142 BRAZEN ALMS-DISH, TIDESWELL. 



receives it in her left hand ; thirdly, she hands it to Adam with 

 her right hand, he receiving it in his outstretched left hand ; 

 fourthly, Adam is shown dressed in his scanty attire of leaves, 

 which argues that he has received and eaten the fruit. 



Thus we see (i) the temptation by the serpent; (2) the fall 

 of Eve; (3) the temptation of Adam; and (4) his fall. Eve's 

 wavy hair is curious, and, for that matter, so is Adam's, for it 

 is done up in a sort of " bun " behind his head. The curious 

 method of showing the joints in the limbs of both Adam and 

 Eve is worth noticej for the artist has shown them as having 

 pegs through elbows and knees much on the principle of the 

 " Dutch do'll." The Serpent has a scaly body, and exactly 

 resembles that on a similar type of alms-dish at St. Ninian's, 

 near Stirling. The roots of the Tree — like the fangs of a 

 tooth — are remarkable, and resemble those in the similar tree 

 on a dish at the little Devonshire village of Dunsford. It is 

 a very curious thing that, besides this Derbyshire dish, I can 

 only hear of three other similar examples of Adam and Eve 

 alms-dishes in the United Kingdom. They are at Christ Church 

 Priory, near Bournemouth; St. Ninian's, near Stirling; and Duns- 

 ford, Devon. And it is also remarkable that we have here a dish 

 of Dutch workmanship and design which is repeated almost in 

 facsimile at St. Ninian's (the border, in fact, being a perfect 

 likeness) ; and this very border is likewise repeated on another 

 dish at Gargunnock, also near Stirling — but in this case the 

 centre is occupied by two busts of persons in large hats, and 

 one of these is playing the bagpipes. This stamps the 

 Gargunnock dish as Scotch, and leads up to the query as to 

 whether the St. Ninian's dish (which so closely resembles this 

 at Tideswell) was likewise a Scotch copy of a Dutch dish, or 

 was imported from the land of its origin. The St. Ninian's 

 dish lacks the Dutch inscription which characterises Tideswell's 

 specimen, and may be a copy, but if so it is a remarkably good 

 one. If there were but a few of these alms-dishes imported — 

 as seems to be the case — it is perhaps unlikely that one would 

 have strayed as far north as Stirling. Yet, on the other hand, 



