the prevention of the depreciation of the rupee in the future with respect to commodities, which must inevitably take place in time, if the price of silver continues to be anything like what it is at present.

It may further be noticed that not only has the price of Council bills fallen because of an increase in the small stock of silver on the market; it has fallen on more than one occasion merely because there was an uneasy expectation that more was coming; and thus the Indian Government has been as great a loser as if the thing had really occurred. All this would be prevented by the proposed

arrangement.

As to the objection that a gold currency is unsuited to the circumstances of India, it may be replied in the same way that the people of that country generally would be unaware for many years that there was such a thing as a gold currency in existence. Under any circumstances the amount of gold coming into circulation must for many years be extremely small compared with the existing silver currency. Say that the Indian currency increases at the rate of five millions sterling a year, judging from the past a reasonable estimate, and that the increase is all in gold, still these gold coins could come into the possession of only a small fraction of the whole community; in all probability they would circulate almost entirely among the bankers and merchants in the great towns, with whom a gold coinage has long been in request. The late Mr. James Wilson, when Finance Minister for India, considered that a gold currency would be extremely suitable; he objected to introducing it because at that time gold appeared to be falling in value with respect to silver, and the change might have involved a serious loss to the State, the principal creditor. Had Mr. Wilson foreseen the present state of things, there is every reason to believe, from his published opinions, that he would have made the change from a silver to a gold standard—a change which, owing to the relative values of the two metals at that time, might have been carried out almost imperceptibly, and which would have entirely averted the present catastrophe.

There is to be heard of course the cry of the vested interests-the cry about the injury that will be done to those who have been profiting by the present exceptional state of things, if the State interferes to put a stop to it. This is much as if, supposing the British Government, in stress of war or other emergency, had imposed a high import duty on corn for a time, a cry were to be raised about the interference with existing interests when the duty was taken off again; or suppose a revolution, and people dispossessed for a time of their estates, and then when, after a short period of anarchy, order is restored, and the rightful owners ask to be reinstated in their property, an objection should be taken by the temporary incumbents

on the score that this is an interference with existing rights. Certain parties no doubt have gained largely by the present exceptional state of things, and others have lost in proportion; and nothing can be done to repair this as regards the past; all that can be done is to put a stop to a continuance of the evil as quickly as possible, by restoring the condition which obtained for a long period of years, during which the exchanges remained steady at about two shillings the rupee. And if it be said that the analogy just employed fails, because after a certain lapse of time the mere possession of property would be held to entitle the holder to permanent retention of it, although unlawfully obtained in the first instance, that is just the argument that may be pressed for carrying out the reform without more delay, since the longer rectification is delayed, the larger will be the interests injuriously affected by the change, and the more difficult will it be to accomplish.

Lastly, there are those who say that if we wait and do nothing, the value of silver will recover of itself-that the capacity of India to absorb this metal is more than sufficient to counterbalance the effects of an excess of supply due to temporary causes. Possibly, if those causes should prove to be temporary; but consider the strain that meanwhile is placed on the finances of India. And, after all, if the price of silver does recover, the fact still holds good, that the Indian Government having such large permanent engagements to meet in gold, its finances will always be liable to derangement from a recurrence of the same cause-a fluctuation in the relative values of the two metals-and that safety and stability are to be found only in the establishment of its currency on a gold standard. If the depreciation of silver continues, this will protect the Indian finances from a great impending loss; while, if it does not continue, the change will at all events do no harm. Such, at least, are the considerations which appear to arise from a view of Colonel Smith's proposals, and what has been advanced against them; it will be for the readers of this article to say whether a case has been made out for action, or whether the Indian Government, which is master of the situation, should be satisfied to practise a masterly inactivity, and look on with folded hands while this havoc is being wrought on its finances.

GEORGE CHESNEY.

CYPRUS AND MYCENÆ.

UNDER ordinary circumstances it would be thought a far cry from Cyprus to Mycenæ, and, in point of fact, these two places are here associated less from any real connection between them in antiquity than from the coincidence with which certain very remarkable discoveries in both were lately laid before the public. In the one Dr. Schliemann finds the bones (horresco referens) and armour of Agamemnon, perhaps the self-same cuirass which Cinyras had presented to him, and with which he girded himself bravely at Troy (Iliad xi. 20). In the other General Cesnola has been finding abundant evidence of the early art of the Phoenicians. Assuming that Agamemnon had received other presents from the same quarter, and had brought them back from Troy, we might reasonably expect to find certain resemblances among the things obtained now from his house or his tomb at Mycena and from Cyprus. But apart from speculation of this kind, which is too much in the vein of Dr. Schliemann, it may be worth while to recall the ancient connection between the two places implied in the friendship of their contemporary rulers, Cinyras and Agamemnon, and in the prominent position held by Cyprus in the legendary events consequent on the fall of Ilium. It matters not what truth there may have been in the belief that Homer had been a native of that island, or that he had bestowed his daughter on one of its poets, Stasinos, the author of the Cypria. It is enough to be certain that, in an age which could not have been long after Homer, and most probably was immediately subsequent, the whole island rang with song in praise of deeds arising out of the war of Troy, and that most of its cities claimed to have been founded by heroes returning from that expedition. From this it will be seen that the influence of the poet of the Iliad must have been very considerable there. On his part also a distinct knowledge of what was always the chief characteristic of Cyprus-its metal-working—is implied in his description of the cuirass already mentioned. When he says that Tychios, who made the shield of

Cyprus, its Cities, Tombs, and Temples, by General Cesnola. London, 1878: John Murray. Mycena and Tiryns, by Dr. Schliemann. London, 1878: John Murray.

Ajax (Iliad vii. 220), lived in Hyle, it does not absolutely follow, as has been supposed, that he meant Hyle in Boeotia. There is at least the possibility of its having been the town of that name in Cyprus. In the Odyssey Athene on one occasion, and the king of the Taphians on another, go to Cyprus for copper, while Ulysses himself experiences the kindness of a king of that island. But apart from isolated cases, it seems impossible to hit upon any other spot in the ancient world which could have furnished the poet so completely, as does Cyprus, with the knowledge of art and handicraft displayed in his descriptions of armour, utensils, and embroidered dresses. Its richness in metal and natural products attracted from a very remote time those Phoenicians whom he knows as skilled workmen (ToλuSaídanoi), and the development of their industry in the making of armour, utensils, embroidery, and in the preparation of oils and perfumes, must have attained considerable dimensions as early at least as the eighth century B.C., and in any case long before similar occupations had been taken up with success among the Greeks. When he represents Helena (Iliad iii. 125) in the act of embroidering a dress with scenes of combat between Greeks and Trojans, we feel that there must be an anachronism in the lines, since it is in the highest degree improbable that art could then have reached that very advanced stage when it takes to rendering contemporary events. It is more likely that he ascribes to her a performance which he may have seen in his own time, when the incidents in question had become the common property of art, and in that case we have again recourse to Cyprus, which above all places was as renowned for this kind of work as it was for its delight in the incidents of Troy. When he speaks of Nestor's goblet (Iliad xi. 632) as ornamented with figures of doves, we are not obliged to conclude, from the importance of the dove as a symbol in Cyprus, that the vessel was necessarily imported from there. Still that is a possibility.

The question then resolves itself into whether it is not highly probable that Homer's knowledge of art, armour, and dress was drawn mainly from what he saw of the products of Phoenician workshops in Cyprus as well as in Sidon, and whether on that theory it would not be better to look for illustrations of his text among the antiquities and records of this island than to reap vexation in the attempt of reconciling him with the discoveries at Mycena or Troy. As regards the Phoenicians it is to Mr. Gladstone that the honour belongs of having demonstrated and insisted upon the striking relation in which they stand to the arts and industry of the Homeric poems; and considering how, guided mainly by literary studies, he anticipated, at a time when little or no attention had been devoted to the subject, the general results which are now on the lips of every one, it must seem strange to observe the constancy with which his early work in VOL. V.-No. 23.

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this field is overlooked. On a previous occasion I had endeavoured to point out the singular coincidences which exist between the condition of art and skilled workmanship as gathered from references in the Пliad and that of Assyrian monuments, drawing the inference that the poet's acquaintance with things of this class would be due to copies of them circulated by the Phoenicians, who were a sort of middle people between the Assyrians and Egyptians on the one hand, and the Greeks on the other. But at that time the facts which go to define the position of the Phoenicians as an artistic people were neither so numerous nor so striking as they have become since the publication of General Cesnola's extensive and interesting discoveries in Cyprus. Without saying that any particular object found by him is either as old as the time of Homer or furnishes a complete illustration to any particular passage, I would nevertheless ask whether the whole scheme of decoration on the shield of Achilles is not distinctly called to mind by the fragment of a circular silver dish engraved on pl. xix. (Cesnola, p. 277), first by the method of disposing the various scenes in concentric bands, and secondly, by the representation on the outermost band. There obviously is the city at war' of the Homeric shield, though necessarily not with the minute details of the battle such as may be seen vividly illustrated on one of the sculptured slabs brought by Mr. Layard from Assyria (Layard, pl. 66). Outside the city are two men felling trees, which may serve to suggest the outdoor occupations on the shield. On another circular vase is figured a dance headed by musicians, reminding one of the chorus on the shield. A third is very richly decorated with designs, partly Egyptian and partly Assyrian. Now, however much any one of these objects may be thought to fall short of Homeric descriptions of works of art, this at least is absolutely certain, that they were designed and executed by those very Phoenicians from whom, among other much valued articles, came the silver crater, in beauty above everything else in the world, which Achilles presented as a prize at the funeral games of Patroclos (Iliad xxiii. 741). It had been made by Σιδόνες πολυδαίδαλοι and brought over the sea by Phonicians.

So far then it will appear as if Cyprus were chiefly interesting as regards the times of Homer and his immediate followers in the office of bard. It would not, however, be fair to the services rendered by General Cesnola if we left it to be supposed that his discoveries had been confined to works of the Phoenician settlers in that island. On the contrary, among the vast number of sculptures exhumed by him there are many belonging to the best period of Greek art. To have hit upon the underground treasure-chambers of a Greek temple is a stroke of fortune which has never yet befallen another, and to have extracted from them successfully a series of objects of extraordinary beauty and in some cases of unrivalled 2 Contemporary Review, January 1874.