It was an ancient custom for the Bishop, before he received the Eucharist in the sacrifice of the Mass, to bless the people in a form of prayer apporiate to the feast of the day. This solemn observation was made on the fraction of the host, and as that was the time at which a blessing was asked for the living, so also was it the special moment, when, according to the Anglo-Saxon Mass for the dead, on the day of the burial, the deceased was prayed for, by name.

The Vellum MS. numbered 27, in the Public Library at Rouen, called the Benedictional of Archbishop Robert, is a folio, in wood binding, covered with boar-skin leather, measuring twelve inches and three quarters, by nine and a quarter, and contains one hundred and ninety one leaves, beside a fly-leaf on which there is a note by Monsieur I'Abbe Saas, with his signature, and the date 1738. It is illuminated with miniatures, foliated and architectural borders, and capitals and letters of gold: the whole in fine preservation.

By the kindness of the Lord Bishop of Landaff, I place upon the Society's table three original Letters preserved among the family archives of Sir William Pole, Bart. of Shute, in the county of Devon. They are illustrative of English History; and are all addressed to Sir William Morice, Secretary of State to King Charles the Second.

As much interest has been excited by the discovery of a very large number of Silver Pennies, of the time of our first and second Edwards, in the neighbourhood of Tutbury, in Staffordshire, I shall take the liberty of laying before the Society such of the circumstances as have come to my knowledge; with a few observations which have arisen from an accurate examination of nearly 1500 of these coins, which have been submitted to my inspection by the kindness of Lord Holland, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

If you consider there is any thing curious or amusing in the enclosed Drawings and Observations on Hats, you will oblige me by laying them before the Society of Antiquaries on some evening when their attention may not be directed to any more valuable Communication.

In forming the northern or City entrance on the new London Bridge, it was thought expedient to construct a Sewer of very large dimensions under the line of approach; for this purpose, on the removal of the church of St. Michael, Crooked Lane (which stood on an immemorially ancient consecrated site), a transverse section was commenced of the eminence which rises from Thames Street towards the heart of the City. This excavation was made as deep as the low-water mark, about fifty feet below the present surface of the crest of the hill. In the course of the above operation, and of preparing for the construction of the northern land arches of the new bridge, three distinct ancient lines of embankment were discovered. These successive bulwarks, by which ground was gained by degrees from the Thames for the wharfs of the port of London, are not however the object of the present communication. Careful notes of these circumstances, as indeed of all other which relate in a constructive point of view to old London Bridge and the adjoining banks of the river, have been, I know, made by the Gentleman who has already contributed some of them to the Archæologia of the Society, and who will, I trust, be induced in the same way to follow up a subject for which he has acquired such good materials, and in connexion with which he has formed such a curious collection of articles of antiquity, particularly of the Roman era.

The origin of the Game of Chess, like the origin of Romance, has been the subject of frequent discussion, and for a long period seemed to be enveloped in nearly equal obscurity. But, in tracing the former, we possess one considerable advantage over those who have discussed the source of fiction in the middle ages—the acknowledged fact, that the game of Chess could not have been produced by more minds than one, although it may subsequently have been modified, improved, or altered, according to the genius and habits of the people by whom it was adopted. It is sufficient, therefore, at present to assume, on the authorities produced by the learned Dr. Hyde and Sir William Jones, that for the invention and earliest form of this game we mustlook to India, from whence, through the medium of the Persians and Arabs (as demonstratively proved by the names of the chessmen), it was afterwards transmitted to the nations of Europe.

I have the pleasure to exhibit to the Society of Antiquaries Copies of two ancient Drawings in the British Museum. One is a Tracing, which has been obligingly made for me by Mr. J. T. Smith, from a representation of the Town of Brighthelmstone, taken in the month of July 1545, when that place was attacked by the French. The other is a Bird's-eye View of the country in the neighbourhood of Dieppe in Normandy, evidently drawn upon the spot, and exhibiting the positions of the armies of the King of Navarre and the Duke de Maienne at the battle of St. Etienne, September 21st, 1589.

In the course of my official researches I have met with two original Bailiff's Accompts for the Manor and Liberty of the Savoy, which may serve to illustrate the prices of materials and labour in the time of King Richard the Second. They are the Accompts of John Ekleston, then Bailiff of the Savoy, rendered to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, for two years, viz. from Lady-day, 16th Richard II. to the same term in the 17th year of that king, and for the following year. I am enabled, by the permission of Lord Holland, Chancellor of the Duchy, most readily granted, to lay these Accompts before the Society. I need not enlarge upon the well known fact of the destruction of the Palace of the Savoy by the rebels in what is called Wat Tyler's insurrection, with, as the Chronicles say, “all the princely furniture and stock therein” belonging to the unpopular Prince John of Gaunt, titular King of Castile, &c. The building of this house cost Henry Duke of Lancaster (father-in-law to John of Gaunt), 50,000 marks, and the restoration of it seems to have been in progress during the time of these accounts, particularly of a tower in the Savoy, called “Symeon Tower.” It does not precisely appear whether this Tower was a new erection, or only a reparation. I am inclined to think it was the latter, though the first Accompt is for the Costs and expenses within the said Manor, for one Tower called Symeon Tower, which are afterwards specified. There is no charge for the masonry or brickwork of the Tower: probably the walls only remained “post Rumorem,” as the Accompt quaintly terms the Insurrection. It seems the Tower contained a prison, whether of new or former erection.

My relation, Mr. Daniel Gurney, Fellow of the Society, having informed me that he had been entrusted with a Manuscript belonging to Mr. Lane, of Lynn Regis in Norfolk, which contained Extracts of the Proceedings of the Corporation of Lynn, from 1430 to 1731, shewing the municipal arrangements of that town for three centuries, and which gave a very curious account of the manner of their early elections of Burgesses in Parliament, I requested him to have the notices of these last copied for me; and as they appear to me of singular interest at the present time, when most of our old customs, with many of our ancient institutions, are becoming more and more rapidly matters of history, I send them to you, as I have received them, for communication to the Society.

Your lordship and the Council of the Society of Antiquaries having determined that, to render the publication-price of Caedmon's Paraphrase more moderate, the Illuminations of the Manuscript should appear in the Archasologia, the following Brief Notice of the Work has been drawn up to accompany the Plates, closing with a Descriptive Catalogue of them by Mr. Thorpe, occasionally containing such passages of the Poem as the Illuminations are intended more strictly to refer to.

It has not perhaps been hitherto remarked that the well-known history of Cædmon has its exact parallel. We learn from a fragment, entitled “Præfatio in librua antiquua lingua Saxonica conscriptum;” published amongst the Epistles of Hincmar Bishop of Rhemes (Bibliotheca Patrum, Paris, 1644, vol. xvi. p. 609) that Ludovicus Pius, being desirous to furnish his subjects with a version of the Holy Scriptures, applied to a Saxon Bard of great talent and fame. The Poet, a peasant or husbandman, when entirely ignorant of his art, had been instructed in a dream to render the precepts of the Divine Law into the verse and measure of his native language. His translation, now unfortunately lost, to which the fragment was prefixed, comprehended the whole of the Bible. The text of the original was interspersed with mystic allusions; and the beauty of the composition was so great, that, in the opinion of the writer of the preface, no reader, perusing the verse, could doubt the source of the poetic inspiration of the Bard.