ANTIQUARIAN NEWS & NOTES.

The next annual meeting of the Kent Archæological Society will be held at Sandwich.

Lord Ducie contradicts the report that he “is collecting materials for a history of the Spanish Armada of 1588.”

A collection of old Wedgwood ware has been lent by Mr. Felix Joseph for exhibition at the museum in Nottingham Castle.

Lord Tennyson’s new poem will be entitled “St. Thomas à Becket: a Drama.” The play, it is stated, is “not intended for acting.”

Our December number will contain an article by the Editor on Dr. Johnson, with reference to the 100th anniversary of his death.

Sir P. Cunliffe Owen purposes to raise in America a sufficient sum of money to “restore” the parish church of Stratford-on-Avon from end to end.

The Duke of Norfolk, as we learn from the Weekly Register, has visited Holywell, where the little Earl of Arundel was bathed in the waters of St. Winifrede’s Well.

“Tree Gossip,” a little volume on the byways of tree lore, by Mr. Francis George Heath, will be published shortly by Messrs. Field & Tuer, at the Leadenhall Press.

The memorial of the liberation of Vienna in 1683 in the Cathedral of St. Stephen’s, on which the sculptor, Herr Hellmer, is engaged, will, it is expected, be completed by Christmas.

The monument which is to commemorate the landing of St. Augustine in the Isle of Thanet, is being erected by Lord Granville himself, and not by the English Catholics, as stated by the Journal de Rome.

The number of historic documents in the possession of the corporation of Hull, which is very large, and of great antiquarian interest, is to be set in order and calendared by Mr. T. T. Wildridge.

The Rev. F. W. Weaver announces as nearly ready his “Visitations of Somerset in 1531 and 1573.” The work will be published, by subscription, by Mr. Wm. Pollard, of North-street, Exeter.

It is stated that the two portrait pictures of the second wife of Rubens from the Blenheim collection were purchased by a member of the Rothschild family. They will go to the Continent.

The Royal Castle of Christianborg, Copenhagen, has been burnt down, and several important works of art, including some by Thorwaldsen, as well as the archives of the Rigsdag, have been destroyed. The castle chapel and Thorwaldsen Museum have been saved.

The Clarendon Press is about to publish a volume of York Mystery Plays, printed for the first time from a MS. in the Ashburnham collection. The book, which will contain notes and a glossary, is edited by Mr. Toulmin Smith.

The Emperor of Austria has presented to the Royal Library at Vienna a collection of ancient Arabic literature, comprising 1,600 works in 1,052 volumes. The oldest of these MSS. dates from 1058 A.D., or earlier, and is called the “Kitab Elfelahe,” or book of agriculture.

The new apse of the Basilica of St. John Lateran at Rome and the prolongation of the portico of Sixtus IV. are approaching completion; and the decorations of the Hall of the Candelabra in the Vatican sculpture gallery are finished.

Messrs. Ward, Lock & Co., are on the point of publishing an exhaustive treatise on the Violin, by Mr. Ed. Heron-Allen, author of “The Ancestry of the Violin,” “Violin-making, as it was, and is,” &c. The work will be profusely illustrated.

A “History of England under Henry IV.,” by Mr. James Hamilton Wylie, Inspector of Schools, will shortly be published by Messrs. Longmans; and “A Study of Anne Boleyn,” by Herr Paul Friedmann, is announced for publication by Messrs. Macmillan.

Dr. Humann has been appointed Abtheilungs-Director at the Royal Museum in Berlin, which he has done so much to enrich. The excavator of Pergamus is working at Nemruddagh, and his official position has no conditions of residence attached to it.

The front of the Curfew Tower, the most ancient portion of Windsor Castle, is being refaced with the “Neath stone.” The new masonry is being carefully built up under the supervision of Mr. R. Howe, Clerk of the Works at the Castle.

The literary property in letters—that is, the right to publish copies of them—remains in all cases in the writer. This was decided as long ago as 1741, in “Pope v. Curll, 2 Atk. 342,” when the poet obtained at the hands of Lord Hardwick an injunction against the publisher who proposed to print some of Pope’s letters.—Law Times.

The bicentenary of Corneille was celebrated with great éclat on Saturday, October 11, by the town of Rouen, where he was born in 1606, and died in 1684. The Academy was represented on the occasion by MM. Dumas and Sully-Prudhomme, the former of whom delivered an oration in honour of the dramatist and poet.

A call has just been made for the purpose of forming an American Historical Association to deal with both the story of the past and with that of the immediate present. Professor C. K. Adams, of Michigan, Professor M. C. Tyler, of Cornell, and Professor Adams, of Johns Hopkins Universities, are the chief movers in the matter.

The Clarendon Press will publish in November a work entitled “The Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt,” by Mr. A. J. Butler, Fellow of Brasenose College. The work will consist of two octavo volumes, the first being mainly architectural, the second dealing with church furniture, vestments, rites, and ceremonies. It will contain numerous plans and illustrations.

By the generosity of three of the subscribers, copies of Mr. Greenstreet’s autotype fac-simile of the Lincolnshire Survey, temp. Henry I., have been deposited in the Public Free Libraries at Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, and Sheffield, and in the Advocate’s Library, Edinburgh, the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, and the National Library of Ireland, Dublin.

Early next year Mr. Quaritch will issue to subscribers Messrs. Herbert Jones’ work, entitled “The Princess Charlotte of Wales,” an illustrated monograph, which will contain reproductions in monochrome of a series of miniatures of the Princess from her cradle to her grave, painted from life by Charlotte Jones. The book will also comprise a memoir of the Princess, and selections from her correspondence. The edition will be limited to 250 copies.

Three pictures which are claimed to be works of J. W. M. Turner, have been brought to light at Exeter. They represent views of the interior of Exeter Cathedral, and have been stowed away for nearly fifty years as lumber. An Exeter hairdresser lately purchased the pictures from a furniture broker for a sovereign each. A judge of works of art has offered £1,500 for the three, but the owner has communicated with London experts, so as to place the authorship of the works beyond question.

The following articles, more or less of an antiquarian character, appear among the contents of the magazines for October:—Contemporary Review, “Goethe;” Art Journal, “Landscapes in London: The Inns of Court,” “The Fountaine Collection,” and “Delft Ware;” Century Magazine, “The ‘Odyssey’ and its Epoch;” Gentleman’s Magazine, “A French Curé in the Sixteenth Century;” Harpers Magazine, “The Great Hall of William Rufus;” Le Livre, “Canterbury, its Cathedral, its Library,” &c.

With a view to perpetuating the memory of the French Walloon refugees who settled in Canterbury three centuries ago, the directors of the French Protestant Hospice in London have commissioned a well-known Kentish archæologist to transcribe the inscriptions on the tombstones in Canterbury and the neighbourhood, where many of the refugees lie buried. Of the Huguenot and other French exiles who found a home beneath the shadow of Canterbury Cathedral, and established in its crypt a church which exists to the present day, there are now but few descendants living.

The Mercers’ Chapel, Cheapside, has been reopened, after extensive repairs and alterations; the latter comprise new flooring, new and very handsome carved oak stalls and seats throughout, new choir stalls, prayer desk and pulpit. The fine old screen has been retained, as also all the oak panelling round the walls. The organ, one of Father Smith’s, has been entirely rebuilt and enlarged. The altar piece is not yet finished, but the three large frescoes are in position, the centre and largest panel representing the Ascension of our Lord. The whole of the roof has also been re-decorated, and a sun-light introduced into the lanthorn.

The second volume of “Topography and Natural History of Lofthouse, near Wakefield,” by Mr. George Roberts, of that place, is in the press. In addition to the continuation of the “Natural History and Rural Notes,” it will contain an account of past and present customs, notices of places of worship, further notes on the old Lofthouse families—Hipron, Watson, and Lyley; a revised list of church sun-dials; and a short memoir of Charles Forrest, the discoverer of the Rock sculptures on Rombalds Moor, near Ilkley. The volume will be privately issued to subscribers only.

At a recent meeting of the Academie des Inscriptions, M. Maspero read a report on his archæological work in Egypt during the past year. He dwells especially upon the new system by which the fellahs are encouraged to excavate on their own account by the guarantee that they may keep for themselves one-half of the objects they find. In this way the Boolak Museum has obtained during the past twelvemonths, with no expense beyond that of conveyance, about 2,000 objects of various interest.

The foundation-stone of a new hall for the Butchers’ Company was laid on September 1, in St. Bartholomew-close; and at the dinner which followed the ceremony, the Master, Mr. Ernest Hart, gave some historical details relating to the halls of the Company from the reign of Henry II. The Company of Butchers, he said, dated as far back as 1180, and had had no fewer than three halls. The first, in Butcher’s-lane, was destroyed by fire, as was also the second, in Eastcheap; whilst the third, and last, had been demolished in the extension works of the District Railway.

In the last days of August was celebrated in the old capital of Flanders an historical pageant of no ordinary interest. In honour of her patron and former sovereign, Bruges has placed before the world, in the form of a mediæval procession, the chief incidents in the life of St. Charles the Good. The committee of management, which comprised several archæologists of note, spared no pains to reproduce with the utmost exactitude the actual dresses and appurtenances of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Many of the highest ladies in the land took part in the procession, and wearing the costume of their ancestresses, assumed their parts as ladies in attendance at the Court of their ancient Count.

Following the precedent of the Luther Exhibition held last year at the British Museum, which proved so great an attraction to the building, a Wycliffe Exhibition has been displayed by Mr. E. M. Thompson, keeper of the manuscripts, who has also compiled a catalogue descriptive of its contents. These consist of a series of manuscripts and printed books, comprising translations and service books in English, all intended to illustrate the efforts made to translate the Bible into English in early times. Then follow Wycliffe’s original works in manuscript and print; and lastly, the Reformer’s life and actions are illustrated by manuscripts and engravings.

At Beckhampton, near Avebury, Wilts, a very interesting discovery has lately been made of an ancient British dwelling pit. The dwelling consists of two circular holes, sunk in the clean chalk, adjoining and intersecting one another. They are about five feet six inches deep, and five feet in diameter. On the floor of the pit were found the fragments of an earthen cooking vessel resting on three stones, and under it the ashes of the fire that had been used in boiling the pot. There were also found a well-shaped “spindle-whorle,” a “loom-weight,” bone ornament, and several so-called “pot boilers,” also bones of the ox, sheep, rabbit, &c. The whole of the goods and chattels, &c., found in this interesting dwelling are now in the County Museum.

Catalogues of rare and curious books, most of which contain the names of works of antiquarian interest, have reached us from Mr. F. Edwards, 83, High-street, Marylebone; Mr. U. Maggs, 159, Church-street, Paddington-green; Mr. G. P. Johnston, 33, George-street, Edinburgh; Mr. W. Scott, 7, Bristol-place, Edinburgh; Mr. G. Harding, 19, St. John-street, Westminster; Mr. A. B. Osborne, 11, Red Lion-passage, Holborn; Mr. J. E. Cornish, 33, Piccadilly, Manchester; Messrs. Jarvis & Son, 28, King William-street, Strand; Messrs. Robson & Kerslake, 43, Cranbourn-street, Leicester-square; Mr. W. Wilkins, Merthyr Tydvil; Mr. E. Parsons, 45, Brompton-road, S.W.; Messrs. Reeves & Turner, 196, Strand; Messrs. Farrar & Fenton, 8, John-street, Adelphi.

A proposal for the foundation of a museum devoted to the antiquities of Palestine, has recently been attracting attention in Paris. A room in the Louvre is now devoted to the display of objects of this class, which, however, in 1879 did not exceed 83 in number; to these about 100 more have recently been added, including between 50 and 60 vases and lamps in terra-cotta. In the British Museum exist between 50 and 60 similar objects; and a much larger collection, belonging to the Palestine Exploration Fund, is partly in possession of that association, either in London or in Jerusalem, and partly at the South Kensington Museum. The whole collection, in these several detachments, does not, perhaps, exceed 1,000 objects.

Mr. Frederick Hawkins’s “Annals of the French Stage,” which Messrs. Chapman & Hall are to publish in two volumes, extend from its origin to the death of Racine. Notwithstanding the light recently thrown in France upon the development of her old literature, no English writer has thought fit to illustrate, at least upon anything like a comprehensive scale, the rise and progress of the theatre in Paris. The author has tried to verify carefully his statements, and study at first hand the important plays which he has ventured to criticise. For the rest, these annals, unlike most books relating to the stage, give quite as much prominence to dramatists and dramatic literature as to players and their work.

In the carrying out of some street repairs at Bonn, a portion of a Roman drain or watercourse was lately laid bare at a depth of about 5 ft. below the present surface. It seems to have come from a neighbouring encampment, is about 20 in. wide, and 30 in. deep, and is constructed and covered with heavy tufa blocks, well capable of sustaining the wear of centuries. Many of those blocks were nearly 5 ft. long by 29 in. thick. An original charter of the German Emperor Henry II., dated 25th February, 1015, which has long been given up as lost, has just been discovered during an examination of archives of the collegiate church at Bonn, which was formerly attached to a convent of nuns. The charter is on a single sheet of parchment, very well preserved, measuring 50 by 62½ centimetres (20 in. by 24½ in.), and contains a grant to the church of an estate near Königswinter, belonging to the Emperor.

The tercentary of the death of William the Silent was celebrated in July at Delft, in Holland, by a solemn service in the church. The Prince’s tomb was magnificently decorated with funeral wreaths, including one in silver offered by a deputation of Freemasons. The church was filled by a numerous congregation, all the Ministers and the principal civil and military authorities being present. Professor Van Vries, of Leyden, delivered an address, reviewing in eloquent terms the memorable work accomplished by the founder of Dutch independence. The whole ceremony made a profound impression upon the assembly. At its conclusion the exhibition was opened, at Prinsenhof, the house in which William was assassinated by Balthasar Gerard, of relics of the Prince and a number of objects illustrating his life and works.

The Athenæum says that the death of Mr. Archibald Fraser, of Abertarff, is bringing memories of Jacobite times before the public. Only the other day the history of the Lovat family was to some extent before the Court of Session in connection with the succession to the estate of Abertarff, which was bequeathed to the late Mr. Fraser by his grandfather, a son of the notorious Lord Lovat, with an ultimate entail “in favour of the person who shall be able to prove himself to be the chief of the clan Fraser by legitimate descent from Hugh, first Lord Lovat, and his heirs male.” At the beginning of next month, the Abertarff collection of antiques, pictures, arms, &c., comprising many relics of the rebel lord and of the old family of Lovat, will be sold in Inverness by public auction.

Some discoveries of great interest to antiquaries have been made on the Yorkshire Wolds by the Rev. E. M. Cole, M.A., vicar of Wetwang, Yorkshire—viz., a large number of entrenchments, which are supposed to have been the work of the ancient Britons. The dale “heads,” it has been ascertained, are all covered with entrenchments, and a village called Fimber appears to be completely surrounded by them, as if it had been an enormous camp. In one of these entrenchments, near the monument to the late Sir Tatton Sykes, at Garton, a large number of dead bodies were found, but the idea is not entertained that the entrenchments were used for purposes of burial. According to Mr. J. R. Mortimer, a well-known Yorkshire archæologist, they are mostly V-shaped. They appear to have been much used, and are trodden hard and firm.

A large Indian mound near the town of Gasterville, North America, has recently been opened and examined by a committee sent out from the Smithsonian Institute. At some depth from the surface a kind of vault was found, in which was discovered the skeleton of a giant measuring 7 ft. 2 in. His hair was coarse and jet black, and hung down to the waist, the brow being ornamented with a copper crown. The skeleton was remarkably well preserved. Near it were also found the bodies of several children of various sizes, the remains being covered with beads made of bone of some kind. Upon removing these the bodies were seen to be enclosed in a network of straw or reeds, and beneath this was a covering of the skin of some animal. On the stones which covered the vault were carved inscriptions, and these when deciphered will doubtless lift the veil that now shrouds the history of a race of giants that at one time undoubtedly inhabited the American continent. The relics have been forwarded to the Smithsonian Institute, and they are said to be the most interesting collection ever found in the United States. The explorers explored another mound in Bartow county, Pennsylvania.

The excavations of General Cesnola have not exhausted the possibilities of Cyprus, and surely if Englishmen are to excavate anywhere, this island is the natural field for their labours. A committee, consisting of Englishmen and Cypriotes, was formed in 1882 by Sir Robert Biddulph, with the object of establishing a local museum at Leukosia. Under the auspices of the committee, excavations on a small scale and supported by private subscriptions have been carried on in the years 1883-1884. It is a little surprising that these excavations have had to be conducted by a German, Herr Max Ohnefalsch Richter, and that the report appears this month in a German periodical, the Mittheilungen, of the German archæological institute at Athens. The site chosen was the village of Voni, the ancient Chytrai, and the find has been a large one. It speedily became evident from a multitude of inscriptions that the excavators had lighted on a sanctuary of Apollo. The architectural remains are insignificant, but there is evidence that on the remains of the old pagan shrine a Christian church had been raised, into the walls of which a mass of fragments of ancient sculpture was built. The sculptural find was a very rich one; as many as 133 statues are already catalogued.—Builder.

The Athenæum announces that a strong committee, upon which the Society of Antiquaries is represented by Lord Carnarvon, Dr. Perceval, Mr. Milman, Mr. Franks, Dr. John Evans, Dr. Freshfield, the Hon. Harold Dillon, Mr. Hilton Price, Mr. Roach Smith, and other Fellows; the Institute of Architects by Mr. Whichcord; the City of London by the Lord Mayor, Sir Reginald Hanson, Alderman Staples, Sir John Monckton, Ex-Sheriff Burt, Mr. Deputy Saunders, Mr. William Rome, and others; the Metropolitan Board of Works by its chairman, Sir J. M‘Garel Hogg; and London archæology generally by Mr. Hyde Clarke, Mr. Anderson Rose, Mr. Herbert Fry, Mr. Henry W. King, and others, has been formed to raise a fund for taking immediate steps to protect and record monuments of antiquity in London and its vicinity at the moment of discovery. The executive committee consists of Mr. Alfred White, Mr. Overall (the City Librarian), Mr. John E. Price (secretary), and Mr. Brabrook. Sir John Lubbock has consented to act as treasurer. The committee is already taking steps, through Mr. J. E. Price, to preserve and place in a public museum some remarkable remains of the Roman occupation of London which have just been found used as building material in a bastion of the wall at Bevis Marks.

Up to the present time the form of the Rigveda, that curious collection of ancient Indian poems which has long engaged the attention of scholars in India and Europe, has remained an inscrutable mystery. The 1,017 hymns follow one another in ten books or sections, but no one has hitherto detected any system in their arrangement. Mr. Frederic Pincott, however, has, the Manchester Guardian’s London correspondent says, just discovered the hidden method, and his discovery promises to give a new impetus and direction to Vedic studies. He has found that the first book of the Rigveda is a selection of hymns arranged in the order of their recitation at the offering of an oblation to the sacred Soma Juice. The next six books are family collections, containing the poems of particular poets and their relatives; whilst the eighth book contains hymns omitted from previous books. The ninth book is filled with hymns celebrating the praises of the Soma Juice, and the last book contains hymns ascribed to mythological authors. When the poet, the deity, the length, and the metre are known, the hymns are found to have a methodical arrangement. A full exposition of Mr. Pincott’s curious discovery is about to be given in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.

A Bible which contains two signatures that profess to be written by Shakespeare has turned up at Manchester. It was bought about thirty years ago by the late Mr. William Sharp, a somewhat eccentric collector, who was firmly convinced of the authenticity of the signatures, but rarely showed the book. Its present custodian exhibited it the other day to a number of gentlemen at the Manchester Free Library, including Prof. A. Ward, Mr. Alexander Ireland, Mr. C. W. Sutton, Mr. J. H. Nodal, and Mr. W. E. A. Axon. One signature is on the inside of the end cover, and reads “William Shakspere off S × o × A his Bible 1613.” The other is on the reversed title of the New Testament, and reads “William Shakspere 1614.” The volume contains the Old Testament, Apocrypha, New Testament, and Psalms of the “breeches” edition of 1611, but some of the earlier leaves are gone. There are many names of other possessors from about 1633 downwards, and one entry appears to indicate that the volume has been rebound and a Prayer-Book taken from it. In this case the signature now on the end leaf may have been transferred to the new binding. As to the authenticity of the signatures it would be impossible to speak with confidence without the application of more searching tests. They do not resemble any of the five undoubted signatures, but they are both marvellously like that on the title-page of Florio’s Montaigne now in the British Museum. The present custodian of the “Shakspere Bible” purposes, we understand, to accept the advice tendered to him of submitting it to a critical examination at the British Museum.—Public Opinion.