Among the Lansdowne Manuscripts in the British Museum there is a short Memoir of the State of Political Parties in England from the last year of the reign of William the Third to the death of Queen Anne, written by the Earl of Coningsby (at least so afterwards created), who was throughout engaged in the ministerial divisions of that period, and divisions they were of no ordinary character.

The historical drama of a country is imperfect and hardly intelligible unless it represent the scenes on which, and the political conditions under which, its action takes place. Its narrative should be accompanied by a contemporary view of the political geography,—of the territorial limits and divisions of the country, so far as they affect or are affected by the course of political events.

Although the borough of Southwark abounds with subjects of historical and antiquarian interest, it has hitherto been greatly neglected by our metropolitan topographers and local historians; and we now know little more of that considerable portion of the metropolis than was recorded by John Stow, in his Survey of London, two hundred and fifty years ago.

In an age when the voice of philanthropy is raised against the extreme penalty of the law, an inquiry into the origin and practice of certain modes of capital punishment, now obsolete, but long known to our ancestors, may not be deemed unworthy the attention of this Society.

Au mois de Fevrier 1858 M. Metayer, de Bernay (Eure), a fait dans l'ancienne léproserie de cette ville une fouille qui procure une page nouvelle à l'histoire de la sépulture chrétienne du moyen-âge. Cette léproserie, peu eloignée de la ville, est aujourd'hui une ferme connue sous le nom de la Madeleine, dernière trace de l'ancien vocable de cet établissement hospitalier.

It is many years since an impression of the Great Seal of England executed by Symons, and admitted by all to be his best work, was submitted to the inspection of the Fellows of our Society; and I believe that none of our present Fellows then belonged to us: so that its re-appearance may have in some measure the character of a new exhibition.

I have the honour to report to the Society of Antiquaries the result of renewed researches during the present autumn in the Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Brighthampton. The reliques on the table are evidence that on the former occasion this ancient burialplace was but partially explored. I have now the gratification of exhibiting a series of ancient remains inferior in interest to none that research or accident has brought to light in this country.

Every cultivator of our national biography and literary antiquities must rejoice at the appearance of the first volume of the Athense Cantabrigienses. That a work which was so obviously suggested nearly two centuries ago by the Athense of the sister University, which has been contemplated by so many successive collectors, and for which such large, though imperfect, accumulations have been formed, should, in spite of ever-increasing difficulties, at length greet our view in substantial paper and print, is a victory over old Time of which any generation may fairly be proud; and I therefore cannot be thought to magnify its accomplishment too highly if, on this first public allusion to the work at the Society of Antiquaries, I hail its authors as conquerors who have overtaken the spoiler, and recovered from his grasp some of his most estimable treasures.

I have great pleasure in being able to submit to the notice of the Society a large collection of relics, interesting, not only from the use to which they have been applied, but also from the excellence of their workmanship. They will be recognized as belonging to the class of antiquities known as Pilgrims’ Signs.

The Deed exhibited this evening by Mr. Joseph Jackson Howard has appeared to me sufficiently interesting to justify a few remarks on its contents. It bears date the 7th of August 1456 (34 Hen. VI.). By it Richard Acreman granted to John Oudene, master of the fraternity or guild of St. George of the Men of the Mystery of Armourers of the city of London, to John Ruttour and William Terry, the wardens, and to the brothers and sisters of the same guild the advowson of or right of presenting a chaplain to the chantry which Joan, formerly the wife of Nicholas de Wokyndon, Knight, founded at the altar of St. Thomas the Martyr in the new work of the cathedral church of St. Paul, London, viz. on the north side of the same church; which altar was, at the time of this grant, placed in the chapel then commonly called the chapel of St. George within the said church, in which chapel the said guild was then lately founded and established by King Henry VI.: this advowson the said Richard Acreman had of the grant of Thomas Coburley and Thomas Burghille, who had it (inter alia) of the gift of Richard Bastard of Bedford and Isabella his wife, who was kinswoman and heiress of the said Nicholas de Wokyndon. The deed was witnessed by William Marwe, the Mayor of the city of London, and John Yonge and Thomas Ouldegreve, the Sheriffs.

Perhaps no country in the world possesses so complete a series, as Ireland, of Domestic Architecture, in the full meaning of the words, that is, of human habitations; it begins with the underground abodes and the beehive houses of the earliest inhabitants of the island (belonging to the same period as the Cromlechs and Cairns), and is continued almost without interruption to our own day. But, before any attempt is made to describe or to classify the existing remains of human dwellings in Ireland, it is necessary to call attention particularly to the geological formation of the country. The nature of the building materials, as is well known, exercises great influence everywhere upon the architectural character, but nowhere else is this so evident and distinct as in Ireland. With a few rare exceptions, such as unfortunately are Dublin and Belfast, and their immediate neighbourhoods, stone is every where abundant, and generally of the same quality, extremely hard and durable, but very- difficult to cut or work in any way. A very large part of Ireland is an immense limestone plain, covered indeed in many places with extensive peat-bogs, but these are seldom very deep; in general the stone is very near the surface, and in many places it crops out. This limestone when broken up, and especially when burnt into lime and mixed with the peat, makes a very fertile soil. In many districts, especially in Galway, the surface is so much covered with loose stones of large size, that they have to be removed before the soil can be cultivated.

Some time has now elapsed since we received the first tidings of the discoveries of very ancient remains in the lakes of Switzerland, which have scarcely obtained the attention really due to their archaeological importance. These accounts were followed by an earnest appeal from the Society of Antiquaries of Zürich, praying our Society to undertake an examination of the lake Prasias, in the hope of verifying the descriptions of Herodotus, with which these discoveries in Switzerland seem closely to correspond.

In submitting the accompanying specimens of ancient pottery to the notice of the Society I shall not presume to hazard any theory respecting them; but merely state such facts relating to them as have come under my notice, and offer a few suggestions, with the view of deriving further information. The objects themselves I believe to be rare, and but little known or noticed even in Italy. On this account, as well as in hopes that they may serve to throw some additional light on the difficult subject of Italian ethnology, I have thought them not unworthy of examination, especially as at the present moment the attention of Roman archæologists is so concentrated on the later and more splendid specimens of fictile art, that the rude and aboriginal manufactures are not likely to receive from them much additional notice.

The portrait of John, King of France, which is now placed in the Musée des Souverains at Paris, being, I believe, the only picture honoured by such a distinction, has an especial claim to our notice. Not only is it one of the earliest examples of portrait-painting which has been preserved to us, but the history of the monarch whom it represents is so closely interwoven with that of our own country, as to render him a subject of interest to English archaeologists.

Among the various sites memorable from the greatness of the cities which once occupied them, there are few that equal in interest or surpass in historical associations that of Carthage. The myths respecting the foundation of that city, and the fate of its unhappy queen Dido, have received from the creative fancy of the poet such a semblance of truth as to make them assume a place in our recollections with the actual events of history. The extraordinary rise of Carthage and its equally extraordinary fall, the utter destruction of its records, the obscurity in which its language and art are enveloped, all concur to excite in us an interest and a curiosity in regard to everything connected with it, which is hardly awakened by the history, real or fabulous, of any other city of Pagan antiquity.

By permission of the Earl of Verulam, conveyed to me through W. J. Thorns Esq., F.S.A., I am enabled to exhibit to the Society a Manuscript from the collection at Gorhambury, which has some peculiar claims upon the attention of historical antiquaries. It is entitled, “A True Relation of the proceedings in the last Session of Parliament houlden in the Fourth year of King Charles, A° Dñi. 1628,” and is a nearly contemporary MS. plainly written upon ninety-two leaves of paper of a small folio size.