I have the honour to transmit to you, and by your favour to submit to the inspection of the Society of Antiquaries, sketches of what I presume is a Roman Burial Urn, dug up on the 26th day of April last, by labourers employed in raising gravel, for the repair of the adjoining turnpike-road, from a pit in the parish of Colney, situate three miles to the west of the city of Norwich, on the way to Hingham. The sketches are the work of an unskilful hand, but they may serve perhaps to convey no very inaccurate idea of their subject. Of these, No. 1, (Pl. I. fig. 1.) is intended to represent the appearance of the Urn previously to its having been broken near the brim. No. 2, its appearance after having been broken on one side. No. 3, a part of it, with its ornaments, nearly in their true size and proportions.

I have the pleasure to exhibit to the Society a curious Gimmal or Gemmow Ring; which was dug up, a few months ago, by the workmen employed on some buildings belonging to George Shepley Esq. at Horsley-down, in Surrey. It was discovered about eight or nine seet below the surface of the earth, in what is called made-ground, but which appeared to have lain undisturbed for a considerable length of time. Other rings, and many ancient copper coins and medals, both Roman and English, were found near the same spot; as were the skeletons of several human bodies.

I had lately an opportunity of procuring an antient bronze figure of a goat with one horn, which was the old symbol of Macedon. As figures, representing the types of antient countries, are extremely rare, and as neither bronze nor marble symbol of Macedon has been hitherto noticed, I beg leave to trouble you with the few following observations, which, if you should think them worthy of that honour, you will much oblige me by presenting to the Society of Antiquaries.

Explanation of a Carving on the Wainscot, over a Chimney Piece, at Speke Hall, in the County of Lancaster, formerly the Residence of the Norris family, from whom it descended to the late Topham Beauclerk, Esq. whose Son, the present Mr, Beauclerk, sold it to the late Richard Watt, Esq.

The Carving (Pl. III.) represents the pedigree of the Norris family for three generations, as may be collected from an inscription painted on canvas, and inserted in the compartments of the frieze, but now in a great measure effaced.

If you think the following curious Roman Antiquities worthy the notice of the Society, you will do me the honour of exhibiting them at one of their meetings. They were discovered June 28, 1800, by a labourer making a ditch at the bottom of Red Barnfield, belonging to Bradfield Farm, in the parish of Topesfield, in Essex, situate about two miles west-by-south of the ancient Roman road from Camulodunum to Camboritum.

The Quenes Majestye is presently given t'understand of sum ill-disposed persons, who, partly to move misliking amongst the comun and meaner sort of her loving people, partly of covetousnes, to enhaunce the prices of corn, have of late secretly spred abrode, in markets and other places, that the prices do ryse and ar like daily to encreace, by reason that certain persons have bought sum quantites of grayn to her Majesties use in sundry countrees: and that also her Majestie meaneth to graunt to sum about her licence to cary corn out of the realm. Upon which rumors being maliciously spred, it may indede happen, that although there be no scarcite in the realme (thanked be Almighty God) yet therby the covetousnes of such as have either of ther own stoore, or by unlawfull bargaynes ingrossed into their hands great quantite of ail manner of grayn, will take occasions to inhaunce the prices therof without necessary cause, to the detriment and burden of the multitud which have lack.

I take the liberty to offer to your Lordship, and the Society, a strong proof and confirmation of the authenticity of the second Arundelian Marble, which, together with the whole collection, has been implicated in the charge brought against the first; for if that be once incontestably shown to have been forged, it will be very natural to suspect all the rest to be false and spurious. I trust, however, in Mr. Gough's defence of what is called the Parian marble, which has been already read to this Society, and is recorded in the ninth volume of its memoirs. Before I enter on my subject, I shall make a single observation on the marble of Paros, and endeavour to obviate an objection which seems to bear hard on the genuineness of the stone; I mean the objection founded on the silence observed all through the chronicle, with respect to the history. of the island itself; that its siege by Miltiades, its reduction by Lysander, its taxation by Themistocles, and the renown of having given birth to Archilochus, are neither mentioned nor alluded to.

As a discovery which I have lately made in this parish within a few fields of my house, will, I trust, be interesting to you and all antiquaries, I have taken up my pen to send you some account of it.

A few days ago, as some men were ploughing in a field, in this parish, they perceived one of their horses feet to sink in the ground, which, upon examination, proved to be in the mouth of an urn; fortunately the horse did not break it, and the men dug it up; they examined its contents, and finding no coins, but that what it contained consisted only of some burnt bones and pieces of broken glass of a bluish colour and very thick, they threw them again into the hole and covered them up, bringing the urn home, which is now in my possession.

Not recollecting to have met with any notice respecting the subject of the annexed sketch, I venture to transmit it to you, with some remarks and conjectures concerning it, to be submitted, with your leave, to the consideration of the Society of Antiquaries, at some one of their future meetings.

The brick which I have now the honour to exhibit to the Antiquarian Society (together with a drawing of it) was sent to me by a friend at Bombay, and arrived in England about August or September last. My correspondent says, that it was lately brought to Bombay, with some others of the same kind, from the ruins of the city of Babylon, but unluckily omits to inform me by whom they were brought, or to give any description of the place or its situation where they were found; but merely mentions it as a fact known at Bombay, that they certainly came from the site of antient Babylon.

As you did me the favour of laying before the Society, the Roman Antiquities found at Topesfield in Essex, I hope the following account of the Roman Military Way, which passed through the villages of Ridgwell, Birdbrook and Sturmere, in Essex, with the antiquities found on each side, will be equally acceptable to the Society, as it may hereafter, perhaps, assist some future Horsley or Reynolds in their itinerary researches, being accompanied with a very accurate survey upon a large scale.

I send you herewith an original letter in the nature of a Credential, every word of which is in the hand-writing of king Charles the Second. According to the tradition of my family it was delivered by that monarch, during his residence at Antwerp, to my ancestor colonel Thomas Veel, of Alvestone in the county of Glocester; and also four blank commissions (from among several others now in my possession), to raise soldiers for the royal cause: which letter and commissions appear to me mutually to illustrate and explain each other. The following are exact and literal copies.

The building of which I have now the honour to lay before the Society, the measured drawings, is situated in the southern part of the town of Southampton, in a narrow street called Porters Lane, not far from the Water Gate at the bottom of the High Street.

I have taken the liberty of sending you three boxes, containing various antiquities, which were discovered in Somersetshire last year, and which, I presume, are not unworthy the notice of the Society. If the enclosed short account of them is at all satisfactory, it is very much at their service.

In the month of December 1794, a labourer, employed to dig a drain through a marshy piece of ground, on the south side of the Quantock Hills in Somersetshire, found, about six feet beneath the surface, two rings, one lying on the other; within each of which was placed a celt, as represented in the annexed plate; he took them away with him when he left work; and on his return the following day he perceived the ground, where they had lain, was sunk, as if it had been hollow underneath: unfortunately, he searched no further. Of these curious articles of antient workmanship two celts, and one ring, which proved to be a torques, [Pl. XXIII.fig. 2.] were soon after sent to me; the other torques, I understand, is in the possession of the owner of the estate. Concluding from the circumstance of the ground's sinking, that bones, or other sepulchral relicks, might be found, I obtained permission to open the place; which I accordingly did with the person who had made the discovery, but without success. This may, in some degree, be ascribed to a road having been made, and to other difficulties in ascertaining the exact spot which we were anxious to explore.

Having noticed, in Camden's Britannia, an account of some clay moulds for fabricating Roman coins, found about the beginning of the last century at Edington, in the county of Somerset, and understanding, from persons in the neighbourhood, that they still continued to be discovered there, I was induced, some time since, to go thither with a party of friends; and we were fortunate enough to be directed to a spot where, in less than an hour's search, we picked up several hundred of them.

I have herewith sent you the drawings of the Prior's Chapel at Ely, which I mentioned to you when I had last the pleasure of seeing you. These drawings are accompanied with an explanation and a few remarks on the style of building, which I have to request you will do me the honour to present to the Society in my name, at the first convenient opportunity. The history of this Chapel you will find comprised in a few sentences, as indeed must be the case of all which are private, and have no religious establishment. The merit therefore of the whole, if it have any, will consist in the drawings, and in those I fear only, considering them as accurate delineations from the original. The few observations subjoined, you will be at liberty to present or not, according to your own opinion of them; and I beg you will not be scrupulous in rejecting them, if you think they approach too near to those which have already been made on the subject. The Chapel you will find is now a dwelling-house, and not much visited by strangers. During my stay at Ely, I was introduced to its present possessor, and had many opportunities of seeing it.

The Society of Antiquaries have honoured a communication of mine, respecting the tomb of Alfred, in a manner far beyond its deserts. This, however, encourages me to venture to offer to them, through your friendly hands, some details relative to the two celebrated Runic monuments in this county, the Font at Bridekirk, and the Obelisk at Bewcastle.

The great importance of Bristol, as the second city in the kingdom,—its situation commanding at once the rich county of Somerset, and the chief entrance into Wales, rendered the conquest of it of the utmost consequence to both king and parliament, whose spirits, during their unhappy contests, were alternately elated or depressed as either party succeeded in the siege, or failed in the defence of the town. But the great extension of commerce, and the consequent increase of population, have so much enlarged the circuit of Bristol, that what was only an inconsiderable suburb in the time of Charles the first, is now become a new town, extending over, and in a great measure defacing, the lines of fortification which formed the outworks of the city. An attempt, however, to preserve some idea of the remaining military vestiges, as exhibited by letters patent under the great seal of England, and sign manual of Charles the First, conferring the office of treasurer of the garrison on an ancestor of the author of this communication, may not be foreign to the views of the Society.

I presume to offer to your Lordship and the Society, an attempt to explain an unpublished coin, which has a head of Hercules on one side, and a club behind the head; and on the other a sea-horse, with three Phœnician letters under the horse, an aleph, a nun, and a thau, making together the word anath. When I say that this coin has not been published, or commented on, I mean that I have not found it in any of the principal books on the subject of this species of coins. I have been told indeed of its being in this cabinet and in that, but never have been able to learn that any explanation of the letters has been any where given. There are so many places to which Hercules belongs; and so many of which the sea-horse might have been an appropriate symbol that were it not for the inscription, it would only be in our power to say, This is the type of a Tyrian coin, without being able to fix the exact place where it was struck.