The Will of John or Hans Holbeine, recently discovered by Mr. Black in St. Paul's Cathedral, and communicated by him to the Society, with some remarks, on the 14th of February, 1861, has excited the interest not only of the Fellows of our Society, but also of artists and connoisseurs both in this country and abroad.

The Will of Hans Holbein, discovered by Mr. Black, and so successfully identified in your recent communication to the Society, is a piece of historical evidence of which it is scarcely possible to over-estimate the value. It has, in fact, material influence upon the whole history of Art in this country for some years after its date, upsetting and contradicting an incalculable number of hasty and injudicious assertions, and rendering necessary a fresh series of investigations, to be conducted upon safer premises and with more careful conclusions than those which have satisfied the biographers and connoisseurs of former days.

I beg to address you a few notes which have been suggested by the perusal of your interesting paper upon the contemporaries and successors of Holbein. It is not easy to over-estimate the value of the researches which you have brought to bear on the subject. The termination of Holbein's career, 1543, as shown by Mr. Black's discovery of his will, and confirmed by the Director's investigations, furnishes us with one of the most important turning-points in the early history of art in England that have been met with for many years.

It is now nearly two years since I had the honour of communicating to this Society an account of the discovery of flint implements fashioned by the hand of man, in undisturbed beds of gravel, sand, and clay, both on the Continent and in England.

The most careless student of the Antonine Itinerary cannot fail to remark its frequent discrepancies; not only will he find stations mentioned which it is very difficult to identify, but distances given as terminating at points where not only are no evidences of former occupation to be found, but where (in some instances) none can be supposed to have existed. Should, however, the impress of Roman occupation be yet discernible, the Roman name of the site has frequently been either lost or misappropriated.

The surface of that part of Europe which lies between the Baltic and the German Ocean on the north, and the Carpathians, the Sudeten Gebirge, the Riesengebirge, Thüringerwald, and Hartz on the south, is composed of sand or clay, and affords no other building stone than granitic boulders, supposed to have been transported thither from the Scandinavian mountains. These boulders furnished the stone from which many churches were built in the twelfth and earlier part of the thirteenth centuries; but the deposit being superficial was soon exhausted, and the hardness of the material precluded the use of ornamental detail.

By permission of the Right Hon. the Earl of Verulam I am enabled to exhibit to the Society of Antiquaries a folio MS. volume which contains an account of the Treaty held at Newport in the Isle of Wight in the months of September, October, and November, 1648, between King Charles I. and certain Commissioners appointed by the Parliament.

Roux-Mesnil est un modeste village dont le nom rappelle le conquérant de la Normandie. Il est situé au milieu de la plaine qui sépare la vallée de la Scie de celle de la Varenne, à une distance à peu près égale du château d'Arques et de la ville de Dieppe. L'église de ce hameau, abandonnée en 1812 et complètement détruite en 1839, était située au milieu des champs labourés, dans un bosquet planté d'arbres et de pommiers, qui forment au sein de la campagne un verdoyant oasis.

I beg leave to lay before the Society of Antiquaries a further report of my researches in the Anglo-Saxon Burial Ground at Long Wittenham, which were renewed in the summer and autumn of last year, with the kind co-operation of the Vicar, the Rev. J. C. Clutterbuck. These researches terminated earlier than I anticipated, and the result appears to show that the cemetery did not extend beyond the limits of the plot of ground called “the Free Acre,” described in my former report. I may mention that I have since ascertained that this plot was formerly known as the “Town Furlong,” and that its enclosures were levelled and obliterated about sixty years since.

M. Paul Marchegay of Angers, ancien Archiviste du departement de Maine et Loire, has forwarded to the Society transcripts of some letters which he has found among the records of the Tremoille family, preserved at Serrant in Anjou.

They consist chiefly of twenty-one unpublished letters written by Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia, and three by the King of Bohemia, all addressed to various members of the Tremoille family. One letter, however, which is of an earlier date, relates only indirectly to Elizabeth, and should properly be considered before those written by the unfortunate daughter of James I. or her husband.

The early history of Ludlow has been so well detailed by Mr. Eyton in his Antiquities of Shropshire, and has been so elaborately illustrated by Mr. Wright in his volume specially devoted to the subject, that I need not enlarge on its general history in endeavouring to elucidate the recently discovered remains of the Priory of Austin Friars. I cannot, however, refrain from quoting the graphic description of Churchyarde, who, writing in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, thus describes Ludlow:—

The Town doth stand most part upon an hill,

Built well and fair, with streets both large and wide,

The houses such where strangers lodge at will,

As long as there the Council liste abide.

Both fine and clean the streets are all throughout,

With condits cleere and wholesome water springe,

And who that list to walk the Town about,

Shall find therein some rare and pleasant thinge;

But chiefly here the ayre so sweet you have,

As in no place you can no better crave.

The intimate connection which existed between chivalry and feudalism in the early age of both these institutions has not been sufficiently observed. Those who have set themselves to write the history of chivalry have been attracted by its romantic side, and have neglected the more substantial aspect which it presents when considered in relation to the political fabric. Our legal antiquaries, on the other hand, have sparingly recognised the influence of chivalry in the early history of the feudal establishment; and, while it was impossible to banish knight's service and tenure in chivalry from any account of the feudal system, they have been rather disposed to regard feudal knighthood as a legal fiction, and to disconnect the chivalry of tenure from the chivalry of arms.

Having in the course of last autumn received permission to examine and make sketches from the vast collection of pictures at Windsor Castle, I gladly availed myself of this opportunity, to examine as thoroughly as possible the very fine and authentic series of early portraits which some of the private apartments contain.

However interesting it may be to be acquainted with the time and circumstances of the birth of an eminent person, it is more instructive to ascertain when, where, and how he died. A man's career is then complete, his actions can be freely reviewed and recorded for the information of posterity, and nothing more can justly be added to the acts of his life on which to found his reputation. In more than one sense, therefore, is there truth in the words of Solomon, “A good name rather than good perfume, and a day of death rather than a day of birth.” (Eccl. vii. 1.) The case of the great painter Holbein strikingly illustrates this saying. His powers and reputation as an artist far transcended, even in his royal master's judgment, the accidental distinctions of rank and fortune; and the true date of his death is far more important to his posthumous reputation and to posterity than the date of his birth.