40 NOTICES OF A REMARKABLE COLLECTION OF ORNAMENTS

or usual store vessel, such small quantity of precious ointment, or frankincense, as might be required. (See cuts, orig. size.) The mirror is formed of a cir- cular plate of silver, decorated on one side with concentric incised circles, and a leaf-like border surrounds the edge, which, having been only sol- dered on, has in a great de- gree been detached and lost. The mirror was found upon the saucepan, and has been suji- posed to be its cover. It may have been so, but it appears to be much too large for that purpose ; it has all the usual form of Roman mirrors, and seems to have had some alloy mixed with the silver to adapt it for taking a pohsh. This has perhaps rendered it brittle, and it has been broken into several pieces ; it has been repaired, not in a very graceful manner, by attaching to one side of it an ill-formed piece of silver. One object only remains to be noticed, of little value in itself, but important as fixing the date of the objects with which it was found ; it is one of the 280 denarii. It is of Antoninus Pius, struck in his second consulate, corresponding to the year 139 of our sera ; and, as this was the latest coin discovered, it may reasonably be concluded that these articles were all deposited in his reign, which terminated in 161, twenty-two years after the date of the latest discovered coin, or at least before the coins of his suc- cessor could have come into general circulation in this country. Of the Dese Matres, with whose religious rites and cere- monies these objects aj)pear to be connected, nothing is to be learned from ancient authors ; it is only from still-existing monuments, becoming the subject of investigation by archaeo-