., p. 46, No. 20.

(I.) An English seventeenth-century memento mori medalet (circa 1650).

Obr.-A child seated on the ground, leaning on a skull. On either side, a flower. In the background, a building with spires, apparently meant to represent a church. The whole type surrounded by a serpent with its tail in its mouth. No legend.

Rev.-Legend in two circles with a rose in the centre: (in outer circle) AS SOONE AS WEE TO BEE BEGVNNE: (and in inner circle) WE DID BEGINNE TO BE VNDONE: (Fig. 72.)

Diameter, 1.25 inches; struck in bronze.

A specimen, which I afterwards presented to the British Museum Collection, was described by me in the Numismatic Chronicle, 1892,461 where I alluded to its resemblance in style of workmanship and in certain details of execution to the medal commemorating John Lilburne's trial in 1649.462 A similar piece, possibly from another die, but with the same legend, was described by J. Atkins 463 as a jetton or token supposed to have been issued by Sir Walter Raleigh for the Settlement made by him in Virginia, 1584.

There is another variety (see Fig. 73) with a slight difference in the legend, a specimen of which was kindly shown me by the late Sir John Evans, to whom it belonged. It is of decidedly rougher and more careless workmanship, somewhat smaller (diameter, 1.15 inches), and reading: (in

SOONE AS

WEE TO BEE

BEGVNN: (and in inner circle) WE DID · BEGIN · ΤΟ • BE VNDONN. This variety is figured in the Catalogue of the Fonrobert Collection, by Adolph Weyl.464

I think these pieces may have been produced to be distributed at funerals. The obverse design and the legend on the reverse were evidently derived from an illustration (see Fig. 74) in G. Wither's Emblems; 465 the legend in question is

461 F. P. Weber, Numismatic Chronicle, London, 1892, Third Series, vol. xii. p. 253.

462 Medallic Illustrations, 1885, vol. i. p. 385, No. 3.

463 J. Atkins, The Coins and Tokens of the Possessions and Colonies of the British Empire, London, 1889, p. 250.

464 Berlin, 1878, p. 336, No. 3728.

465 G. Wither's Emblems, London, 1635, folio, p. 45.

an English rendering (which accompanies Wither's illustration) of the well-known Latin hexameter line: "Nascentes morimur finisque ab origine pendet" (Manilius, Astronomicon, iv. 16). Wither may have derived the idea of the child leaning on the skull from one of Giovanni Boldu's medals already referred to, or from some other Italian source, or from one of Barthel Beham's engravings representing a child and skulls.

A Florentine woodcut (already referred to in Part I. E.) by an unknown master of the fifteenth century, represents a naked boy leaning on a skull, with an hour-glass on the trunk of a tree at his

head, and the inscription: LHORA PASSA. The woodcut in question is reproduced by G. Hirth and R. Muther, in their work on Meister Holzschnitte, Muenchen, 1893, Plate 31. An allegory of life is expressed in a similar way by various Italian statuettes, &c. Thus, in the Catalogue of the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition of Italian Sculpture (London, privately printed, 1912), there is the description (page 58, No. 8) of a sixteenth-century ivory statuette in the possession of Mr. F. Leverton Harris. It represents a nearly nude boy, standing; in his left hand is a staff, which rests on a skull. In the same catalogue (p. 66, No. 32) is the description of a bronze hand-bell by Andrea Briosco, surnamed "Riccio" (early sixteenth century), in Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan's possession. It bears the arms of the Doria

family, and the handle is formed in the shape of a nude boy seated on a skull and holding an acanthus thorn in his left hand. Cf. also Part I. E., where the Italian statuette of a boy with a skull (Fig. 28) may be referred to in this connexion.

The aspect of life suggested by the illustration in Wither's Emblems (Fig. 74) is an easy one of quiet contemplation amidst shady groves and beautiful park-land, with the view of church spires in the distance (the ideal life of a college "don" 466 in the popular imagination of former generations). On a circle around the illustration is inscribed part of the line from Manilius: "FINIS AB ORIGINE PÊDET"; and accompanying the illustration is printed the English equivalent — "As soone as wee to bee begunne,

We did beginne to be undone."

The perpetual springing up of new life to replace the old life which is decaying, is indicated on the medalets (Figs. 72 and 73) and on Wither's design (Fig. 74) by the flowers and by the serpent with its tail in its mouth, an emblem of eternity. In a similar way, Schiller (Wilhelm Tell, 1804, act iv., scene 2) makes the dying Attinghausen say :-

"Das Alte stürzt, es ändert sich die Zeit, 467
Und neues Leben blüht aus den Ruinen."

Cf. Ecclesiastes i. 4: "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever." Or possibly the flowers springing up from near the skull constitute an emblem of the doctrine of resurrection: The dead are to rise up and live again, just as fresh corn and flowers spring up from dry and apparently lifeless seeds.

486 Richard Porson (1759-1808), the famous professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge, is said to have emblematically compared the ordinary life of a college "don" to a certain view at the "backs" of the colleges at Cambridge, namely, a long shady avenue, with a church spire at the end-the spire signifying that the "don" often ended his restful life as a parson in the country.

467 According to Matthias Borbonius (Delitiae Poetarum Germanorum, Frankfurt, 1612), the hexameter, "Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis," was attributed to the Emperor Lothair I, who in 855 divided up his empire between his three sons, and died as a monk in the Benedictine Abbey of Prüm. The more usual saying is, "Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis." Cf. Ovid, Fast., vi. 771: "Tempora mutantur, tacitisque senescimus annis."