paws of animals, &c.; next appears a thigh, cut short above the knee;
this is followed by the letter C. Next in order is seen a flask
pouring out a stream of oil; the letter l, with a comma above the
line, comes next; and the whole is closed by a goodly heap of gold
pieces. To an Italian scholar, it is hardly necessary to offer an
explanation. The group of emblems at the left hand represents Artigli
(limbs); the rude image which succeeds it stands for Coscia (a thigh);
the C, followed by the little flask of oil (_olio_), forms Colio; and
the l, with the comma, or rather the mark of apostrophe, followed by
the heap of gold pieces (_oro_)--making together l'oro, completes the
characters of the name--Artigli Coscia Colioloro.

It will not, however, be a matter of surprise, that the key to many of
these emblems has, in the course of time, been lost; and that at
present a considerable number of this class of monograms are a mystery
even to the most learned in the art. Notwithstanding every appliance,
the monogrammatists have occasionally been forced to confess
themselves in doubt, and sometimes altogether at fault, as to the
identification, or even the interpretation, of some of the emblems.

During the latter part of the seventeenth century, and the whole of
the eighteenth, the monogram went almost entirely out of fashion. In
England, even still, its use is far from being general; and
engravings, especially, are now-a-days almost invariably signed with
the full name. But foreign artists, and particularly those of the
_renaissance_, have revived the old usage. Frederic Overbeck, the
great father of the Christian school of art: Cornelius, to whose
magnificent conceptions Munich and Berlin owe their most glorious
works, both historical and imaginative--as the fresco illustrations of
the _Nibelungen Lied_, in the Royal Palace; the 'Last Judgment,' in
the Ludwig-Kirche; and the 'History of St Boniface,' in the
Bonifaz-Kloster--Storr, the great Austrian master, whose conception of
'Faust,' in the Royal Gallery at Vienna, is in itself a great poem;
and the whole Duesseldorf school--have conformed to the ancient type.
Even the humorists have made it, in some instances, a vehicle of their
humour. Few of those who were wont to enjoy Richard Doyle's inimitable
sketches in _Punch_, whose guiding-spirit he used to be, can forget
the funny little figure, surmounted by his well-known initials; and
the lovers of political caricature must