ome very ancient chessmen are preserved in the British Museum, in
particular a set called the Lewis Chessmen. They were discovered
in the last century, being laid bare by the pick axe of a labourer.
These chessmen have strange staring eyes; when the workman saw
them, he took them for gnomes who had come up out of the bowels
of the earth, to annoy him, and he rushed off in terror to report
what proved to be an important archaeological discovery.

One of the chessmen of Charlemagne is to be seen in Paris: he rides
an elephant, and is attended by a cortege, all in one piece. Sometimes
these men are very elaborate ivory carvings in themselves.

As Mr. Maskell points out that bishops did not wear mitres, according
to high authority, until after the year 1000, it is unlikely that
any of the ancient chessmen in which the Bishop appears in a mitre
should be of earlier date than the eleventh century. There is one
fine Anglo-Saxon set of draughts in which the white pieces are
of walrus ivory, and the black pieces, of genuine jet.

Paxes, which were passed about in church for the Kiss of Peace,
were sometimes made of ivory.

There are few remains of early Spanish ivory sculpture. Among them
is a casket curiously and intricately ornamented and decorated,
with the following inscription: "In the Name of God, The Blessing
of God, the complete felicity, the happiness, the fulfilment of
the hope of good works, and the adjourning of the fatal period
of death, be with Hagib Seifo.... This box was made by his orders
under the inspection of his slave Nomayr, in the year 395." Ivory
caskets in Spain were often used to contain perfumes, or to serve as
jewel boxes. It was customary, also, to use them to convey presents
of relics to churches. Ivory was largely used in Spain for inlay
in fine furniture.

King Don Sancho ordered a shrine, in 1033, to contain the relics
of St. Millan. The ivory plaques which are set about this shrine
are interesting specimens of Spanish art under Oriental domination.
Under one little figure is inscribed Apparitio Scholastico, and
Remirus Rex under another, while a figure of a sculptor carving a
shield, with a workman standing by him, is labelled "Magistro and
Ridolpho his son."

Few individual ivory carvers are known by name. A French artist,
Jean Labraellier, worked in ivory for Charles V. of France; and
in Germany it must have been quite a fashionable pursuit in high
life; the Elector of Saxony, August t