mains, whether of sculpture, of fresco, of
cameo, or of mosaic, which have come down to our times, the precaution
of affixing the name was by no means universally, or even commonly
adopted; and the monogram, properly so called, appears to have been
entirely unknown among them.

It was so also at the first revival of art in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. The practice of using a single letter, or a
single combination of letters or arbitrary characters, seems to have
originated with the mediaeval architects and other artists in stone.
Neither the painters, nor the engravers, nor the metal-founders, nor
the medalists of those ages, availed themselves of this device, nor do
we find it at all general among such artists, till the very close of
the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. But, once
introduced, it became universal. Every artist of the sixteenth, and
of the greater part of the seventeenth century, has his monogram, more
or less simple according to the taste or caprice of the designer; and
to such a length was the practice carried, that the very excess
produced a reaction, and led, for a time, to the abandonment of
monograms altogether. With the painters of the eighteenth century,
they fell into complete disfavour; and although, in the present
century, the revival of ancient forms has led to their re-adoption in
the German school, and among the cultivators of Christian art
generally, yet many of the first painters of the present day seem to
eschew the use of monograms, as savouring of transcendentalism, or of
some other of the various affectations, by which modern art is accused
of having been disfigured.

Independently altogether of its bearing upon art, the study of
monograms has a certain amount of interest. There is a class of
adventurers at the present day who make a livelihood from the
curiosity or credulity of the public, by professing to decipher the
peculiarities of an individual's character, and to read his probable
destiny, in any specimen of his handwriting which may be submitted for
their inspection. Without carrying the theory to these absurd lengths,
it is impossible not to feel some interest about the autograph of any
celebrated individual, and some tendency to compare its leading
characteristics with our preconceived notions regarding him. A still
wider field for speculation than that which grows out of the
handwriting, is afforded by a device like the monogram, which, bein