Statues and Monuments.
Reference has already been made to the beautiful statuettes of Greece. There are others, to many grand in their conceptions, the work of Roman modellers, many representing Apollo, Hercules, Mars, and Mercury having been found. In the British Museum there are some wonderfully striking heads of several of the Emperors, and other men whose portraits have been handed on to us in monuments of stone, and upon coins and medallions, the die-sinkers of which so faithfully portrayed the men they pictured. The names of many of the most famous artists are known, and collectors rejoice over fresh examples of their handiwork. It is, however, the general characteristics of the Roman worker in metal as a whole that connoisseurs recognize and appreciate, and the true connoisseur is always searching for some greater artist's work than he has hitherto been familiar with. He is on the look-out for the very best among art treasures.
An amusing story has been told of a modern manufacturer who was very fond of inserting in his advertisements paragraphs calling attention to his modern works of art, which he said were "acknowledged by connoisseurs to be the best." "Father," said his little boy one day, "what do you mean by a connoisseur?" "A connoisseur, my boy," answered the manufacturer of copper goods, "is an eminent authority—an authority, in short, who admits that our goods are the best."
We are apt to look upon the beautiful brass grilles and copper lock-plates of mediæval days as the earliest examples of these metals in lock-making, the earliest locks found on old doors and muniment chests being chiefly of iron. But when we go back to still earlier times and examine the relics of Roman London, we find key-rings and keys of bronze, some very ornamental, too. One beautiful little key found near All Hallows Church has a bow terminating in a small spur. Another bronze key found near St. Swithin's, in Cannon Street, has a ridged annular bow, with a short square stem. Other keys are equally decorative; the locks, too, are in many instances ornamental, although in design and workmanship they fall short of the pinnacle of fame reached by the lockmakers in later Gothic times.