MODELS FOR ORNAMENTS. 66 



gant patterns left us by the Greeks have been suggested by 

 a simihir primitive practice ? But, indeed, at all stages of 

 society artists have sought for models in the study of shells, 

 which afford some of the most agreeable forms in nature. I 

 do not here allude to the Nautilus, whence, as some ingeni- 

 ous men have conjectured, man took his first notions of ship- 

 bviilding and saihng ; nor to the Solarium perspectivum, 

 whose umbilicus, characterised by Linnaeus as a " stupen- 

 dum naturae artificium," the same fancy makes out to be 

 the type of the hanging staircase ; nor even to the Buccinum 

 (Tritonium variegatum, Lanik.), which is more clearly the 

 original of the war-trumpet, — 



" The shell proclaims 



Triumphs, and masques, and high heroic games ;"* 



but ornamental workers in general have often professedly 

 made them the subjects of close imitation, as I have ah'eady 

 said is the case in our porcelain manufactory ; and many 

 personal ornaments — our brooches, seals, and boxes — are 

 mere copies of shells. When these were first collected into 

 museums, it was no love of science, nor ambition to promote 

 it, that prompted the collectors ; it was the pleasure which 

 the contemplation of their varied colours, their elegance and 

 singularities of form gave to the eye and mind, and hence 

 they were then not arranged, as now-a-days, singly and in 

 labelled cabinets, but mixed, contrasted and combined in 

 every possible way and in many fantastic figures, while every 



* Captain Cook observes that he never knew the blowing of the conch in 

 Australasian tribes to portend good ; it seemed to be the signal for a hostile 

 attack. Mr. Ellis says, " These shells were blown when a procession 

 walked to the temple, or their warriors marched to battle, at the inaugura- 

 tion of the king, during the worship at the temple, or when a tabu, or restric- 

 tion, was imposed in the name of the gods. We have sometimes heard them 

 blown. The sound is extremely loud, but the most monotonous and dismal 

 that it is possible to imagine.'' — Poli/nesian Hesearches, i. 197. I need 

 scarcely recall its use among the early Romans — 



" Buccina jam priscos cogebat ad arma Quirites." 

 Pietro Martire thus describes a custom of the native Americans : — '' The 

 doors of their houses and chambers were full of diverse kindcs of shells, 

 hanging loose by small cordcs, that being shaken by the wind they make a 

 ccrtaine rattelling, and also a whistling noise, by gathering tiio wind in their 

 holowe places ; for herein they have great delight, and impute this for 

 a goodly ornament." — Southey's Madoc, ii. 224. Hence Southey, in his 

 description of the Festival of the Dead : — 



" Not a sound is heard. 



But of the crackling brand, or mouldering fire, 



Or when, amid yon pendent string q/' shells, 



The slow wind makes a shrill and feeble sound, — 



A sound of sorrow to the mind attuned 



By sights of woe." 



