Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/554

 408 NOTICES OF AECHAEOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS. They had, from the earliest notice of the discovery, been recognised by Sir John Davis and several oriental linguists, as the ancient seal characters of China, used even at the present time on the seals of public and private persons. It does not, however, appear that porcelain seals of the type in question, are now fabricated ; seals of steatite, of which examples are not uncommon, have probably been preferred. The impress appears to convey a double signification, — a personal name, and a kind of motto. For example, one of them is thus rendered : — " Put one's self in the place of others," an equivalent to the golden rule of Christianity. One of the learned trans- lators observes — " It is to be remarked that all these, as well as other Chinese seals, invariably express proper names, or those marking some dignity ; and besides, the greatest part contain various superstitions, agreeably to the capricious taste of each person ; nor can the Chinese themselves understand them, nor give any reason or explanation." How precisely does this description apply to various medieval seal-devices and legends in our own country, the mysterious import of which is so frequently an enigma to the antiquary ? Mr. Getty candidly admits his inability to offer any satisfactory clue to the mystery of the occurrence of these Chinese objects in Ireland. Had they been brought to light chiefly in any particular locality, near any one of the principal harbours, for example, or in the alluvium of any of the great estuaries and tidal rivers of that country, the conjecture advanced by some antiquaries might be admissible, that these seals had formed part of some cargo of Eastern produce cast by a tempest upon the shores of Ireland. But they appear to have been found, during the last eighty years, as it has been stated, in positions far apart, and remote from the coast. All inquiries have been fruitless, in the endeavour to trace their introduction through the channel of commerce ; and, whilst Chinese seals of steatite are not imcommonly impoi'ted with the porcelain and curiosities of the East, the porcelain seals are wholly unknown to dealers, amongst the strange variety of oriental relics which fall into their hands by recent importation and the dispersion of old collections. It deserves to be recorded, that the late Mr. Baldock, whose experience and observation in such matters was perhaps unequalled, assured the writer of this Notice, that never, in his extensive dealings, had such an object occurred in the ordinary course of trade ; and the testimony of other noted vendors of porcelain or curiosities in London entirely concurs with this statement. No conclusive argument appears to be deducible from the antiquity of the characters upon these curious seals. One eminent Irish antiquary has shown the use of such ancient characters since the time of Confucius, in the sixth century, b.c. ; but, although all authorities seem to agree in attributing them to a peculiar, or archaic, class, we are distinctly assured by one of the Chinese scholars, whose trauislations are given by Mr. Getty, that the same characters " are now in use."- The author has given an interesting extract from the relation of Dicuil, an Irish pilgrim, in the early part of the ninth century, one of a little band of travellers who visited the Holy Land, Egypt, and the shores of the Red Sea.^ He suggests that the porcelain seals may have reached Ireland by the intervention of such pilgrims. It is remarkable that the only example, " See Mr. Getty's " Notices," p. 1 9. entitled, " Rcchcrehes sur le livre de •'' This curious account was published mensura orbis terrse, conipos(5 en Irlande by Letronne,at Paris, in 1814, in a volume par Dicuil."