Among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum, is preserved a highly curious volume, written at the commencement of the fourteenth century, containing a miscellaneous collection of pieces in verse and prose, apparently the production of an Irish Ecclesiastic, and chiefly of a satirical description. Most of these pieces are in English or Latin, and there is great reason to conclude that they are from the pen of Friar Michael Kyldare, who is expressly named as the author of a Ballad, fol. 10, and who is erroneously assigned by Ritson, in his Bibliographia Poetica, to the fifteenth, instead of the thirteenth and beginning of the succeeding century. But towards the close of this MS. (which, from the folios having been strangely misplaced, is very difficult to follow in the order of contents,) occurs an extremely interesting Poem, written in the ancient or Norman French language, contributing in a remarkable degree to throw illustration on the early topography and history of the town of New Ross, in Ireland, and on this account I trust the Society may not deem it unworthy of its being submitted to their notice.

A controversy has of late been revived with some degree of warmth respecting the Massacre of Paris in 1572, usually called the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. On one side, every credible document has been represented as declaring that the Massacre was a sudden and unforeseen expedient, an ebullition of popular vengeance, suggested by the alarm which the failure of an attempt upon the life of the Admiral Coligni had excited, and by the danger to be expected from the revenge of his adherents. On the other side, it has been represented as the consequence of a premeditated plot to entrap and destroy the Hugonots in general. Again, on the one side the hypothesis of a preconcerted plot has been represented as not resting upon contemporary evidence. The other stating the hypothesis as actually advanced upon such authority.

In the absence of any other Communication, I trouble your Lordship and the Society with the transcript of a document, from among the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum, of curious import in its way. It is a Petition or Representation, indorsed in Lord Burghley's hand with these words, “Contra Wm Herle: the Raglarshippe: A. D. 1577.”

About fifteen years since I was resident in the neighbourhood of Caesar's Camp, Holwood-hill, in Kent, of which a Plan is engraved in the fourth Volume of the Vetusta Monumenta of the Society of Antiquaries. I had then the opportunity of making some observations in the vicinity of those remains which have ultimately led to the discoveries which form the subject of this communication.

In the twenty-first volume of the Archeeologia a Communication was inserted from my lamented friend the late Rev. J. J. Cony-beare, successively Professor of Saxon and of Poetry in the University of Oxford, containing an Abstract and Transcript of an extremely curious English Poem on the Siege of Rouen, by King Henry the Fifth, in 1418, written by a contemporary author, and giving a more detailed account of that occurrence than is to be met with in any of our historians. The Manuscript from which the transcript was made is preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and in some respects may be considered unique; but, as the Poem in this MS. is unfortunately imperfect, it was with no small degree of satisfaction I discovered the portion supposed to be lost, and under the impression that the Society of Antiquaries, as well as all those who are fond of our Old English historical poetry, may wish to see the Poem in a perfect state, I now have the pleasure to forward you a copy of the lines hitherto wanting to complete it.

As every thing connected with Stonehenge must be especially interesting to the Society of Antiquaries; I submit to their indulgence the following Disquisition on a passage in King Athelstan's Grant to the Abbey of Wilton, although it will directly (but I trust not disrespectfully) contravene the opinions of several of our most distinguished Members, hitherto misled by treading in the footsteps of an early writer: so true is the observation, that “one man adopts a system or hypothesis, and another follows him, not examining the grounds on which the foundation was laid.”