Though many circumstances particularly favour the researches of the early Antiquaries in all countries; yet the attempts of the latter are not altogether useless, and deserve the more encouragement, as they are commonly attended with greater difficulties. The approbation, therefore, which this learned Society was pleased to show to my former account of some remains of Roman and other Antiquities in Brecknockshire, encourages me to communicate some further remarks of the like nature, which were either omitted in that account, or have occurred to me since the communication of it.

Camden takes notice that the city of Chichester “is washed on every side but the North by the little river Lavant [a]” to which Philemon Holland adds “the course of which stream is very unaccountable, being sometimes quite dry, but at other times (and that often in the midst of summer) so full as to run with some violence.”

As the discussion of historical facts, especially such as relate to the affairs of our island, falls in with the design of your institution, I beg leave to present you with an enquiry into the nature of the death of that unfortunate prince king John, it having been attributed by some of our later chronicles to the effects of poison. After the declaration of Mons. Rapin, “that the story of the poison is very improbable, since it is not mentioned by any of the contemporary historians;” to which his learned annotator, who, I presume, was the late Mr. Philip Morant, has added, “that the poison is not mentioned by any “historian that lived within sixty years of the time,” or before A. D. 1276, one would imagine there could be no occasion for re-considering this point: but the late Mr. John Lewis of Margate, partly in vindication of his favourite William Caxton, and partly from the forwardness of his zeal against Popery, has endeavoured to puzzle the cause, and to invalidate the assertions of the judicious Frenchman, and his learned English annotator; so that it is become absolutely necessary to review this particle of our history, and to bring it to a new hearing.

The ring here represented was found by a labourer on the surface of the ground, on a common, at a place called Llys faen, in the North East corner of Carnarvonshire. It is gold, enamelled, of good workmanship, and in fine preservation. It weighs above an ounce, and must be worth between 4 and 5 pounds. It is the more estimable on account of its Saxon inscription, since, if you except the legends on the coins, epigraphs conceived in that language are extremely rare.[a].

I have taken the liberty of transmitting to you a bone which seems to be extremely singular. It was found in making a grave in the chancel of Badwell Ash, near Walsham le Willows in Suffolk (in Blackbourn hundred), about the middle of last April. The sexton of this parish, after removing the pavement and about two feet of the earth, came upon a vaulted arch, which was so very strongly cemented together, that it was with great difficulty he broke through it. After he had removed the upper part of this arch, he proceeded to throw out the contents of the vault, which was made to contain only one coffin, and in which were a number of bones that appeared to have been deposited there a long time, and some of the mould which he let fall in, in breaking through the arch; but no appearance either of wood, or lead coffin.

Though Britain contains within itself all the materials necessary for building, it is probable the ancient inhabitants lived in holes and caverns of rocks, or formed themselves huts, which they covered with turf supported by branches of trees bound together with twigs of ozier. In after-ages, when commerce brought the Phoenicians and other civilized nations acquainted with them, they learned from those strangers many useful arts. But their habitations, according to Caesar, were in his time little improved, their towns were only a confused parcel of huts, placed at a little distance from each other, without order or distinction of streets; they generally stood in the middle of a wood, the avenues whereof were defended with slight ramparts of earth, or with trees that had been felled to clear the ground.

Considering that freedom of thinking on points of antiquity, and that liberty of debate, which your Society not only allows, but encourages in its members; no apology need be made for resuming the consideration of any subject of enquiry, or for dissenting from those who may have delivered their sentiments concerning it before. I flatter myself, therefore, that I shall neither give offence to the candour of the Society in general, nor to the liberal mind of your worthy treasurer, Mr. Colebrooke, in particular, if, with all deference and respect towards him, I should cause that rude and ancient Kentish monument, vulgarly called Kit's Cotty House, to pass again in review before you, and should happen to disagree with him, and others, in certain particulars concerning it.

Having lately made a purchase of the Site of the Priory of Christ Church Twynham, in Hampshire, I was desirous of obtaining the Ichnography of that venerable ruin; and, in order thereto, had the rubbish carefully removed from the foundations. These being laid open, I have been enabled very clearly to trace out the plan and arrangement of the whole building, and to ascertain, in a great measure, the appropriation of the several principal parts, how they were disposed, and what their respective form and size; and among these, in paiticular, that of the Refectory.

By the permission of Mr. Godbold of Bury in Suffolk, I am now enabled to lay before the Society some curious Antiquities, dug up from amongst the ruins of the ancient Abbey, at that place. These ruins being in the grounds belonging to the house wherein Mr. Godbold lives, he with great care, and much trouble, traced the foundations of the building, in such a manner, as to bring to light the true and original plan of that ancient structure, an account whereof I some time ago communicated to the Society [a]: and carrying on his researches still further, he found these remains of antiquity now to be described; two of which were taken out of the Crypt, or Under-croft; and the other from under the ancient floor, or pavement, of the Great Isle of the Church; and the latter, being the most curious, I shall endeavour to give some account of in the first place.

As the tables of English silver coins published by the Society contain little more than a bare description of the several pieces, with their legends and devices on the reverse; and as there are some in the first and second plate which are truly historical; an elucidation of these from the historians who wrote of those times, and lived in or near them (though thought too long for a note to have been inserted at the bottom of the page), may be matter of entertainment to those gentlemen who collect our English coins. I hope the following particulars will in some measure point out the occasions on which these coins were struck.

The literary world is much indebted to the ingenious Mr. Warton for his valuable history of English poetry. It is indeed an acquisition in that branch of learning so happily instructive as well as amusing, that it must have its admirers, whilst an elegance of taste remains among us. However, with the utmost deference to so superior a genius, I cannot help thinking, that, though that species of writing, called Romance, is the principal object of his book, he is very much mistaken as to the origin of that word. He makes it wholly of French extraction, mentions it as such in various parts of his work, and, in one place particularly, makes it synonymous with the French language.

If the principles of Gothic architecture are now but little known, the various styles of building, which come under the denomination of Gothic, are pretty well ascertained; and as the first, if well understood and properly applied, would be useful to modern professors of architecture; so the latter may be usefully applied by the lovers of antiquities, to illustrate or correct the different historical accounts which antient writers have left us of many elegant structures which once adorned this kingdom, some of which yet remain, to perpetuate the piety of their founders, and the magnificence of the ages in which they were built; and, notwithstanding the ravages of time, or the depredations of rebellion and fanatic rage, still convey to the curious inspector a just idea of the merits and abilities of that ingenious fraternity who have been long distinguished by the name of Free-Masons.

A Colonade, round a square court, not yet cleared from the rubbish of pumice stones, and ashes, B. B. by which the city was overwhelmed. The columns are of coarse stone, coated with plaister or stucco, and coloured. On many of the columns, the soldiers have idly scratched their names, some in Greek, and some in Latin.

This curious Ring [a], set in gold, and of exquisite workmanship, is said by the worthy possessor to have been in his family ever since the time of Henry VIII. whose property he supposes it originally to have been. He usually wore it on his finger, and presented it to Sir James Worsley his yeoman of the wardrobe, and governor of the Isle of Wight. Nor was this a single instance of that monarch's bounty to Sir James, whom he honoured with several valuable grants in the Isle of Wight, where he frequently resorted for the sake of sporting.

As you expressed a desire at the last meeting of the Society to receive any information that would help to elucidate the device upon the curious Seal Ring belonging to Sir Richard Worsley, bart. which was then produced, I have sent you the following conjectures upon the subject.

I am extremely obliged to you for the drawing of lord Milton's Pectorale[a]; and in return I beg leave to present you with the following short memoir, concerning a curious, and, in my opinion, an almost inestimable, Coin of Edmund Crouchback.

Having purchased the curious Gold Seal of Prince Edmund, second son of King Henry the Third, as king of Sicily[a], in compliance with your request I have made some enquiry into the events produced in England by the grant of the kingdom of Sicily to that prince, and shall submit to you some remarks upon the Seal itself; which I desire you will be pleased to lay before the Society of Antiquaries.

The progress made by the antient Egyptians in Arts and Sciences, beyond other nations their contemporaries, has been much insisted on by various writers, and by some chiefly with a view to depreciate the characters of Moses and the Israelites. But a very ingenious writer, the late Robert Wood, esq; in a posthumous work of his, lately published [a], has given his opinion, and some reasons for it, that “the high “compliments which have been so long paid to the knowledge “and wisdom of the antient Egyptians have not been so well “founded as is generally imagined.”

I have sent you the old ceremony of making the king's bed in the time of Henry the 8th; with a view, as it has something singular in it, of affording some little entertainment to you, and the Society, if you shall think proper to communicate it to them.

I have lately perused with much attention what the very learned and ingenious Mr. Bryant hath insisted upon, with regard to an Apamean medaglion, the reverse of which is supposed to represent some circumstances of the Noachic deluge.