Our Kings do not bear this title under the authority of Leo the tenth's Bull to Henry VIII. or that of Clement VII. his successor, who confirmed it. Although the original came from the church of Rome, the modern title is thoroughly English, and derived from our own legislature.

The care of your estate, with feare of your neglect, so afflicts my mind, as I may not overslip the sending you a noble man to sarve you, for a memoriall of my readines, and desiar of your Spede. The sledik dame who whan she is turned leaves no after step to witnes her arrival save repentance, that beareth to sower a recorde of her short abode, may make you so far awake that you have never cause throuwe long discourtesy to loose the bettar knowledge of hidenst tressor.

Although a Glossary of the words peculiar to each County of England seems as reasonable an object of curiosity as its History, Antiquities, Climate, and various Productions, yet it has been generally omitted by those Persons who have undertaken to write the Histories of our different Counties. Now each of these Counties have words, if not exclusively peculiar to that County, yet certainly so to that part of the kingdom where it is situated, and some of those words are highly beautiful and expressive; many of their phrases, adages, and proverbs are well worth recording, and have occupied the attention and engaged the pens of men distinguished for talents and learning, among whom the name of Ray will naturally occur to every person at all conversant with his mother tongue, his work on Proverbs and on the different Dialects of England being one of the most popular ones in the English Language. But there is a still more important benefit to be derived from this custom, were it practised to its full extent in a publication comprising all the provincial Dialects of England, as they would when united all together form the only true and solid foundation for a work much wanted, a General Dictionary of the English Language.

In my introduction to the Ancient History of South Wiltshire, I have endeavoured to investigate with accuracy and minuteness, the various barrows with which our chalk hills particularly abound. I have stated their forms, construction, and contents. Those which occur most frequently, may be divided into four classes. I. The long barrow. II. The bowl-shaped barrow. III. The bell-shaped barrow. IV. The Druid barrow. The two first, from the general simplicity of their structure, appear to be the most ancient; for in No 3 we find a great degree of symmetry in the design, which corresponds with the figure of a bell: and No 4 varies materially from all the preceding. I know not from what circumstances the learned Dr. Stukeley appropriated these low tumuli to the British order of Priests called Druids I am rather inclined to think, from the result of our own researches that they were destined to receive the bones and the ashes of the female tribe of Britons; for the articles generally found within them both with regard to size and quality, have been such as were more becoming to a lady than a priest. But the most inexplicable of all the barrows, and the most distinguished by its size and construction, is the Long Barrow, consisting of an immense long ridge of earth, pointing most frequently from East to West; and rising to a higher degree of elevation towards the former aspect. These are the barrows which the Northern Writers ‘describe as ship barrows—carinœ instar.

The Society of Antiquaries have preserved in their publications two Seals of the ancient Convent of St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, and I am therefore induced to hope that the present communication of a third Seal used by the same Body may not be wholly unacceptable or uninteresting to them.

The observations already transmitted to the Society of Antiquaries, respecting some Celtic remains discovered near Sawston, were hardly communicated to the Society when our attention was again called to similiar antiquities of much more elegant form, and very superior workmanship, that were found by a party of labourers in the service of Greaves Townley, Esq. of Fulbourn, as they were digging upon Fulbourn common. Mr. Townley had the kindness to send these men to me at Cambridge, with the curious reliques they had brought to light; and as he allowed me to make what use of them I pleased, I am enabled to lay before the Society such other remarks as appear to me to be worthy of notice; accompanied, as before, with a drawing, by Mr. Kerrich, of the things as they were found, remarkable for its fidelity and exactness of delineation.

Among the Manuscripts which were some time ago purchased by Government of the Representatives of Mr. Francis Hargrave, and which are now deposited in the British Museum, I have laid my hand upon the Transcript of an Order made by Cardinal Wolsey, as Lord Chancellor, for the regulation of the Household Expences and general Management of the Affairs of the young Earl of Oxford, then a minor. In the 15th year of King Henry the 8th. A.D. 1524.

The Seal of Evesham Abbey, in the County of Worcester, having been hitherto imperfectly delineated and explained, particularly as respects its inscriptions, I beg you to do me the favour of laying before the Society of Antiquaries a restored outline of that very interesting subject, Pl. V. which I have completed from two Impressions of the Seal, in my own possession, aided in a very few parts by the Plate of it in Tindal's History of Evesham.

The monument of which a drawing is presented to this learned Society, (see Pl. VI.) is the only one of the kind that has been hitherto discovered. It is interesting not only from its singularity, but as illustrating various doubtful points of antiquity.

The subject of the following Observations having been already brought before the Society of Antiquaries, no apology will, I trust, be deemed necessary, for my requesting you to do me the honour of presenting them to that learned body

Amongst many curious papers at Mr. Molyneux's ancient seat at Loseley in Surrey, some of which I have, with his permission, laid before the Society, is one which perhaps at this time is unique, and as such not altogether unworthy of notice, though it is only a Scheme for a Lottery; it is, however, of so early a date as 1567, and is the first Lottery of which I have found mention, though such there may have been earlier. If you think it worth laying before the Society you will please to do so.

In an interesting paper which has been recently published by the Society, entitled “Observations on the Bayeux Tapestry,” that very curious monument of antiquity is said to contain “an Apologetical History of the Claims of William to the Crown of England, and of the breach of faith and fall of Harold.” The historical fact which the tapestry is supposed to establish, namely, that of Harold's mission to Normandy by the Confessor to offer the succession to William, is so important if true, and is at the same time involved in so much doubt and obscurity, that I shall perhaps be pardoned if I venture to offer a brief notice and examination of the original authorities which have a reference to the subject. I should not indeed have presumed to solicit the attention of the Society to this discussion, if the Tapestry itself had not been rendered highly interesting to us by the striking and elegant delineations of it which now adorn our walls.

The drawing, (Pl. VII.) is a correct plan of the Roman Encampment near East Hempstead in Berkshire as it now stands. Its situation, at one extremity of a large plateau, rendered it very fit for a permanent military station, as it must have been of difficult access on every side except that by which it is connected with the principal hill.

The curious morsel of antiquity which Mr. Millingen has laid upon the table of the Antiquaries, and an explanation of which has been read by the Secretary, I beg still farther to comment on and illustrate, and to endeavour to show that the whole is an allusion to, and representation of the sacred rites of Mithra, and the ceremonies to be observed by all those who were candidates for initiation into the Mithraic mysteries; and in doing this, I shall not detain your Lordship long, or occupy much of the time of the Society, but content myself by laying before you the testimonies of antiquity, with the proofs and authorities on which I found my opinions.

Near Boston in Lincolnshire, a considerable tract of land has been, from the earliest times of which we have record, so much flooded with water descending from the higher country beyond it, as to be of little use to its proprietors. The extent of this level is 40,000 acres; the surface is higher on the west, and lower at the easternmost extremity, where the part of it called the East Fen is situate, consisting of about 10,000 acres, of which about 6000 acres were water, or shaking bog, the water from four to six feet deep, standing in pools from 50 to 500 acres in extent, and abounding in fish and wild-fowl. This fen, as well as all the others, have been drained by the skill of Mr. Rennie; and every part of all of them, even the scites of the deepest pools, are now arable, meadow, and pasture.

I received your letter, and shall give you the best account I can of our late sad fire, tho' it is scarcely possible for any man fully to describe it. It began at a Bakers house in Puddinglane, near Thames Street, on Sunday morning, about two or three of the clock; and burnt doune several houses, but could not be quencht, in regard it was a narrow place where ye engines could not play, & ye Lord Maior did not thinke fit to pull doune any houses to prevent ye further spreading of ye fire.

A very interesting discovery of a considerable number of Anglo-Saxon Pennies having been made last year in the neighbourhood of Dorking, I feel great pleasure in being able to communicate an account of them to the Society of Antiquaries.

As I think the subject has not received that attention which the interest it occasions merits, I am induced to trouble you with some remarks on the various species of body-armour worn in England from the time of the Conquest to that of Henry VI. It is however very difficult to affix a precise date to each variety, because the new invention, not being generally adopted, did not altogether exclude the old; and such was the extent of military caprice, that ancient fashions, modified but in a trifling degree, were frequently revived.

The Savoy in the Strand was built by Peter de Savoy, uncle to Queen Eleanor, wife of Hen. III. and took its name from the builder. It belonged to Hen. VII. as Duke of Lancaster, and he began to build an Hospital here to provide lodging, food, fire, and attendance, for a certain time, for the poor, sick, lame, or travellers. Stow tells us, that this king died before he had finished it, but by his will provided for that purpose, and left it well endowed. It was completed by his son Hen. VIII. who perhaps spared it on the dissolution from respect to his father's memory. It did not escape so well in the time of his successor; King Edward's guardians seized it under an act which they got passed for suppression of Chantries. The estates were, however, applied to better purposes than many others were; the king gave them with Bridewell to the city of London, to found a workhouse for poor and idle persons, and to enable them to finish the hospital of St. Thomas in Southwark.

“Deerest Robin,

“Nowe (blessed bee God) I can write and thou receaue, freely, I never in my life sawe more deepe sence, and lesse will to shewe ill unchristianly, then in that wch thou diddest write to us when wee were att Windsor, and thou in the middest of thy tentation, wch indeed (by what wee understood of itt) was a great one, and occasioened the greater, by the letter the Generall sent thee, of wch, thou wast not mistaken, when thou didest challenge mee to bee the pēner.