The baronial family of Cobham took its name from the pretty village in Kent, four miles from Gravesend on the one side, and about the same distance from Rochester on the other. As early as the twelfth century it was of importance, but from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century it was one of the most powerful in the south of England. There were several off-shoots from the main stem, distinguished by the following manorial titles, viz. Roundal, Beluncle, Blackburgh, Chafford, Gatewyke, and Sterborough. There were four baronies by writ, viz. Cobham of Cobham, Roundal, Chafford, and Sterborough. The most important offices in the county of Kent were constantly in their hands, including the Wardenship of the Cinque Ports and that of Constable of Rochester Castle. The first Baron de Cobham, named Henry, was summoned to Parliament in 1313: no other of the name appears in the main stem until he whose fate I am about to consider. Of the off-shoots the most considerable was that of Sterborough in Surrey: Sir Reginald, the first baron, being the most eminent of the Cobham family. A hero of Crecy and Poitiers, one of the few brilliant warriors enrolled among the early Knights of the Garter, we must refer to the pages of Froissart if we would acquaint ourselves with the details of his career in the field, and in the councils of Edward III.

The station of Cilurnum, containing five acres and a quarter, is the largest but one on the line of Hadrian's Wall. It guarded the bridge which connects the traffic on the two sides of the North Tyne, and it commanded the woody defile along which that river flows from the north to the south. It is situated in a fertile district, which would at all times attract a numerous population. During the period of Roman domination the forum of Cilurnum would be the resort of many seeking justice at the hands of the prefect, and of others who brought their wares to supply the wants of the garrison and the suburban population.

The want of a really good biographical dictionary of Englishmen is, perhaps, more felt by those whose vocation it is to investigate the details of the great civil war of the seventeenth century than by students of any other class. The fame of three or four of the leading spirits of the time has eclipsed in the common memory almost all the other people who took an important part in the struggle between Charles the First and his Parliament. Such must be in a great degree the case whenever the dramatic interest of the story centres in the actions of one commanding intellect or the misfortunes and errors of a single sufferer; but there is, we believe, no other great crisis in modern history where the less known have been permitted to remain so entirely unknown as the time of which we speak.

In the early Church the kiss of peace, the simplest of all symbolisms, was a holy ceremony in public worship reverently kept up. Its use lingered on to the Middle Ages. In the twelfth century, when the separation of the sexes began to fall away, the custom came in of the priest kissing a carved ornament instead of his brother-minister, and this in its turn was saluted by the whole congregation. This substitute of any material, costly or simple, even of wood or glass, and generally small in size, after use was returned to the altar. In the West it bore many names—the Pax, Osculatorium, Deosculatorium Pacis, Osculare, Tabula Pacis, Asser ad Pacem, Paxillum, Paxilla, Porte-Paix, Porte-pax, Pax-brede, Pakys-bred, Pax-bord, and so on.

Glass is, in many respects, one of the most remarkable substances in the world. No known substance combines such varied uses with such matchless beauties. For innumerable domestic purposes it has for centuries been considered a necessity of daily life. Without glass innumerable paths in science and the arts would never have been explored; and in these paths progress has been made in proportion as the methods of making glass have been improved. On the other hand the peculiar beauties inherent in or incident to this material are so great that at no period in history has man been able to grasp completely more than one of them at once. The Venetians realized above all others the marvellous capacity of glass for being wrought into all kinds of beautiful forms; our Gothic forefathers developed beyond all others its capabilities in respect of colour; the Phoenicians and Romans did wonders both in form and colour, but were nevertheless inferior to the Venetians in the former, and to our Gothic forefathers in the latter; we, in our day, excel in developing to the utmost (wonderful talent that it is!) the crystalline transparency and brilliancy of glass, but it is in this direction only that we have any true art or artists—in form and colour we do comparatively nothing. Thus, in each instance, the full realization of a period has been but as it were a passing glimpse—it has never been found possible to retain it, so as to carry it into the full realization of another period; even as the highest natural beauty is but for a moment—it increases until maturity, and then immediately begins to fade.

The church of Little Horkesley has long been sorely in need of thorough repair, and its sepulchral monuments give it a special claim to the attention of antiquaries. They are alike interesting for their antiquity and for the beauty of some of the uninjured brasses. Moreover, they serve to illustrate the history of the place during several centuries. They are the landmarks of local history, giving it accuracy and precision through the names and dates they supply; and they also display the styles of art which prevailed during successive ages. Prom all these points of view their preservation, and the due maintenance and restoration of the church which contains them, must be a matter of interest to all who desire to secure the safety of national monuments

Before I begin to read this paper I must apologise to the Society of Antiquaries for its mode of composition.

In the controversies respecting the origin of the Homeric poems, which have raised so much attention of late in connection with Dr. Schliemann's discoveries, there was a theory started amongst scholars that Homer was not the author of the Iliad and Odyssey, but, as the word might imply in the original, “the man who joined or weaved together” the various poems supplied to him by other persons, which, from this stitching or joining process, were called Rhapsodies. This theory has of late years in England—partly under the influence of a celebrated political personage—fallen into discredit. But the present paper is an exact example of the process in question. I am on this occasion but the “Homerus,” the compiler, who has woven together the fragments communicated to him.

It has long been known that the Romans had a camp at South Shields. The entrance into the Tyne was strongly protected by them. On the north bank of the river was a fort where Tynemouth Priory now stands, and another at Blake Chesters, about two miles to the west of Tynemouth. On the south bank were the camps of South Shields and Jarrow.

In the month of November, 1877, in consequence of an alteration in the internal arrangements of the chancel of King's Langley church, it was determined to remove the altar-tomb of Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, from the position which it had held during the last three centuries in the chancel, to one in a new memorial chapel, constructed at the east end of the north aisle of the church.

You have made the study of the Deæ Matres and the Matronæ so peculiarly your own, by the notices, in Collectanea Antiqua and Roman London, of the many memorials of these lesser Roman divinities which exist in Britain, Germany, and France, that, in venturing on the same subject, I feel almost like a trespasser. Yet we are all bound to contribute our respective gleanings to the general stock of information. Moreover, the Cisalpine examples of the cult of the Matronæ, which I now propose to consider, though perfectly analogous to those of other countries—the subjects of your studies—yet have their respective points of difference. These, though difficult to explain, should not pass unnoticed, and your labours have lightened my task.

Kempley is about seven miles from Ross. It is in Gloucestershire, but on the borders of the county of Hereford, and was formerly in the diocese of Hereford, though now in that of Gloucester and Bristol. The church, which is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, is of the usual type of small parish churches of the Norman period, being made up of aisleless nave and chancel, the former about 34 feet by 19 feet, the latter about 18 feet by 14 feet, inside the walls. All the original walls remain, though most of the windows have been replaced by later ones, and a tower of the fifteenth century has been added at the west end. The chancel is roofed with a plain barrel-vault of rubble.

On May 18, 1865, I had the pleasure of reading to this Society a paper upon certain excavations which have been carried on at Silchester by His Grace the Duke of Wellington. Since that date the area uncovered has been considerably extended, and the excavations have attracted a very general interest among those who are skilled in English archæology. In addressing you at present, I only resume the thread of a statement already commenced, and, in order to clear the ground for the information I propose now to bring under your notice, I shall go back to a few leading particulars which were then stated.

An apology is needed for my presumption in reading a paper this evening on the Churchwardens' Accounts of Stratton. They certainly ought to have fallen to the lot of some Cornish man. My attention, however, was directed to them by their present owner, William Maskell, Esq. E.S.A. and I found them so interesting that I could not resist the temptation of bringing certain gleanings I have made therefrom under the notice of this Society.

On two previous occasions, in the years 1865 and 1867, I have given some accounts of the excavations in the Roman city at Silchester. The work was then in its infancy; an interval of six years elapsed since my second Paper was read; and the period thus embraced will he found fruitful in discoveries of interest and importance.

The Ven. Edward Trollope, E.S.A., has lately communicated to the Society an impression in gutta-percha from the original matrix of an Admiralty Seal of Richard III. when Duke of Gloucester, which impression is exhibited this evening.

Another impression from this matrix, then in the possession of a gentleman of St. Columb in Cornwall, was exhibited and presented to the Society in 1781 by Dr. Milles, at that time President, and is still preserved.

The city of Ravenna possesses a museum adjoining the municipal library, and known by the name of “Museo Classense.” It is not often visited by foreigners, whose attention is generally absorbed by the splendid ancient buildings of which that town is still so full.

Scotter is a parish in the Wapentake of Corringham, in the parts of Lindsey, and county of Lincoln. As early as A.D. 664 Scotter, and its hamlet of Scalthorpe, with church, mill, and other appurtenances, were a part of the vast possessions of the Abbey of Medeshamstede, afterwards called Peterborough. This we learn from a charter of Uulfhere, King of the Mercians, six transcripts of which are noticed by Kemble. It is somewhat difficult, however, to reconcile this with a charter of Edward the Confessor, from which it would seem that the abbey derived its rights, or at least its full rights, in Scotter from a certain Brand. If the clause relating to Scotter, in the earlier charter, be authentic, as I believe it to be, the probability is that Brand only restored to the abbey possessions which had been alienated.

The two Psalters which Mr. Bragge has been good enough to exhibit on this occasion, at my request, are good specimens of writing and of illumination, of the middle of the thirteenth century; but are particularly interesting from the curious entries in the calendars prefixed to them.

While collecting materials for a new history of music I had occasion to examine many of the earliest Psalters and Books of Antiphons for the service of the English Church, and then noted three distinctive peculiarities, which seemed worthy of attention by the literary antiquary and by the historian. The first was, that parts of the service, such as the Gloria in excelsis and the Nicene Creed, had been sung occasionally in Greek, and that the Greek was written phonetically in English characters. The second, that the hymns and sequences differed from those which had been sung on the continent of Europe, and therefore few, if any, are included in the printed collections by Daniel, by Mone, or Morel; and, further, that many of them are remarkable for the intermixture of Greek and of Græco-Latin words. Not only did our ancestors substitute protus, deuterus, tritus, and tetardus for primus, secundus, tertius, and quartus, but also employed such addresses to the deity in their hymns and sequences as “Kyrie eleison, o theos agye” —“Pater, creator omnium, tu theos ymon”—“Pater ymas te exoramus;” half Greek and half Latin.