I am anxious to direct attention to certain very remarkable figures and combinations of figures, the most of which have been found in interments, in various parts of Europe, in the hope that notice of them may induce some member of the Society of Antiquaries to pursue their history further than I can do. It lies somewhat beyond the strict limits which I am compelled to put to my studies, and deserves a more exclusive treatment than I have time to bestow upon it: but it seems a subject likely to repay a careful investigation.

Mr. Major's paper on the subject of the so-called city of Vineta, lately read before the Society of Antiquaries, together with the interest which I know you to have in the question, afford a sufficient apology for the few lines I now address to you, for communication to the Society.

The recent investigations respecting the Charter of the City of London, and the manner in which it has worked, may seem to give particular interest to a manuscript to which I take the liberty to direct your attention and that of the Fellows of our Society. It is entitled—

“An Exhortation or Rule, set down by Mr. Norton, some time Remembrancer of London, whereby the Lord Mayor of London is to order himself and the City.”

Antiquaries who have visited the Cathedral of Gloucester, or studied the elaborate work on that building published by our Society with the assistance of Mr. Carter, are aware of the existence of a very curious Picture deposited in the south triforium of the choir, representing the Last Judgment. (Plate XXVIII.)

Your recent communication to the Society has drawn their attention to some facts relating to Thomas Norton, which were not known to me when I wrote the Memoir for the Shakespeare Society; and, as it is clearly proved, both by your communication and by documents in the State Paper Office, that the author of the first three acts of our earliest tragedy in blank verse was also the citizen grocer and the active and zealous Member for the City of London in 1571, and again from 1572 to 1582, who was declared to be “a man wise, bold, and eloquent,” and to have addressed the Members “in his accustomed manner of natural eloquence,” it may not be uninteresting to notice some of the State transactions in which Norton was engaged in the years 1581 and 1582, when the renewed movement was made against the Catholics by the Parliament and the Government.

The Ring has for many ages formed part of the insignia of a Bishop; there does not, however, appear to be any evidence either as to the period or the special reason of its first adoption. It seems from very early times to have had a twofold purpose and signification, the one practical and useful, the other mystical and symbolic.

In the twenty-second volume of Archæologia, Mr. A. J. Kempe has given an account of some then recent discoveries, by himself and Mr. Thomas Crofton Croker, near the ancient entrenchment called Cæsar's Camp, at Holwood Hill, Keston, near Bromley, Kent. Those discoveries consisted of the foundation of a circular Roman building, supposed to be a temple or tomb, with a square tomb, and two graves, in one of which was a stone coffin, and from the other a stone coffin had been several years previously removed to Wickham Court.

It is remarkable that Stowe makes no mention of the Abbot of Waltham's House at St. Mary-at-Hill, although the industrious London historian lived hard by, in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft; and the only printed notice of it that I am aware of is in Malcolm's Londinium Redivivum, vol. iv. pp. 417, 420, where it is stated that the parish purchased the abbot of Waltham's kitchen, and erected the south aisle of the parish church on the site thereof in the year 1501.

In the course of last season I informed the Society of Antiquaries that it was my intention to make, on the part of the Caerleon Archaeological Association, an examination of some of the remains of the ancient Roman buildings at Caerwent; and I promised to lay before them the result. In redemption of that promise, I have now the pleasure to communicate to the Society the particulars of the excavations which were made in the course of last summer, under the direction and superintendence of our excellent and able Secretary, J. Y. Akerman, Esq.; and I gladly take this opportunity of publicly tendering to him, on the part of the members of the Caerleon Association, and myself, our thanks for the very careful attention and unremitting assiduity with which he directed the operations. I must also tender my acknowledgments to Thomas Wakeman, Esq. who has made deep researches and large collections relative to the history of Monmouthshire; and who, at the Annual Meeting of the Caerleon Archaeological Association, in August last, read a paper on the history of Caerwent, of which he has kindly allowed me to embody a large portion in this communication.

It is pleasant to refer to the archæological opinions of the last century in England, when antiquarian alchymy could transpose the ornamental beads of the Saxon tomb into “Druid snake-eggs,” and throw a Roman halo round relics it was too impossible to ascribe to the Celts. Nor were matters better in France. Every sepulchral discovery was classed as Gaulish, or Gallo-Roman; and even Montfaucon could assume the ponderous belt-buckle of a Merovingian warrior to belong to female head-gear. At this time, indeed, the Saxon and Frankish periods seem to have been altogether ignored; but archæology has at length cast off such erring traditions.

In the month of September, 1827, the late Professor Rosellini, and the present highly talented director of the Belle Arti in the Uffizi at Florence, Professor Migliarini, were commanded by the Grand Duke of Tuscany to unroll a mummy which had been in the collection of the “Gabinetto di Fisica e Storia Naturale ” since the year 1824. This was done in the presence of a large number of spectators, and a very detailed account drawn up of it and drawings made on a large scale by Prof. Migliarini for His Royal Highness. As no notice of this interesting operation has been given to the world, the following details, taken from Prof. Migliarini's private notes, may not be unacceptable, in order that the peculiarities here exhibited may be compared with those observed in other mummies already unwrapped, or which may be hereafter brought to light.

I beg to call attention to a very interesting monument still preserved at Coventry. It consists of a large piece of Tapestry, 30 feet long by 10 feet high, wrought at the close of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century, and affording a singularly perfect example of the arts of design and weaving at that period. I am not aware that we possess many examples of tapestry before the sixteenth century; but specimens after the establishment of a manufactory at Mortlake, under Sir Francis Crane, seem to have become very numerous, chiefly, however, of Scripture-historical and allegorical compositions. The greater part of these are of the French school; although, in accordance with the wish of King Charles I., several sets of tapestries from Raphael's Cartoons, which are now at Hampton Court, were executed at that manufactory.

On the 30th June last, at the invitation of the Council of the Surrey Archæological Society, I assisted at the opening of a Barrow at Teddington, near Kingston-on-Thames, but north of the river, and therefore in the county of Middlesex.

I had the honour of exhibiting, at a Meeting in May last, a collection of remarkable antiquities which had been shortly before found in Suffolk.

A farmer at Westhall (a small village about three miles north-east of Halesworth) was engaged in draining a field, called the “Millpost Field,” carrying the trenches to a depth of between two and three feet from the surface, in a stiff clayey soil, and in the direction of a small watercourse which ran along the east side of the field. A space of about two acres in extent, in the lowest part of the field adjoining the watercourse, presented, when ploughed up, a much darker soil than the other parts of it; and in making his drains through this part of the field much burnt earth and fragments of pottery were thrown out of the trenches. Near the centre of the space, and about two feet from the surface, he met with a quantity of bronze rings and other fragments, which he gave to a Mr. Hylton, a Norfolk farmer, who communicated the discovery to me, and enabled me to exhibit them to the Society: and in order that every possible information might be obtained, I joined them, on the 2nd of May, and carefully went over the ground with the spade. All the bronze fragments had been gathered together, and my search added nothing to the collection.

During the fall of last year I visited the ancient city of Bath, and was astonished at the quality and extent of the sculptures and inscriptions now preserved in the Literary Institution. They are collected in a vestibule attached to that building, which has a portico of very pure Greek Doric architecture, and the sculptures are effectively arranged, with the advantage of a central light from above. All the sculptures in this vestibule have a particular local interest, as they were discovered within the precincts of the city, most of them about the year 1790, upon what appears to have been the site of an ancient temple, or, more probably, a group of buildings.

“There has been a find of about 215 silver pennies, also four rings set with gems, a ring twisted like a wreath, a ring with crosses on it, and a gimmal ring (at least one with a hand like a gimmal ring), and a brooch double-wreathed, with a tongue something like what I saw when young in peasants' shirts, to keep the two parts together at the breast.

I have the honour to forward for the consideration of the Society of Antiquaries a Drawing of the Tessellated Pavement recently found between Bishopsgate Street and Broad Street, under the vaults of the south-eastern area of the late Excise Office. A small plan which accompanies the drawing (Pl. XVIII.), will show the exact position of the pavement itself, relatively to the adjoining street and to the buildings of the Excise Office. It is a commonly received opinion, that the late Government edifice occupied the site of the house and premises of Sir Thomas Gresham only; and it may be therefore convenient to explain that subsequently to the purchase by the Government from the trustees of Sir Thomas Gresham of the buildings of Gresham College, in 1768, they bought an inn adjoining southward, called the Sun; and these two premises together constituted the area of the late Excise Office. I cannot exactly define the boundary of the two properties, but I have no doubt that the site of this pavement was under the Sun inn portion of it, and did not form any part of the land purchased of the Gresham trustees. In removing the Excise Offices we began from Threadneedle Street, and in taking up the foundations of the main buildings, nothing of any interest was found; but, as we proceeded towards Bishopsgate Street, it was evident that we were approaching foundations and remains that were of a much earlier construction.