As it is the plan of the Society of Antiquaries to give attention to discoveries however trifling, which may tend to illustrate any point of English history, I now take the liberty of laying before them some circumstances which clearly ascertain the time of the deaths and burying place of Katharine Parr, sixth and last wife of Henry the Eighth. If no account of this discovery hath by any one been laid before the Society, I wish this to be read, as George Ballard the industrious Antiquary of Cambden, a town about ten miles from Sudley, says, the particulars of the death and burial of this lady are desiderata, and his ignorance, of it appears the more extraordinary, as his business of a stay-maker must often have led him into those parts.

In the year 1741, Bishop Benson, at his single expence for the better securing of the organ, which had been removed some years before from the South side of the choir, gave order that a screen with proper pillars should be erected. During the course of this work a stone coffin containing the corpse of an abbot was discovered. Very lately it was thought proper that the whole of the pavement of the body of the church should be new laid, to which the late Chancellor Benson very liberally contributed. It was begun in his life-time. This occasioned the same coffin to be again exposed, and by this it is also to be apprehended that many very antient grave stones must be destroyed and the modern ones removed from the vaults they covered to distinct places, to effect the uniformity of the flooring. On Monday the 7th of March last I had past through the Cathedral at the time when the same graves were just exposed. Several persons were standing round the venerable remains, and I was called upon to be a spectator of that awful sight. My attention was instantly fixt, and I made a sketch which I have since perfected.

I find myself very much honoured by the very able learned Dissertation you have been pleased to address to me, and, in compliance with your commands, I have sent it to the Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, to which I can easily conceive it must prove a very valuable acquisition. Perhaps, before it is sent to the press, you would wish to add some notices concerning two eminent players in France, and likewise make use of the inclosed anecdote.

As you are so distinguished a player at Chess, what I have lately gleaned with regard to the introduction of this most capital game into Europe cannot but be interesting to you.

I have for some time past formed to myself an opinion that among the several prelates in the see of Salisbury, no one from the foundation of the church was more active and vigilant than your noble predecessor Richard Beauchamp who was translated thither in August 1450. An early undertaking of his was the canonization of St. Osmund.

Matlock moor appears to be fruitful in producing ancient blocks of Roman Lead, since in April last a second mass was there found, of which the description, as sent me by my good friend the rev. John Mason, curate of Elton, in Derbyshire, goes thus:

Galloway in the early period of the Scottish monarchy consisted of that tract of country which now comprehends the shire and stewarty of Galloway, Nithsdale, Carrick, and the western part of Airshire, with part of Lanerickshire. This extensive tract, appears to have been totally independent, both of the Scottish and Pictish kingdoms, and was governed by Reguli, or Princes. Bede informs us that in the year 412, St. Ninian was sent to the South Picts, and to Whithorn in Galloway, and he calls Candida Casa, or Whithorn in Galloway, one of the four Northumbrian bishopricks.

About a century has now elapsed since an important question arose among the most celebrated Antiquaries, concerning a Gold Medal of the Emperor Gallienus in the King of France's Cabinet. It exhibits on one side the head Of the Emperor crowned with ears of corn, with the inscription GALLIENAE AVGVSTAE. The name of a woman over the head of an Emperor conveyed to many persons the idea of a medallic satire. Frederic Spanheim [a], Vaillant [b], Baudelot [c], Banduri [a], and Grainville [e], conceived themselves authorised in adopting this opinion, inasmuch as the Emperor Julian in his Cæsars represents Gallienus coming to the Banquet of the Gods in the habit and with the air of a woman [f]. The legend on the reverse VBIQVE PAX, at a time when war desolated all the provinces of the Empire, tended admirably to confirm the opinion of these learned men.

Your Lordship has probably heard that a number of Roman coins have been lately found in Nellour Country. The story is this. A labourer in ploughing some ground found himself obstructed by something which he perceived to be a square building of brick or stone. Having the curiosity to penetrate further he came to a small pot containing several pieces of gold. By some means it reached the ears of the renter, who reported it to the Durbar, and the money was ordered to be sent to Madrass. To the great astonishment of the Eastern world, they proved to be Roman coins of different Emperors, the impression of many as perfect and fresh as new. Some had holes bored in them, as if designed as an ornament to be worn round the neck, while on others the impression was nearly effaced. There were about 40. The Ameer gave one to each of his particular friends.

It is but a very imperfect account I can give you of a late discovery, in the antiquarian way, made in Ireland; however it is the best I am able to offer. About the year 1780, two pieces of antiquity were found in a bog in West-Meath, unaccompanied with any thing else of note. Lady Sharborne, having been in that kingdom this summer, the pieces I mentioned happily came into her hands, and her Ladyship, on her return to England was so obliging as to make me a present of them.

The most learned Antiquaries who have endeavoured to trace the four great roads supposed to have travelled this island in different directions, acknowledge themselves at a loss to find out that which is called the Ermine or Erming street. That it went from South to North is testified by some of our earliest writers [a], but various are the opinions as to the commencement of it.

The following paper collects and puts together some scattered historic traces of the architecture used in the transalpine parts of Europe, in order from thence to suggest a line of inquiry after the origin of that particular species of it, called the Gothick; and also after the institution of that Collegium or corporation of Free-masons, whom I conceive to have been the first formers of this architecture into a regular and scientifick order, by applying the models and proportions of timber frame-work to building Stone.

The question which you lately put to me with regard to the two societies of the Inner and Middle Temple having assumed so very different coats of arms, as the Pagan Pegasus, and the Holy Lamb, will occasion my troubling you with a rather long investigation of this matter, as well as some few observations on the origin and abolition of the Knights Templars.

I take the liberty of sending your lordship a short account of a little Roman building, the foundation of which I discovered last September at Buxton ; with a plan and description of a Roman Camp.

As I send you inclosed a drawing of some of the figures in the painted cieling of the Cathedral of Peterborough, which I sketched out, I will accompany my description of this cieling with some observations on the Art of Paintings as practised in early times of England.

The ingenious author of an 8vo volume just published, under the title of “the Parian Chronicle,” has with much learning and diligence suggested his doubts, concerning the authenticity of that monument which the University of Oxford places at the head of her Collection of Marbles, having shewn it that respect ever since by the liberality of one of the noble family of Howard she became possest of that valuable Collection ; the first which this country could boast for near a century, till the munificence and taste of a private individual formed one equal to it in the capital.

In the year 1774, as some tinners were searching for tin in a stream-work near St. Austell, in the county of Cornwall, about 17 feet under the surface of the ground, they discovered a silver cup, which is now used for wine at the Communion Table, in which were several antient pieces of ornament, for a person of high rank, as represented in Pl. VIII. The cup was placed in a heap of loose stones, the refuse of an old tin-work, and covered with a common slate, where it was probably hid in troublesome times, either by the owner, or by some person who stole it. The quantity of earth and stone which had accumulated over the cup since it was deposited in the stream-work, shews that it had remained there for a great number of years. The cup was very thin and brittle, and fell into so many pieces as to prevent its being united. Besides the articles represented in the drawing, it contained many of the most curious Saxon coins ever discovered at one time. These with the other pieces of antiquity fell out in moving the ground, and some were probably lost in Shovelling about the rubbish. Those which were picked up were in a few hours disperst about the country, and many of them broken. The greatest part were afterwards collected; and are at Menabilly in Cornwall.

John Webster, a farmer at Smiril in the county of Derby, occupies some land belonging to Lord Viscount Howe, which gives him a privilege on Middleton-moor, and wanting this year to burn some lime, he dug for that purpose into a Tumulus or Low, on that part of the Moor called Garret-piece and began his work at the bottom of it, on a level with the circumjacent ground.

I transmit to you, at the request of my respectable and ingenious friend, Major Rooke, of Woodhouse, a small treatise, which he has drawn up on some Roman Roads, Tumuli, Stations, and Camps, which he has lately traced in the neighbourhood of Mansfield, and which have not hitherto been noticed. I cannot comply with his request that it might be transmitted to the Society, without explaining some particulars which gave rise to this treatise. When I first saw the account, which he sent to the Society, of a Roman Villa which he had discovered near Mansfield, I communicated to him some few sentiments of mine, on which I grounded an opinion, though I was quite unacquainted with the country, that this Villa was probably the residence of some military Roman commander, and that there was probably some Roman camp or station, or some military Roman road running near it. This did not by any means appear by his answer to be the case. And yet it still seemed to me improbable that it should be otherwise.

Being last summer on a visit to my worthy friend Mr. Gell of Hopton, in Derbyshire, whose seat is in the parish of Worksworth, he was so obliging as to shew me some curious remains of British antiquities. I shall beg leave to trouble you with the description of these and some others of the like nature, and, if thought worthy of being communicated to the Society, must beg you will do me the honor to lay it before them.