Yours of the 11th of July, inclosing an antient Greek inscription, and honouring me with a request of its explication, came not to my hands till the other week in the country; and as it is now vacation, I am just about setting out on a tour through the west of Scotland. This hurry allows not the leisure requisite to investigate the dark parts of the inscription; but I will chearfully give you my conjecture at first sight.

This copy, which is taken from a fine Chartulary in the possession of Thomas Astle, Esquire, is curious both for the instrument itself, and the seal. It was perused by our famous Kentish Antiquary Mr. John Philipot, who tells us, in his account of Wickam-Brews, that, “in the twentieth year of William the “Conqueror, Odo, Bishop of Baion, and Earl of Kent, held this “place of the gift of his half brother, which was that Prince, and “Trendley Park adjoining.

In the Strozzi collection at Rome, there is an Intaglio upon a Cornelian, of a Mercury, with his Caduceus in his left hand, while his right is raised towards his mouth in a very pensive attitude. Lord Essex bought the stone from the present D. Strozzi, the Pope's nephew, and Captain of his Guards, who is so extravagant and and expensive in his pleasures, that he is thought to have sold some of the real antiques, and substituted copies by Costranza in their room, for which reason the Duchess his mother shews them in person. This stone was given to Sir Hugh Smithson (now his Grace the Duke of Northumberland) by Lord Essex; and from various circumstances appears to be the original itself, for which it was bought, upon the opinion of the best connoisseurs in Rome at that time. It must be owned, that Costranza copies antiques with great accuracy, as may be judged from one of his Medusa's; but here the workmanship, considering the sweetness of the original, has a very different air from our Mercury, which is upon a stone round in the back, without much transparency, such as he never chuses for shewing his work; nor does the Greek word behind the figure look to be modern: It is antinooc, which shews the Mercury to be intended for Adrian's favourite.

In Smith's edition of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England, p. 96. are the following words: “Attamen in Campodono, “ubi tunc etiam villa regia erat, fecit (Paulinus) basilicam, quam “postmodum Pagani, à quibus Aeduini rex occisus, cum tota eadem “villa succenderunt.” This Campodonum, Camden, and others on his authority, have thought was the same as the Cambodunum mentioned in the second Iter of Antonine, which they have placed at Castle-Hill near Almonbury, in the West-Riding of Yorkshire.

Three years after the death of the learned John Battely, D. D. Archdeacon of Canterbury, was printed in Latin at Oxford, a beautiful little tract, intituled “Antiquitates Rutupinæ,” or, the Antiquities of Richborough. It is an account of a conversation betwixt him and his two brother-chaplains to archbishop Sancroft, the learned Dr. Henry Maurice, and Mr. Henry Wharton, vicar of Mynstere, in the isle of Tanet, in a very polite and elegant style.–Page 9, he tells them, that he undertakes to shew, that the antient port of Sandwich was bounded within the said limits which he ascribed to the port of Richborough, viz. Peperness to the east, and North-muth to the north.

As Rapin has made mention of an old inscription on the shrine of K. Edward the Confessor, in Westminster abby, when first erected; it is to be observed, that that which now is there differeth from it, having, as it is said, been wrote, and put in lieu of the former in the reign of K. Richard II, or later. The inscription, as printed in several books, and particularly to be seen in the print of that monument, engraved for the Society of Antiquaries, from a drawing by the late Mr. Talman, is as follows,

Omnibus insignis virtutum laudibus heros,

Sanctus Edwardus Confessor; rex venerandus,

Quinto die Januarii moriens super aethera scandit.

Sursum corda.

Moritur anno Domini mlxv.

I Beg the gentlemen of the Society, and Dr. Stukely in particular, would observe the Diverticulum Mr. Taylor has shewn, in his map or accurate survey of Hampshire, of the Ikeneld-street, running from the north east corner of Sir Philip Meadows' park, to a little house to the S. W. called Scots Poor. This Diverticulum is called Chute-causeway.

The dean of Exeter (now bishop of Carlisle) shewed the Society a large parchment roll containing a list of new years gifts presented to queen Elizabeth at Greenwich on the 1st January, 1584–5, signed by the queen, and countersigned by John Astley Esq; master and treasurer of the jewels; by which it appears, that the greatest part, if not all the peers and peeresses of the realm, all the bishops, the chief officers of state, and several of the queen's houshold servants, even down to her apothecaries, master-cook, serjeant of the pastry, &c. gave new years gifts to her majesty.

The Trajan column at Rome, is all of white marble, and consists of 30 stones, whereof 8 make the pedestal, 19 the pillar, and 3 the basis of the statue that stands on the top.

The side of the lowest plinth of the pedestal contains 20 English feet and three inches.

At Lord Pembroke's seat at Wilton, there is a very antient altar of Bacchus, of more consequence than vulgarly imagined. The inscription, which ends in a circle round it (for so Mr. Cowdry describes it, p. 116.) runs thus:

This marble and inscription are unquestionably very old, as I judge both from the form of the letters, and there being no appearance of the four last invented letters of the Greek Alphabet.

Besechess fulle humblie your humble trew leige men, the maire, balifs, and comonalitie of your pouere citee of Wynchestre, that, whereas they have ben charged to bere the fee ferme of your said citee, whiche draweth yerlyee to the fomme of an cxii marc, and bere also to the maister of the Hospitalle of Marie Maudalene beside Wynchestre lx s. also when the xv penny or taxe is graunted to your highnesse, it draweth to the somme of li l. x s. iv d. withyne the said citee, the whiche whenne it is levable, sum oon man in the said citee is sette unto iiii marc, and sum v marc, because your said citee is desolate of peple; also expens of Burges of the said citee comyng to your parlements, draweth to iiii s. by the daye, for the which said fee ferme so to be paid, your bailiffs have little or nought of certigntee to arayse it of but oonly of casualtees and yerelie lesen in payment of the said fee ferme xl. l. or more; for which causes above said, nd also for the grete charges and day die costes the which your said pouere citee berethe abowte the enclosyng and meerage of your said citee, it is become right desolate, in so much as many notable parsons ben withdrawen out of the said citee for the causes above said.

When that a King annoynted is decessed, aft' his body is fp'ged, it must be washed and clensed by a bishop' for his holy annoyntemt, than the body must be bamed, wrapped in laun, or reynez yf it may be gotyn, than hosyn cherte, & a perer of shone of rede lether, & do on his surcote of cloth, his cap of estate on his hed, and then ley hym on a fair borde cou'ed with cloth of gold, his on hande on his bely & a sep'r in the toder hande, & oon his face a kerchief, & so shewed to his noblez by the space of ii dayez & more yef the weder will it fussre.

Having had some conversation with your Lordship last summer with regard to Caerphyli (or Sengenneth Castle), and having afterwards travelled very much, at my leisure, round the sea coast of Wales, I take the liberty of troubling your Lordship with such observations as have occurred to me with relation to these venerable ruins, of which there is such a profusion in the principality.

Since my last, I have not had an occasion of seeing old Taylor; but he is still alive and well, and I hope soon to have an opportunity of visiting him, when I shall take care to have the fullest account of him I can possibly obtain.