Class 2-Atlas, a figure of Atlas bearing the world; Britannia, a picture of Britannia; the Caledonian, a representation of a thistle; Globe, a facsimile of the globe; the Great Britain, St. George and the Dragon; the Hand-in-Hand, two clasped hands; the Union (originally known as the "double Hand-in-Hand,") four clasped hands; the Royal Exchange, a view of the old Royal Exchange; the Sun, a sun in effulgence.

Class 3-The City of London, the arms of the City; the Liverpool & London, the Liver of Liverpool and the griffin wing of London; the Kent, the white horse of Kent; the London Assurance, the arms of the City of London; the Middlesex, the arms of the county;

the Newcastle-on-Tyne, the arms of the county; the Westminster, the portcullis of Westminster.

Class 4-The Alliance, a strong power on a rock; West of England, Alfred the Great; the Imperial, an Imperial Crown; the British, a lion.

Companies were constantly in the habit of varying their type of marks. Indeed, the study of variants is, to an enthusiast, very absorbing, minute differences being discovered often only after very searching scrutiny, in many cases it being only possible to discover differences the most minute, indicating, however, that the emblems have been made from a different die. As an interesting and typical example some of the Hand-in-Hand marks and plates, all of lead, are here given. Of course, this in no way professes to be a complete set; doubtless there are others, belonging to other and

BRITISH FIRE OFFICE

1799-1803

perhaps more fortunate collectors.

Some collectors re-colour the old marks in accordance with what they think was the original colouring, but that would seem a practice to be condemned. It certainly would be interesting to have side by side with a good specimen another one coloured to show somewhat what it originally looked like. But, surely, it would be considered vandalism to cover a choice old piece of furniture with veneer. The marks are very often found coated with paint, the reason being that they were fixed to stuccoed or painted buildings, and the workman has passed his brush over the mark. The paint should be carefully removed so as to leave the true form of the outlines of the metal clear.

722

SUN FIRE OFFICE
ESTD. 1710

Fire-marks, by the way, must not be confounded with fire-badges, which were of silver, bronze or copper, sometimes silver gilt, and were worn by the firemen belonging to different companies, and bore the same emblem as the mark. A very good way of arranging ISSUED circa 1716 these marks is to hang them on mahogany shields round a room. trace about the date each individual one was issued, and affix a little tablet underneath with this information. Indeed, a collection can, in this manner, be given a highly decorative effect.

It is as well to

THE death of Dr. Lumsden Propert cannot be allowed to pass without notice, since he was one of the first contributors to THE CONNOISSEUR, and his article in our October number was probably his last literary work.

The late Dr. Lumsden Propert

John Lumsden Propert physician, virtuoso, and artist

to the world at large-to those who, like the present writer, were privileged to know him long and intimately possessed those rare qualities that will make him ever remembered as a man worthy of the warmest affection and esteem. The qualities that most contribute to the forming of the accomplished connoisseur were also markedly conspicuous in the subject of this brief memoir, who, as an artist, practically conversant with the technicalities and difficulties of many forms of art expression, brought also a wide and cultivated knowledge to bear upon the labours of love he set himself to perform, as a relief probably to the more prosaic duties of a physician; and perhaps it was not because he loved medicine less, but because he loved art more, that he decided in his early days to bestow upon art this divided attention, for who knows but that this in itself may have served as an additional stimulus, resulting in that force and thoroughness characterising all he undertook.

picturesque bits of Thames scenery, and at one time he was a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy. Even up to the time of his death his leisure moments were occupied with landscape painting in oils, a medium which he had quite recently essayed, and his productions were instinct with extraordinary virility and charm. It is scarcely necessary here to refer to his famous collection of many of the choicest examples of the work of the bye-gone masters-the giants of miniature art, which was exhibited recently to the public at the Fine Fine Art Society prior to its dispersal. To the building up, however, of this splendid collection is due what may perhaps be rightly termed the magnum opus of Dr. Propert's life, his renowned History of Miniature Art. This is considered to be the standard work on the subject, and its method of production was characteristic of its author. It was mainly written (as he himself informed the present writer) in his carriage, on small slips of paper, whilst on his professional rounds. The volume is now extremely rare and difficult to obtain, and amongst the most prized possessions of the present writer is a copy, presented by the author, with an autograph inscription. Space will now only permit the mention, in conclusion, of Dr. Propert's close connection with the Society of Miniaturists from the moment of its foundation; it owes much of its success to his loyal and zealous encouragement.

First as an etcher Dr. Propert early took a prominent place, employing his needle chiefly upon

submitted to them, whose material and workmanship fail to provide sufficient data in themselves.

It shows how any one who is a fair judge of antiques and possessed of a good superficial knowledge of things in general and an imaginative disposition may, with the assistance of sufficient circumstantial evidence, both external and internal, arrive at the most wildly erroneous conclusions, which, however, present all the appearances of verisimilitude until submitted to the crucial test of practical knowledge of the above-mentioned subjects. The principal decorations of this particular hornwhich, let it be said right here, to use a most expressive Americanism, is purely Netherlandish both in workmanship and device, though Scotland may have been the provenance of the horn in its raw state-are a shield on which is shown a lion grasping a flag and sitting within a wattle fence with a barred gate in the centre (see page 51); another with a dagger pointing upwards with two stars on either side and surmounted by a Maltese cross (see page 51); two more charged respectively with a pale and a bend, both fanciful (see page 52); and one bearing a chevron of sorts and species of monogram (see next page); all these shields occur in two bands at each end of the horn,

known in the family who own it as the "Abbot's Chair." This curious seat is of massive rosewood, of more solid character than Chippendale's usual work; it may, however, be his, though more probably it is of an earlier date, perhaps even of the late seventeenth century. It is called the "Abbot's Chair" because it belonged to a Squire of Southwick, where there was formerly a Priory of Black Canons. The reason is hardly sufficient, since, even if the Squire of Southwick. can be taken to represent, in some sort, the head of the old monastic house, a Priory could never have had an Abbot. But the chair has certainly something of an ecclesiastical look about it.

THE late sixteenth century horn, illustrated on the next page, is of considerable interest, not merely because of its good preservation and the various The Story decorations with which it is enriched and of a Sixteenth which are peculiarly typical of its period, Century but also on account of the striking objectHunting- lesson which it furnishes of the value to Horn collectors of antiques of a practical knowledge of heraldry, costumes, historical dates, and customs in enabling them to determine for themselves the exact nationality and period of any object

RIBBON-BACKED CHIPPENDALE CHAIR, FORMERLY AT BLENHEIM, THE SEAT WORKED BY SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH

SIXTEENTH CENTURY HUNTING-HORN

oblong panel along the front, whereon are shown three soldiers in full costume of the period, representing a harquebusier, an ancient or standard-bearer, and a pikeman; the flag of the ancient is engraved with a number of closely-set vertical lines, while he himself and the pikeman wear felt pot hats with plumes and the harquebusier a steel morion similarly ornamented. The neck of the horn is covered in

Haarlem against Alva-the arms of Haarlem are the dagger, four stars, and cross-may have been in Delft at the time of the assassination in that city of William of Orange (for the shield with the pale, if it were properly charged, would represent the arms of Delft), and most likely witnessed the signing of the league of the seven provinces at Utrecht in 1579 (for the arms of that city are also suggested on the horn), as well as having been in the Hague when the States solemnly abjured the authority of Philip II. in 1580. The lion in the fence was part of the arms of the State of Holland and signified its capital, the Hague, or Hedge, the only unwalled capital in Europe, and after called the largest Village in that Continent. The white lion might incidentally stand for Burgundy, by whom Holland had been annexed about a century earlier.

The three soldiers would indicate that the owner of the horn was an important officer, and the various lines in the ancient's flag that his heraldic colour was blue. The horn thus viewed becomes an intensely interesting pictorial diary of its owner's adventures during the stirring times in which he lived, and as such deserving every respect.

In any case its legend is quite as specious as most of its fellows and far more tenable than that woven around the presumptive hat of Henry VIII. and shoes of Anne Boleyn on view at the "Monarchs of England" at the New Gallery, which has been torn to tatters in the pages of that excellent new publication the Ancestor.

The real sober facts about this always interesting horn are as follow:-The Horse, Heart, Lion and