of the author has been adapted to its present blade, with a modern grip. Of this same type of hilt there is a still more remarkable example in the armoury of Windsor Castle, No. 58 in the 1904 Catalogue (Fig. 1520). Here we have an actual work, and not a mere school production, from the hand of an artificer to whom we have already alluded, Gottfried Leigebe, the famous metal-*worker to the Court of Berlin. It is because we have compared this hilt with an almost identical hilt in the collection of Major M. Dreger of Berlin that we are so confident that we have identified the actual maker; for Major Dreger's hilt is signed in full, and, though undated, states that it was made in Berlin. Gottfried Leigebe, who was born in 1630 at Freystaat (Silesia), worked in his early days at Nuremberg, and went to Berlin, but not before 1668; so the date of both the Windsor sword and of that in the Dreger Collection must be about 1670. The tradition is that the hilt of the Windsor sword formed part of a wedding gift made on the occasion of the marriage of Frederick William, Great Elector of Brandenburg (father of Frederick I, King of Prussia), to Louisa Henrietta, daughter of Henry Frederick, Prince of Orange, and it is said that on account of this historical association King George IV was induced to purchase it for his Carlton House Collection from the London sword cutler, Prosser. The surface of the steel retains its original blue-black colour, the whole hilt being chiselled with that minuteness which is usually associated with the French court sword hilts of late XVIIIth century date. Each small portrait bust that appears in its decoration is chiselled and undercut, and as skilfully modelled and engraved as some XVIth century cameo portrait. The pommel is of depressed oviform shape, having profile portraits in oval medallions supported by amorini in various guises; between these are trophies of arms; the quillons, which are short and straight, widen at the ends, and are fashioned as groups of cherubim. The ricasso is formed from kneeling figures of captives supporting medallion portraits; the pas-d'âne is of roped design. The exterior of the shells is bordered by eagles' necks, chiselled to various depths, and pierced à jour to introduce six oval medallions linked together by ribands inscribed with mottoes, royal and ducal crowns, garlands and cornucopiae. The interior of the shells is similarly composed; but in place of the portraits, shields of arms are substituted. On the shells there are ten portraits, representing the descendants of the house of Brandenburg from the year 1480 to 1627. The next sword to be illustrated is a perfect "small" or court sword in its final form, an example which was formerly in the collection of Napoleon III, but which in 1882 was placed in the Musée
