remaining mouldings of a large pointed window of two lights; it is probably of modern date, but if ever of herring-bone masonry, like the side walls, may be doubted, as I am not aware that this style was adopted in curvilinear constructions.

The south wall is similar to that of the north, as to its buttresses and parapet, and is also of herring-bone masonry, except its upper part and eastern extremity, which are probably of the same date as the east end. Its chancel windows have moulded sides, with pointed heads and drip-stones. The chancel had also a small door-way nearly opposite to that on the north side. It had a cusped cinque-foiled head under a straight-sided or gable-formed drip-stone, with a kind of toothed moulding, and each spandrel had a well-executed plain quatre-foil; from which ornament this doorway might also be suspected, like the northern one, to be comparatively modern, had we not seen at Caen, the quatre foil profusely employed in buildings undoubtedly erected in the twelfth century. The west end, as I have before said, is certainly of recent date. It is gabled, and has no feature but a central door-way in the Romanized style, between two plain buttresses of three stages. Formerly, however, the west end was the length of one compartment, that is one-fifth part of the whole length of the ancient fabric, further westward than it is at present, as proved by the remains of the south wall, which is an instructive specimen of the mode of building we have above so fully spoken of. Near the western termination of this ruined portion was an original semicircular arched door-way, and almost above it, a semicircular-headed window case, of which one jamb has the shaft of a column still attached to it.

The roof is ridged, and formed of flat tiles.

The interior of the church of Mathieu, which is dedicated to St. John, is as devoid of ornament as its exterior. The floor of the chancel is one step higher than that of the nave, and both are irregularly paved with large flag-stones, but which have no memorials. The walls are plastered, and also quite plain. The chancel arch is, however, very interesting on account of its deviation from the usual semicircular form of the arches of this building and others of the same date. It is elliptical. Its soffit or intrados is narrow and plain, but the arch-stones are embellished with a row of intagliated or ingraved intersecting chevrons, between two rows of a kind of relieved quatre-foils set diagonally in a small sunk square. This arch is very wide, and springs from plain imposts on the rectangular ends of short massive transverse walls, which divide the chancel from the nave, but it seems from two square piers which occupy the angle formed by the partition and the chancel walls, that they formerly had springing from them another transverse arch, so that the chancel arch was double, or of two recesses. The door-ways on the north and south side of the chancel, of which the northern one, semicircular-headed, is blocked up only exteriorly, are interiorly quite plain. The ancient window cases are of two recesses, of which the outer is slope-sided, the inner having in its corners attached columns, some of whose capitals are enriched by angular volutes and figures of animals, the edge of the abacus having small interlaced chevrons and billet mouldings, but their archivolts are plain. The more modern window cases I shall not describe.

The ceiling is of wooden planks, laid longitudinally upon slender transverse beams. It is coved, being lowly concave round the margin, and flat in the middle, but, although black and much decayed, is probably no older than the west end.

Not so, however, is the Font, which has every appearance of being coeval with the most ancient parts of the edifice. This font is monolith, of a hard reddish sandstone, rudely polished, and stands on the floor, near the west end of the church. It is cylindrical, quite plain, except two torus mouldings near its rim, and a few irregularly placed holes, the work, perhaps, of wanton children. It is about three feet high. Its cavity is straight-sided, flat-bottomed; and, being about two feet and a half wide, it is sufficiently capacious for the immersion of the body of a young child. A flat wooden cover, with an iron bar and padlock, secure its sanctified contents from unhallowed pollution.

The stoup is of the same material, and probably of the same date as the font. It is deeply set into the south wall, near the western end, and is of semi-ovoid form, but small diameter, without any ornament except a few plain mouldings, as a finish to its lower part.

In the same part of the church, but nearer to the central line of the nave, and therefore more convenient for the congregation, is another stoup, modern; a shallow basin, excavated in the flat top or abacus of an isolated small rectangular pillar.

The altar, which is two steps above the chancel floor,-the ambo of deal, the pulpit and its sounding board of oak,-the confessionals, which are at the west end, their proper situation,-the stalls of carved oak, and plain deal benches,— are all of various modern dates, but not worthy of further observation.

A statue of the Virgin, as large as life, holding in her hand a bunch of artificial flowers, is, with the too common bad taste of devotees, fully dressed in robes of white, and painted to resemble nature.

Among five or six pictures, in mouldering condition, may be noticed a very good crucifixion, the gift of a parishioner, who on this occasion sacrificed his taste for the fine arts to a praiseworthy piety, in not sending it to the museum at Caen, where it would have been more carefully preserved. The chief merit of this painting is the natural depending position of the Christ, without the inappropriate dancing-master grace displayed in many representations on this subject.

The churchyard is spacious, but irregular, and surrounded by the chateau, a large farm-house, and many cottages. Its principal sculptured monuments are those of a succession of the village priests and the lords of the manor; among the last of which is one to the memory of Baron Lair, who was a naval officer of Napoleon, and brother of M. Lair, the senior counsel of the prefecture of Caen, a worthy character, and an intelligent and zealous antiquary.

Yours, &c.

PLANTAGENET.

EARLY GAULISH COINS.

MR. URBAN,

Camberwell, Sept. 2, 1833.

I send you, herewith, a few drawings of some supposed Gaulish Coins which have recently come into my possession, and which perhaps you will deem worthy the attention of your readers. They are, I believe, unpublished types, and it is on that account that I am desirous of placing them on record in the never-dying pages of Sylvanus Urban. The general absence of legends on these pieces, and, when legends do occur, their being for the most part barbarous and unintelligible, has caused this class of coins to be much neglected; but a learned foreigner is at this time engaged in an examination of the ancient coins of Gaul and Britain, and we may, perhaps, at some future period, be favoured with the result of his researches. Nothing tends to embarrass us in our enquiries respecting these coins so much as their difference in weight; for, although many of them resemble each other in type and fabric, their weight varies considerably. In a former communication, I alluded to the great similarity of the ancient British and Gaulish coins to those of the Greeks, and mentioned that I had seen some barbarous coins which might remind the Numismatist of the parts of the Roman As, and which had obviously been cast in moulds. I have, perhaps, erred in ascribing them to the Gauls; they may possibly belong to some other nation.

No. 1. is an accurate representation of one of these coins which, in type, strongly resembles some pieces discovered in St. James's Park a few years since, and which it is said were of iron; but the coin here given, though of mixed metal and of extreme hardness, does not contain iron, as I have ascertained by the magnet, yet the mixture of which it is formed includes small portions of gold and silver; a circumstance attributable rather to a want of skill in the refining of the metal than to design on the part of the moneyer. Several of these coins were dug up last summer in the neighbourhood of GENT. MAG. VOL. I.

2 M

Boulogne; but, as I have not heard of the discovery of similar pieces in the interior of France, I am led to conjecture that they were the money of some more northern nation. They are not unlike the rude lumps called Danish Amulets. It is not a little singular that most barbaric coins are struck, whilst these are certainly cast in moulds, and that, too, in the rudest manner. The obverse bears a figure intended to represent a human head; the reverse that of some animal the class and order of which it would puzzle a Linnæus to determine. It is worthy of mention, that in the face of the head, on the obverse, the lips are formed of two dots, after the manner of the early Greek coins. Are these barbarous coins, too, uncouth imitations of the types of a more civilized people?

No. 2. is of silver, and of tolerable purity,* weighing 66 grains. The obverse presents nothing remarkable: the reverse has a palpable imitation of the Pegasus of Corinth, and bears the letters гO... r. There is little doubt but that this coin is of Gaulish origin.

No. 3. is also of silver, and weighs 30 grains. It is a coin of better execution than the preceding; but evidently struck in Gaul. The female head on the obverse is covered by the lion's skin, and there is a collar round the neck. The reverse has the common badge of the horse at full gallop, and some letters, which, from their ends terminating in dots, are evidently copied from a Greek coin.+

No. 4. is of silver, the size of the Greek tetradrachm, and weighs 100 grains. The obverse appears to bear a human head, although the metal seems to have been too small to receive the whole impression of the die. The hair is arranged in a curious manner. The reverse of this coin is common.

No. 5. is of gold, weighing 884 grains; and presents, besides the figures of a horse and a human eye, the rude representation of a crab or some other marine animal, from which it may be inferred that this coin was struck by people living on the sea coast, near to which it was found. I have seen no other British or Gaulish coin with this emblem. The piece is cracked at the edges by the force of the punch with which it was struck.

No. 6. is of gold, weighing 594 grains; and a very remarkable coin. The obverse bears a well-executed head; the reverse has the figure of a horse with a wheel beneath, as in the common types, but the reins are held by an eagle: probably a poetical representation of Jupiter, who was one of the Celtic deities. Nos. 7. and 8. differ from any coins of presumed British or Gaulish fabric that I have yet seen, particularly in weight; the pieces here represented being very thin, and weighing from 7 to 7 grains only. The obverse presents a fullfaced head, strongly resembling that on the early coins of Abydos; but here the resemblance ends: the Greek coins alluded to are very thick, whilst these are almost as thin as a spangle. The reverse bears the common badge of the boar with its bristles raised.

Nos. 9. and 10. are of the same fabric, though of different type to the preceding. The only object upon them worthy of remark is what appears to be a rude representation of a Caduceus. It is possible that these pieces were not issued in Gaul.

No. 11. Of this coin I can give no explanation, for I am ignorant of the place of its discovery, and forget how it came into my hands. I know not whether to attribute it to the Saxons, the French kings of the first race, or to the Danes. It bears a strong resemblance to the well-known Skeattæ, but the metal is of a baser quality. The head is imitated from those on the coins of

Pliny mentions the skill of the Gauls in plating on copper. Some specimens of this art have descended to us in forged Gallic coins of copper, plated with silver and tin. I have one of these pieces now lying before me.

Some of the silver coins of the time of J. Cæsar and Augustus bear letters of this description; but the money of the Gauls, as I have before said, is imitated from that of the Greeks. From the style of the first imperial denarii, it is evident that they were the work of Greek artists.