Among several MS. Letters which I purchased at the recent sale of Mr. Dawson Turner's Library, there is one which I think may have some interest for the Society of Antiquaries, and which I therefore take leave to send you for exhibition. You will perceive that it is addressed to one of my family, John Stanhope, who was created in 1605 Lord Stanhope of Harrington. At the time when this letter was written he was Treasurer of the Chamber to Queen Elizabeth; and the letter is evidently designed for the information of the Government.

Being written from France in time of war, the letter is expressed with great caution and mystery, and it bears neither signature nor date of year. But it plainly appears I think to have been written in 1588, on the dispersion of the Spanish Armada.

The countries washed by the Mediterranean have necessarily been the great field of research for investigating the remains of the older historic civilizations with which they are strewn; and I cannot doubt that the same shores, which, from their physical peculiarities, have ever been the seat of a large and active population, retain still for us most significant illustrations of that early substratum, the pre-classical culture, the widely spread relics of which are the elements of our primeval archaeology. To some of those elements I have on other occasions adverted; and here I propose chiefly to direct attention to another—a very remarkable group of cromlechs in Algeria, which I have had recently an opportunity of visiting and examining.

The earliest of the four Deeds exhibited is without date, but is probably of the latter half of the thirteenth century; by it William de Oddynggeshel, lord of the manor of Solihull, gave and confirmed to Robert Tyberay a piece of land in Solihull, lying in the township of the borough of Solihull, to him and his heirs.

The natural connection between Geology and Archaeology has at various times been pointed out by more than one writer on each subject; and it must, indeed, be apparent to all who consider that both sciences treat of time past as compared with time present. The one, indeed, merges by almost imperceptible degrees in the other; while the object of both is, from the examination of ancient remains, to recall into an ideal existence days long since passed away, to trace the conditions of a previous state of things, and, as it were, to repeople the earth with its former inhabitants.

My dear Uncle,—For some years past I have occupied my leisure time in collecting information of such of my countrymen as have dwelt in Denmark, or of whom memorials may here be found. These have been partly made use of in a small work entitled “Copenhagen and its Environs,” published by me a few years ago for the use of English travellers.

I understand that the Society of Antiquaries plumes itself somewhat upon being possessor of what has been supposed to be the only known autograph of Elizabeth Cromwell, the Protectress. However, amongst an immense mass of petitions, which poured in, torrent-like, on the Restoration of Charles II., I have discovered one from this lady, signed by herself, though not written with her own hand. I inclose you a copy of the petition; the date is not given, but it can be proximately determined by the circumstance that the endorsement, a very characteristic one, is in the handwriting of Sir Edward Nicholas, whose period of secretaryship terminated in October, 1662. I doubt whether the prayer of the petition was ever granted, for I find no reference upon it, and in a large index to the warrants and other documents of the period, which exists in the State Paper Office, no notice occurs of a warrant for the solicited protection.

The Valley of the Thames had naturally many attractions for our Saxon forefathers. Their cattle found in its meadows abundant pasturage, its marshes were the resort of myriads of wild fowl, while the stream itself afforded the means of transit between the towns and villages on its banks, many of which retain in their names evidence of their Anglo-Saxon origin.

By the kindness of the Rev. Edgar Edmund Estcourt, M.A., Fellow of the Society, we are presented with a transcript of an Inventory, of which the original is now preserved in H. M. Record Office, bearing the following title: “Inventory of the goods belonging to the King's grace by the forfeiture of the Lady Hungerford, attainted of murder in Hilary term Anno xiiij. Regis Henrici VIII.”

I am enabled by the kindness of Mr. Perry to lay before the Society an impression in paper from a large tablet, dated in the reign of Thothmes III., which has been recently discovered at Thebes. The impression of it was made by Lord John Hay, when on a visit to Thebes, and has only just reached this country. The tablet contains a text of twenty-four lines of hieroglyphs, accompanied by a scene representing Thothmes in adoration to the principal Thebandeities. The purport of the text is religious, announcing the benefits conferred by the god Amen Ra on the monarch, but it contains several historical allusions of importance to the history of this reign. As it helps to complete the “Annals of Thothmes III.” of which I have already given some account to the Society, I trust the short accompanying notice of the inscription and its contents may prove acceptable.

On the 17th of June, 1858, several interesting original letters of and to members of the Stanhope family, in the time of Queen Elizabeth and King James I., were communicated to the Society of Antiquaries by Richard Almack, Esq. F.S.A., but, being produced late in the evening of the last meeting of the season, I think they hardly received so much attention as they deserved. Among those letters were several to John Lord Stanhope of Harrington, to whom was addressed the highly interesting letter communicated to the Society by our noble President, and read, with observations by Robert Lemon, Esq. F.S.A., on the 22nd December last.

The investigation described in the following paper may perhaps throw some light on the nature of those remarkable sepulchral mounds, known as “long barrows,” which as yet remain the crux and problem of the barrow-digger and archæologist. Many of the long barrows of South Wiltshire were examined at the beginning of this century by Mr. Cunnington and Sir Richard Colt Hoare; but with so little return for the pains bestowed on them, that, though Sir Richard was satisfied of their high antiquity, he was utterly at a loss to determine the purpose for which such immense mounds had been raised. In another part of his “Ancient Wiltshire,” he tells us that he and his colleague “had at length given up all researches in them, having for many years in vain looked for that information which might tend to throw some satisfactory light on their history.” In the various long barrows which were opened by these investigators, we find that, with very few exceptions, human skeletons were discovered on the floor of the barrow, at the broad, or east end, “lying in a confused and irregular manner, and generally covered with a pile of stones or flints.” The total absence of bronze weapons, of all personal ornaments, and of urns of pottery, such as were constantly found by them in the circular barrows of the same district, is repeatedly noticed by Sir Richard Hoare, who observes that “their original purport is still involved in obscurity, and a further explanation of them would be a great desideratum.”

In attempting to investigate the origin and history of the bayonet, we encounter, at the outset, considerable difficulty; even the derivation of its name is involved in obscurity. In the dictionary of Cotgrave, first published in 1611, we find, “Bayonnette, a kind of small flat pocket-dagger, furnished with knives; or a great knife to hang at the girdle, like a dagger.” The same authority gives us “Bayonnier, as arbalestier (an old word).” In the “Glossaire de la Langue Romane,” of Roquefort, “Baionier” is explained as a crossbow-man. Neither of these words occurs in the dictionary of Palsgrave, published in 1530.

Were we to believe the general run of antiquaries, the interior of every old building invariably glowed with the richest gold and colour, and every village church was a Sainte Ohapelle, or a St. Stephen's, Westminster. Few, however, appear to have thought of supporting their theory by carefully taking off the whitewash of some of our smaller churches, on the chance of finding a rich polychromy underneath. Of late years the mania for church-restoration has been performing this office, and the old painters are found to have been no less consistent in their profession than were the old architects.

If any doubt could be entertained of the importance of collecting and embodying in our literature the scattered relics of the early history of geographical discovery, the doubt might find its answer in the eager curiosity with which the more cultivated Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of America look back to every minute particular respecting the early history of their adopted country.