When I was essaying to collect the scattered relics of the ancient Use of Lincoln in the form of a short paper which appeared in No. 1 of the Lincoln Diocesan Gazette in May 1886, I felt it to be a special matter of regret that I was unable to point to any surviving kalendar belonging to that see. The only thing approaching a Lincoln kalendar which I had seen was a Book of Hours which Mr. Bradshaw once put into my hands, pointing out that it had been in use in the diocese of Lincoln. It was not his own property, and unfortunately I returned it to him without taking note of the name of the present owner, but I have noted its peculiarities (as “Line”) where they occur in the Index Festivitatum appended to the Sanctorale of the Sarum Breviary.

Reginald and Savaric, bishops of Bath at the end of the twelfth century, were succeeded by Jocelin of Wells, 1206-1242.

I proceed to treat of his history, so far as it is contained in original records at Wells.

The chapter registers at Wells have lately been calendared and published in Report X. part iii. 1885, of the Historical MSS. Commission; but many of the charters there registered are undated, and they are arranged without regard to chronological sequence. It is a work requiring much patience and insight into the text to determine their place and to arrange them in their relative order.

In all times, from the first dawn of the historic period down to modern days, the inhabitants of Rome appear to have been a thoroughly inartistic race; but for many centuries, throughout the whole classic period, they certainly possessed an unrivalled knowledge of the best methods of construction, and were pre-eminently skilful in their use of various materials of all kinds—stone, wood, concrete, and metal. For this reason a careful examination of the many different modes of construction employed in ancient Rome is not only of interest to the student of archaeology, but may also supply many valuable lessons to the architect and engineer of modern days.

The curious panel-picture representing four gentlemen in the costume of the time of queen Elizabeth, and evidently persons of distinction, playing at cards, which I have the pleasure of exhibiting this evening by permission of Messrs. P. and D. Colnaghi, is not altogether new to the Society.

It was described little short of one hundred and three years ago by the Hon. Daines Barrington, in the Archaeologia, vol. viii. under the date May 4th, 1785.

A staff of office is of great antiquity. It is believed to symbolize superiority, power, capacity, and function: the superiority, power, and authority of the person bestowing it, the presumed competence and capacity of the recipient, and the official function he endeavours to discharge. Sometimes such a staff is actually used as a support.

A short time ago our Fellow the Rev. W. Sparrow Simpson, D.D. communicated to the Society two most valuable inventories of the cathedral church of St. Paul, London. Though the contents of a parish church, and of a house of friars, cannot be expected to compete in richness with a wealthy foundation like St. Paul's, the two inventories forming the subject of this paper are by no means without interest, although they were respectively drawn up for such strangely opposite purposes—the one for conservation, the other for spoliation.

The game of Kottabos, to which the Greeks—more particularly the Athenians—were passionately attached during a period of at least a hundred years, and which is known to have been in vogue as early as the middle of the fifth century B.C., has been a puzzle to the learned, from the time of the ancient grammarians and scholiasts down to the present day.

“Savaric is a person whose career if it could be explored would be very interesting.” So wrote Dr. Stubbs in 1865. The history of Savaric is yet to be written.

Some knowledge of his episcopate is necessary for the consideration of the question whether any part of the fabric of the church was his work.

Considering how characteristic of this century are the development of invention and the application of discoveries in pure science to every-day uses, the history of invention, and the comparison of recent advances with those in the past, ought to be interesting and instructive. For the materials for such a narrative and such a comparison the historian has to depend on what remains of the practical works of former times, on allusions to their uses by contemporary writers, on early descriptions of the arts, on collections of technical receipts, and especially on the labours of previous historians, who—perhaps under great disadvantages—have already laboriously brought together some of the needed material and have begun the record. Among the most distinguished pioneers of such historical inquiry stands Polydore Vergil.

Affixed to the panelling at the back of the stalls in the choir of St. George's chapel at Windsor are a great number of gilt plates of various sizes and shapes, but chiefly rectangular, resplendent with enamelled and painted armorial ensigns. These are the stall-plates of the Knights of the Garter; a series of memorials extending over a period of upwards of five hundred years, and forming such a storehouse of ancient and modern historical armory as exists nowhere else in Europe.

It is remarkable that in all the fifty volumes of Archaeologia, which contain the best essays on antiquarian subjects published during the last one hundred and forty years, I have been unable to discover any paper concerning organs, or their archaeological or musical characteristics, nor, indeed, any direct reference to the history of an instrument so intimately connected with the services of the Church.

For the purpose of my paper, it will be necessary to sketch briefly the history of the kingdom and earldom of Northumbria. In 547, according to Symeon of Durham, king Ida founded the kingdom of Northumbria, at whose death it was divided into the kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira. It was governed as either one or two kingdoms, by entirely independent kings, down to the time of Egbert, king of the West Saxons, who, having brought all England south of the Humber under his rule, sent an army in 829 to Northumbria, and made Eanred, the king there, subject to him. In 867 the kingdom came under Danish rule, but king Alfred, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, received recognition of his overlordship from king Guthred the Dane in 894. This claim of overlordship by the West-Saxon kings of England was of a very precarious nature, and seems only to have been maintained by continual expeditions into the Northumbrian kingdom. In 924, Athelstan and Sihtric, king of the Northumbrians, met at Tamworth, when Athelstan gave his sister in marriage to Sihtric. Some arrangement was probably come to at this meeting as to the succession to the crown of Northumbria, for on the death of Sihtric two years later Athelstan assumed the kingdom of Northumbria. Guthred, son of Sihtric, seems to have laid some claim to the kingdom, but he does not appear to have met with much support. It must be noted here that Athelstan did not succeed Sihtric as a conqueror, but was, in all probability, elected by the Northumbrian witan.

Preserved amongst the English State Papers is a mass of material illustrative of the history of tobacco-growing in this country from the time of its introduction to the time when Government finally succeeded in suppressing its growth—a task which was not accomplished till nearly sixty years had been spent in vigorous legislation on the subject, so strong was the feeling of the British farmer in favour of retaining it as an object of cultivation. The outlines of the history of English tobacco-growing have been already sketched on many occasions, especially since the question has lately been before the public—the antipathy of James I. to the use of the “noxious weed,” his contribution to literature against it, and the successive Proclamations and Acts of Parliament forbidding its culture; all these are matters that have been recently noticed, and need not, therefore, be enlarged upon in the present Paper, the object of which is to bring to the front existing evidence as to the extent of tobacco-cultivation in this country, its success, and the feelings with which its suppression was regarded.

Every visitor to the abbey church of St. Alban must be struck by the more than usual quantity of armorial display; and especially that of the transepts and monks' choir. During the restoration under the late Sir George Gilbert Scott it was discovered that the painting on the ceiling of the monks' choir, a very rough production of the seventeenth century, covered an older work, which was very skilfully disclosed by peeling off the more recent film, under the auspices of Mr. Chapple, Sir Gilbert Scott's clerk of the works. The work was then carefully restored by, as far as possible, following the lines indicated. On the whole, one must concede that the result is as successful as one could expect, though there may be some lapses.

The Letter from Sir Henry Lee, Master of the Armoury to Elizabeth, addressed to Lord Burghley, which forms the subject of this paper, has not before been printed. It is calendared among the State Papers, in the Public Record Office, and is holograph bearing the date 12 Oct. 1590.

I have the honour to lay before the Society an Archaeological Survey, in which will be found the principal and most of the minor archaeological discoveries which have been made in the county of Kent. A work of this kind must necessarily be incomplete, as many relics of the past are being continually brought to light, and pass away unrecorded into various public and private collections, or are destroyed by ignorant and thoughtless workmen. It is hoped, however, that no important discovery has been omitted, either from the map or text, and that the general arrangement will be found convenient for reference. In order to avoid repetition of the titles of the various publications, a Bibliographical List has been given, with a key to the abbreviations, which are framed upon a plan both simple and suggestive. The signs upon the map have been made as large as its size would allow, and are marked on or near the actual sites of discoveries; but in some instances the signs have had to be placed so as to avoid obliterating names of places. It may be well to mention that where spots of different colours, indicating interments, come together in one locality, it signifies (as a rule) that remains belonging to distinct periods occurred in the same burial-place. It was deemed unnecessary to mention every individual discovery of Palaeolithic implements, a line has therefore been drawn under the name of the town or village in whose district they abound in the river-drift gravels. Discoveries of Neolithic implements have not been noticed, as they occur upon the surface in vast numbers throughout the county. British coins being of rare occurrence, have been noted, likewise hoards or large quantities of Koman coins, but single or scattered specimens have, with few exceptions, been omitted.

The accompanying notes are made for the purpose of introducing to the Society the beautiful copies of ancient frescoes from the churches of Athens which have been lent for exhibition by the Marquis of Bute. His lordship had these copies made during his stay at Athens in 1885. He has given a full account of them in an essay on “Some Christian Monuments of Athens,” published in the Scottish Review (July 1885), and the descriptions of the pictures given in this paper are quoted from his lordship's essay. These paintings and the monuments containing them are of course subject to decay, but they are, it appears, in greater danger of wilful destruction from speculative excavations to unearth monuments more ancient, or from attempts to make use of the materials of such monuments for new buildings. It is from no wanton vandalism that such destruction arises, but it is evidently the result of the uncultivated condition of the present race of Athenians. In the article in the Scottish Review the writer thus comments on this unsatisfactory state of things:—

A decree of Otho L, dated May 20, 1836, placed at the disposal of the Ministry of Public Worship every ruined church in Greece, however important historically or however precious artistically, as a mine for the building of new places of public worship, the new University of Athens, &c. This decree is conceived as if no such things as History or Art existed. The results have been terrible, and Finlay, as an eye-witness, speaks of “the destruction of numerous mediæval churches which formed a valuable link in the records of Athens, and an interesting feature in Athenian topography, while they illustrated the history of art by their curious and sometimes precious paintings.”

Dear Mr. President,—Whilst endeavouring to collect and arrange the portraits of Mary queen of Scots on which reliance can be placed, my attention was drawn to an engraving taken from a picture representing her, during the period of her residence in France, at full length, standing by a chair, and wearing a long gown and small cap and feather.

Half-a-centuey ago, when the words “Bacchic” and “Mystic” played a very important part in the explanation of Grecian monuments, it was usual to consider the shield-devices seen on Greek vases as symbols specially appropriate to certain members of the Hellenic Pantheon. In those days Panofka never wearied of pointing out the opposition of the heavenly bodies to the Chthonian, or how the God of Light triumphed over the Lord of Darkness. His explanations, however, required a great deal of explaining, and the darkness eventually got the best of it, for these views are seldom mentioned now, save as illustrations of perverted ingenuity and misapplied erudition.

Nicholas Ferrar, the designer of the works now under consideration, was born in the year 1592, in London, being the third son of Nicholas Ferrar, a merchant adventurer, who traded extensively both to the East and West Indies, and was on terms of great friendship with persons of eminence in the city. His mother was the daughter of Mr. Wodenoth, one of the ancient family of that name, of Savington Hall, in Cheshire. Both Mr. and Mrs. Ferrar were well known for their hospitality and generosity, and for their zealous support of the Church, as well as for the careful and religious ordering of their household.