This MS. is entitled, “Articles devised by his royal “highness, with advice of his council, for the esta “blishment of good order and reformation of sundry errors “and misuses in his houshold and chambers.”

Several learned Antiquaries have attempted to ascertain the beginning of the Parthian Epocha, which so often occurs on the Parthian coins of a later date. The empire of the Arsacidae extended from the Indus to the Euphrates, and from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulph and the Indian Ocean; and their power often gave umbrage to the Romans, though sovereigns of all the known and civilized part of our globe. Their coins had a currency in a great part of Asia; and, as they frequently had Greek inscriptions sometimes with epocha's, it has been a subject of enquiry among the most skilful Antiquaries to explain these coins, and ascertain the Parthian Epocha. Vaillant, Longuerue, Bayer, Froelich, Pellerin, and Swinton, have among others applied themselves to this inquiry. As they have exhausted their extensive reading and learning in support of their respective opinions on this subject, it cannot be expected that any thing curious or new should be said by a later writer. All therefore that I can promise in this memoir, is a new argument in support of the opinion that the Epocha of the Arsacidae began in the year 256, before the Christian Epocha, or in the 498th year after the foundation of Rome.

I Think myself particularly happy in being encouraged to address the following account of a medal to you; because I apprehend that no other proof will be required of its genuineness, than the being able to say, that it has been left with you for several months, and that you have no doubts about it. It is indeed of the finest preservation, being uniformly covered with a green patine; was found about six years ago in Mr. Wegg's garden at Colchester, and by him given to his neighbour Charles Gray, Esquire, Member of Parliament for that ancient Borough, Fellow of the Royal Society, and one of the fifteen elected Trustees of the British Museum; a gentleman, whose love of the antique forms but a small part of his excellent character; who has for many years so happily united the scholar with the man of business, the magistrate, and the senator.

The numerous remains of Greek and Roman sculpture now extant, afford incontestable proofs that, in early times, a strong passion prevailed amongst the civilized states of Asia and Europe, for perpetuating and transmitting to posterity, durable and faithful representations of their most memorable transactions, as well as of their customs, civil and religious rites, ceremonies, and triumphs. The like inclination afterward spread itself throughout the west, where the people had no sooner rubbed off the rust of barbarism, then they adopted the ideas, customs, manners, and practice of the more polished nations. Our northern ancestors followed the example; and we find, that it was not unusual with them to represent and perpetuate, either in sculpture, painting, or arras, such transactions, pomps, solemnities, and remarkable events, more especially those which happened in their own times, as they conceived to be either redounding to the national honour and the glory of their monarch; or tending to add a lustre to their own characters and the reputation of their families, from the feveral parts they had respectively acted in those affairs.

The first of these inscriptions, which is as follows,

has been published by Montfaucon, Suppl. T.v. p. 25, and is thus translated by him: Populus Isiadem Metrodori filiam Laodicenam hoc monumento donavit. He supposes, that the words Ο ΔΗΜΟΣ, encircled by a crown of laurel, signify that the monument was erected at the public expence; but they probably mean no more than that the deceased had, upon some occasion or other, had a crown voted to her by the people. They certainly mean no more upon the following monument, where the inscription testifies that the monument was erected at the expence of the family, and not of the public.

On the south side of the river Mersey, (or as some call it, the Edrow) near Wooley-bridge, in the township of Gamesley, and parish of Glossop, in Derbyshire, is a Roman station, which no writer has mentioned, nor did any one know (as far as can be informed) that it had been constructed by that people, till July 1771, when I made the discovery. The country people give it the name of Melandra Castle; the area of it is called the Castle-yard, and eleven fields adjoining to it are named in old deeds the Castle Carrs.

In a Memoir which I formerly laid before the Society, touching the royal picture of the interview between King Henry VIII. and the French King Francis the First, I took notice of the advantages which might result to the historian and antiquary from a careful inspection of such remaining historic paintings and sculptures, as, being executed with accuracy and fidelity, are coaeval with the transactions they are intended to record.

The labourers began by driving a level, and for some time found nothing worth notice. At length one of them, digging on the top of the barrow downwards, turned up, within half a yard from the surface, a piece of an urn, and soon after came to what he thought an urn, fixed, in a large pot or vessel, and containing a small quantity of white ashes.

Upon the commons of Winstor, a village within the King's great manor de Alto Pecco, which were lately inclosed, are divers barrows, or tumuli, chiefly of stone, and among the rest one of earth, which the inhabitants account the more singular. This being lately opened, there were found in it two glass vessels, between eight and ten inches in height, with wide circular mouths, and a little bulge in the middle, and containing about a pint of water, of a light greenish colour, and exceeding limpid. With these was also found a silver collar or bracelet, about an inch broad, joining at the ends in dovetail fashion, and studded with human heads, and other small ornaments, secured by rivets, which might occasionally be detached.

The traditions concerning the antiquities of this country are surprisingly vague, and little to be depended on. There are indeed many remains which bear the stamp of the remotest times; such as the burial-places of which I am going to speak and the circles of stones which are still remaining on the mainland; but all that can be gathered is, that they were formerly held in veneration, but for what reason is not to be by their accounts investigated.

The precise time when any ancient language ceases to be spoken by the inhabitants of a country seems to be interesting not only to the philologist, but to the antiquary; I shall therefore desire you would lay before the Society the following particulars with regard to what I conceive to be the last spark of the Cornish tongue.

The papers inclosed herewith, partly law, and partly history, I have taken from an old (and I think authentic) MS. in my custody. What I have copied thereout seems to have been compiled to shew that dignities and titles of honour are constitutionally preserved and derived down in families by the female descendants, particularly baronies; about which in those times perhaps some questions were agitated. Claims of that kind are sometimes advanced in our days: I therefore send these sheets to our brethren of the Antiquary Society; and if they are thought proper memoirs to be read there, and give some amusement to the gentlemen, I shall be agreeably satisfied. The number of pedigrees I was induced to transcribe from what I have observed in the first volume of papers published by the Society, wherein the worthy President, Dr. Milles, has remonstrated against Mr. Walpole's relation in favour of Richard the Third, in which I think the pedigree of Tyrrell, supposed to be the principal agent in destroying the young princes, a striking proof of that fact; and that pedigrees are in many respects useful. At the beginning of the MS. volume is that paragraph which I have prefixed to these papers.

In addition to the account which Mr. Camden has given of Pen-maen-mawr, Dr. Gibson has inserted in his edition of the Britannia, the following particulars: “On the top of Pen-maen-“mawr stands a lofty and impregnable hill; and here we find “the ruinous walls of an exceeding strong fortification, encom-“passed with a treble wall; and within each wall the foundation of “at least a hundred towers all round, and of equal bigness, and “about six yards diameter. It should seem says the account, “that there are lodgings within these walls for 20,000 men.” Dr. Gibson says indeed, “He had taken no description of this “himfelf; but gives the account as he receives it from a MS. “written in king Charles the 1st's time, by sir John Wyn of “Gwydir.”

I perceive, that in the second volume of the Archaeologia are printed my observations on your account of the minstrels among the Saxons, the Council not being aware that they had been replied to in the second edition of your essay. But candour and a love of truth oblige me to acknowledge, that you have removed my doubts in a very satisfactory manner, by that larger and more full discussion of the subject which you have been pleased to give us in your last edition.

Having had an opportunity, the summer before last, of examining with accuracy the foundations of the Abbey Church at St. Edmund's Bury in Suffolk; and having found them to differ somewhat from the plan drawn by Mr. Essex for the late sir James Burroughs, and published at the end of Dr. Battely's Antiquities of Bury, though that plan is indeed in most respects exact, and very curious: I take the liberty to lay before the society a drawing, to shew the difference; and in order to render sir James Burroughs's plan the more compleat and useful. And I the rather venture to do this, because no subsequent account, that I know of, has as yet been given of these Ruins; and because the addition I have made does, moreover, render the plan perfectly consistent with the description given by William of Worcester, which otherwise cannot be understood; and serves to explain an apparent inconsistency in what he says, and to shew that his whole account is exact.

King Edward III. may properly be esteemed the father of the gold specie of England, notwithstanding some singular appearances which precede his time; since gold has in a manner continued to be minted without interruption ever since his reign.

I shewed you, some time since, Mr. Tyrwhitt's very ingenious reading of the inscription an the Corbridge altar, engraved in the second volume of the Archaeologia; which turns out to be the following regular hexameter.

Habeo sanè unde Societati Antiquariorum, et tibi, vir doctissime, gratuler; quod inscriptionis Corbrigiensis satis vexatae lectionem, Cl. Thomas Tyrwhitt extra omnem dubitationis aleam posuit; et proinde Tu eam magnâ exornasti eruditione. Mihi quidem, fateor, ut et aliis, fidem τῷ exscripto adhibentibus, illud T geminatum, fucum fecit: his verò jam in Π redactis, nihil potest esse planius, nihil certius; quippe, et constructio, et hexameter, jam tandem rectè se habent.

Since you was pleased to inform me, that the views of the Society of Antiquaries are not confined merely to English Antiquities, but wish to extend themselves also to the more entertaining, as well as edifying, subjects of Roman Antiquities in general; I avail myself of the present opportunity to communicate to you some acquisitions of that kind, which I made, not long since, from the provinces of Istria and Dalmatia. They were communicated to me by the Abbé Fortis, of Padua, an ingenious and celebrated Italian Naturalist, whom I recommended, some time ago, to make the tour of those provinces with a learned friend of mine, and who, in return, very obligingly favoured me with an account of his itinerary, in a series of entertaining and instructive letters, which are now before me. His favourite pursuit was Natural History; but he did not intirely neglect Antiquities. I shall therefore briefly extract from his letters such observations of that kind as appear to me mostly to merit attention. These respect principally some antient Roman inscriptions, which occasionally fell in his way, and which I do not find in other writers, at least among the more classical collectors, as Gruter, Fabretti, Muratori, &c. To these I shall add such pertinent remarks as occur to me upon the subjects of these inscriptions.

In the account which I gave to the Society of the Mount of Pen-maen-mawr, called Bre-y-Dinas, I said that the publick might expect a more particular account from Mr. Pennant, who had gone twice over it, and did intend to have an actual survey made of it.