Of the great Murrains of the Middle Ages, we know little or nothing; the statements of the chroniclers about them are so meagre and vague, that we get but few facts except the dates of the years in which they occurred, and even in that particular the Chronicles are not always correct. Under such circumstances, I felt it my duty, when some original information relative to a Murrain in the Fourteenth Century came under my notice, to take some little trouble in selecting, and arranging the materials in order to place them before the Society. The additional knowledge of these visitations, thus obtained, may not be considerable, but a number of small facts may be of some service, in elucidating the character and effect of them.

The doubts which have lately been thrown upon the authenticity of the Paston Letters form a peculiarly appropriate subject for the consideration of the Society of Antiquaries, not merely because historical and antiquarian literature would suffer a grievous loss if the reasonableness of those doubts could be established, but more especially because in the process of their establishment some blame must necessarily fall upon this Society, for having at the time of the original publication allowed itself almost to put the seal of the Society to the genuineness of these important papers.

The authenticity of the Paston Letters having been seriously impugned, it is a duty to give any explanation on so important a question. I would, therefore, beg to state some circumstances which happen to be particularly within my own knowledge.

The Committee appointed by the Council on the 12th December, 1865, to collate the fifth volume of the Paston Letters with the original manuscripts exhibited to the Society on the 30th November, 1865, by Philip Howard Frere, Esq., beg to report that, in conformity with the directions of the Council, they invited E. A. Bond, Esq., Joseph Burtt, Esq., P. H. Frere, Esq., James Gairdner, Esq., T. D. Hardy, Esq., Sir Frederic Madden, and Herman Merivale, Esq., to act on this Committee. Mr. Gairdner declined the invitation; and Mr. T. D. Hardy found himself unable, from the pressure of other business, to give the necessary attendance; but all the other gentlemen cordially accepted the invitation, and took part in the labours of the Committee.

On Friday the 29th of December the King his Matie sent for the Lieutenant of the Tower, and in his Maties wtdrawing chamber sayed unto hym—

I wold have you to tell yor prisoner that I am sory to see that he continues still to take the wrong course to his owne hurt in this buisines, as he hath don sins the beginning of it.

The document which has recently been discovered by James More Molyneux, Esq. F.S.A. amongst the extensive collection of manuscripts at Loseley, containing a complete and authentic report of a message sent by King James I. to the Earl of Somerset on the 29th of December, 1615, is a valuable addition to the four letters printed in the Archæologia, nearly fifty years ago, from the autographs in the same collection. Those letters were written to Sir George More, between the 9th and 24th of May, 1616, just before the trial; and there is another at Lambeth (not an autograph, but I suppose a true copy) addressed to Somerset himself in the preceding October, just before the committal. This new document gives us conclusive evidence as to the relation in which the King stood towards him in the middle stage of the proceedings, about half-way between those dates; and makes the history of it so clear and complete that no room is left for any further doubt about it. It appears therefore to be a fit occasion for collecting and reviewing the whole of the evidence bearing upon that point, of which we have now a great deal, when all is brought properly together; and of a kind too which is entitled not only to consideration but to precedence, as being better evidence than those who first told the story had access to, and such as they would themselves have preferred if they had had it.

The great aim of history is to hold up the mirror of the past; but this cannot be done without a knowledge of places as well as of persons. Topography not only illustrates, but also corrects, history: Josephus, for instance, speaks of Jerusalem as having contained occasionally 3,000,000 inhabitants; and in the Jewish War he raises up, by the magic stroke of his pen, countless hosts that never were born; but when we come to examine the localities, we see at once that his statements are preposterous, and that we must accept them at an enormous discount. If topography be so essential an ingredient to history, the more important the events, the more necessary the investigation of the places where the scenes were enacted. It is for this reason that so much attention has of late been directed to the topography of Judea, and of Jerusalem in particular. The inquiry as to the latter has perhaps excited the greater interest from the extreme difficulty with which it is attended. Our information, however, is so rapidly accumulating, that candid minds are now fast converging to a central point.

A cloud of mystery has long shrouded the Mosque of Omar, and various hypotheses have been put forward for solving the enigma. I am about to propound a novel theory; and, as most persons must long since have formed their own conclusions, I feel that prejudices are to be overcome, and that without any partisans, at least to begin with, on my side, I must necessarily have many opponents. The Society however will, I am sure, indulge me with a patient hearing, while I explain my views: Let me in the first place, for the benefit of the uninitiated, state the question at issue.

I have the honour to lay hefore the Society of Antiquaries copies and translations of some original documents from the archives of Simancas and Venice, relating to the passage of English history which formed the subject of a communication from Mr. Spedding on the 1st of March of the present year, and in doing so I can only regret that they were not before Mr. Spedding at the time when he was drawing up his Paper. In that case they would not merely have been in the hands of one who was most capable of making the best use of them, but they would have fallen into their natural place in the narrative which he prepared. He would have found in them the strongest confirmation of many of his arguments; but, amongst the new facts which would have thus been at his service, he would not have encountered one to necessitate the withdrawal or even the modification of a single statement.

Last winter, while at Rome, some sketches in the album of Padre Garrucci, of the Collegio Romano, made me acquainted with the discovery of certain archaic tombs at Palestrina, the ancient Præneste, which appeared to me to be of a very remarkable class.

The Anglo-Saxon legal procedure has failed to attract the attention either of the antiquary or the lawyer. The causes of this neglect, however, do not readily suggest themselves. As a practice it must have had merit, for amongst other germs which fructified under the fosterage of the Norman we find in it that of the English jury in a state of inception prompt for further development. With such bearings upon the future, this legal procedure may, I think, be reasonably regarded as a subject worthy of antiquarian research.

The copies of the four Letters from Lord Bacon to Christian IV. of Denmark, which I have the honour to lay before the Society of Antiquaries, were furnished to Sir Charles Murray, the British Minister at Copenhagen, by M. Wegener, the chief of the Royal Danish Archives, in consequence of an application made to the Foreign Office on my behalf. I can hardly be wrong in bespeaking the thanks of this Society, and of all who honour the memory of Bacon, for those whose ready attention to the request thus made to them has placed us in possession of these papers ; and I may be allowed to mention that, although my application, being based upon a copy of an originally imperfect catalogue, only referred to a single letter, M. Wegener did not content himself with a mere literal fulfilment of the request made to him, but at once sent copies of every letter of Bacon's preserved in the Archives.

It will be in the recollection of the Society that on the appearance of the first volume of the “History of Caesar ” by the Emperor Napoleon, the Council took occasion to express to His Imperial Majesty their high esteem for the learning and ability and the power of antiquarian investigation which that work displays. The wish, which at the same time they took the liberty of stating, that we might be allowed the honor of adding His Majesty's name to our list of Fellows, received a gracious response, and we have now, as you are aware, the great gratification to see the Sovereign of France enrolled among us as a Royal Fellow.