The art of making crystal glass for mirrors was practised by the Venetians in the 13th century. A clock that strikes the hours was unknown in Europe till the 12th century. Paper was not made earlier than the fourteenth century and printing in the century following. The art of reading made a very slow progress. To encourage it in England, the capital punishment of death was remitted if the criminal could read, which is termed Benefit of Clergy. Yet so small an edition of the Bible as 600 copies translated into English temp. Henry VIII. was not wholly sold off in three years. In the age next preceding Queen Elizabeth there were few chimneys even in capital towns; the fire was laid to the wall, and the smoke issued at the roof or door, or window. The houses were wattled and plastered over with clay; and all the furniture and utensils were of wood. The people slept on straw pallets, with a log of wood for a pillow. (Holinshed.) The first silk stockings that were made in France were worn by Henry II. at the marriage of the Duchess of Savoy. Queen Elizabeth in the third year of her reign received a present of a pair of black silk knit stockings; and she never wore cloth any more.(Howel.) London-bridge was of timber before the Conquest; it was repaired by King William Rufus; and was burnt by accident in 1176, Henry II. The stone bridge was finished in 1212. The art of making glass was imported from France in 674, for the use of monasteries; glass windows in private houses were rare in the 12th century, and held to be a great luxury. Thomas à Becket had his parlour strewed every day with clean straw ; this was the practice in Queen Elizabeth's time even in her presence chainber: as industry increased, cleanliness improved, and established itself in England. Achilles bimself divided the roasted beef among his guests. Pope, judging it below the dignity of Achilles to act the butcher, suppresses that article, imposing the task upon his two friends; but " Pope did not consider," says Lord Kames, "that from GENT. MAG. October, 1819. a lively picture of the antient manners proceeds one of the capital pleasures we have in reading Homer;" and he might as well have preserved this passage, as have told us before that they generally killed and dressed their own victuals; Od. 19 and 20. And Achilles, entertaining Priam, slew a snow-white sheep, and his two friends flea'd and dressed it. Rous seau says, that the Macassars Dever taste animal food, and are acknowledged to be the fiercest of mortals. The first societies were smail-and small states in close neighbourhoods engender discord and resentment without end; the junction of many such states into a great kingdom removes people farther from their enemies, and renders them more gentle. Before A. D. 1545, ships of war in England had no port-holes for guns; they had only a few cannon placed on the deck. (To be continued.) Mr. URBAN, AT Sept. 29. T the time of the great alterations made in Salisbury Cathedral, in 1790, or thereabouts, it was judged expedient, in order to obtain a better view of the Cathedral, to remove an antient Building, originally a Bell-tower. As the splendid accounts of Salisbury, recently published by Messrs. Dodsworth and Britton, contain no representation or account of this Building, I beg you to preserve a slight view of it, taken about 1787 (see Plate II.) It stood on the North-west side of the Cathedral. Yours, &c. B. A MEMBER of the Antiquarian Society," p. 133, after asserting that the reparations now in progress at Winchester Cathedral, " are not of the best taste;" proceeds to observe, that "the roof of that part where the transept is united, is in imitation of Henry VII." &c. With what propriety a work executed by Bishop Fox in the reign of Henry VII. can be said to be in imitation of the style of that period, I leave your Correspondent to explain; the fact is, that the roof is of timber groined and ornamented in the manner prevalent at the period mentioned. On the part between the stalls and the altar, the workmen were employed employed when I saw it on Saturday, Aug. 21, and were doing the whole of it to imitate stone. I will not say there is no blue introduced in the part of the roof towards the West, but I confidently assert I saw none. 1 "Instead of painting that which ought to be so," he adds, " is done with a nasty glazy varnish." The stalls in this Chapel, which are of oak, and carved in a very chaste and beautiful manner, have been varnished; and the faint remains of the legendary paiotings on the Eastern end of the North and South walls, in order to preserve them, have been varnished also; but I can discover Lothing offensively glazy in their appearance, much less any thing to be justly termed "nasty." It is scarcely possible your Correspondent can wish the stalls to be painted; and the walls could not, without obliterating the antient legends to which I have alluded, and which I conceive every Antiquary would be anxious to preserve. I am therefore at a loss to discover where this painting is re-quired. With respect to the statues of the four monarchs at the angles of the tower, which possess so little of kingly dignity as to be mistaken for "four -Scotchmen playing on bagpipes," it will suffice to say, the blame can only attach to those by whom they were executed, and placed in the situations they occupy. Whether the organ shall remain in its present situation under the Northern arch of the tower, or be placed at the West end of the choir, is not yet (as I understand) finally decided; if it remains, the arch towards the Southern transept must also, I conceive, continue to be stopped up; if it is removed ("a consummation devoutly to be wished"), both the arches opening to the transept will be cleared of their incumbrances; and therefore for this alteration, as well as for taking away the screen ascribed to Inigo Jones at the entrance of the choir, and the opening the first story of the tower (which would give to the choir the sublime and impressive effect so well delineated in the engraving by Radclyffe, in Britton's History of Winchester Cathedral,) I am an earDest and decided advocate. By the bye, this last alteration, if made, would occasion the removal of the offensive statues. I now proceed to consider the strunge suggestion of your Correspondent, for the removal of the whole Choir to the East of the transept; because to form an entire Choir Eastward of the transept, of the same dimensions as the present (and he does not intimate any desire that it should be curtailed) the Altar would block up the entrance to the Chapel of the Virgin; while the great East window, which terminates the present would be about half way down the proposed Choir, the height of which, in the Eastern half, would be thereby reduced from 78 to 44 feet. Nor is this all, for the tombs of William Rufus, De Lucy, De Foix, and several others, must be removed, and the chantries of Beaufort, Waynfleet, Fox, and Gardiner, (the combined effect of which in their present relative situations is asserted to exceed any thing in this country, if not in Europe,) must be destroyed, or at least erected in other, and less eligible places. The altar-screen too, so justly admired, must be taken down, and the height of the Eastern end of the proposed Choir would not admit of its being replaced, even if it could be effected without mutilation; besides which, another screen, placed at the Eastern extremity of the Presbytery, which has on its Eastern front nine niches enriched with elegantly-sculptured canopies, formerly containing statues of eighteen saints and monarchs, must be also displaced and rendered useless. The persons who are now directing the repairs of the Cathedral are, the Rev. Dr. George Frederick Nott, one of the prebendaries, and William Garbett, esq. architect, of Winchester. The grand principle by which they have been hitherto guided, is renovation in preference to alteration, and their primary object appears to be to reduce every thing (as far as circumstances will permit) to its pristine state, by removing all anomalous and incongruous ornaments and appendages, which vitiated taste has at different intervening periods introduced. In elucidation of this remark, I beg to observe, that they are at this time restoring with great care, and a scrupulous adherence to the original design, the mutilated parts of the altar screen; while some urns, which a former former member of this Church, whose liberality is more to be commended than his taste, had introduced into the niches formerly occupied by statues, as well as a gorgeous canopy of wainscot profusedly ornamented and gilt, of the time of the first Charles, are to be removed; and the whole of this elaborate and beautiful piece of antient sculpture exposed to view, devoid of every incumbrance, its centre being adorned by Watt's picture of "Christ raising Lazarus." The concluding paragraph of your Correspondent's letter I consider as a most unjustifiable and illiberal attack on the character of the gentlemen I have alluded to; of whom I know nothing except from report, and an inspection of their works; but from which I have formed this (in my opinion) just conclusion that their skill is unquestionable, and their arrangements extremely judicious. X. X15538. PARTICULARS OF THE DISCOVERY OF CESTER. inspection, leaving our readers to form their own conclusions." "Description of the Skeleton, &c. of King John, us drawn up by Mr. Sandford. "The body, or rather the skeleton, was found to have been adjusted in the stone coffin, precisely in the same form as the figure on the tomb, but the scull, which was loose, instead of being placed with the face in the usual situation, presented the foreamen magnum, or that opening from which the spine proceeds, turned upwards; or, in simple terms, the scull was detached or lying on its crown *. The lower part of the os frontis was so much perished as to have become nearly of an even surface with the bottoms of the sockets of the eyes. The upper jaw contained four teeth, in very good preservation, and free from caries,-two of them were dentes molares, and two biscupides. The lower jaw was separated from the scull, and found near the right elbow; the coronoid processes were very perfect, as well as, the condyles; there were no teeth in this jaw; the ulna (Extracted from Chambers's History of that of the left arm was detached from the M antient City.) R. CHAMBERS, having made use of Mr. Green's words relative to the state of the skeleton of King John, thus proceeds to correct the inadvertencies which he has fallen into, and which he was thoroughly enabled to do, from the very polite assistance afforded by Mr. Sandford, Surgeon, of Worcester; that gentleman, as Mr. Green jastly observes, being convened with the Dean and Chapter, &c. on the opening of the tomb. "We shall keep Mr. Sandford's remarks wholly distinct from those obligingly sent us by another gentle man, present on the same occasion, on whose accuracy we can depend, as also the memoranda of the late Mr. Jeal, sexton of the Cathedral, who made his notes before the Dean and Chapter were admitted, and consequently before the crowd of people were so great as to prevent a minute skeleton, and lying obliquely on the breast; the ulna of the right arm lay nearly in its proper place, but the radius of each arm, and the bones of each hand, were missing; the bones of the ribs, pelvis, &c. were so much covered with dust, and the foldings of the decayed robe, as not to be clearly distinguishable; part of the tibia of the right leg lay in nearly its proper position, and was exposed to view; the knee of this limb appeared to have been contracted t, and not lying so straight down as the left. The bones of the toes were in good preservation, more particularly those of the right foot. The rest of the bones, more especially those of the lower extremities, were nearly perfect, and on the whole appeared to lay as they might naturally have done in the living subject. Some large pieces of mortar were found with the skeleton in the stone coffin +, and vast quantities of dry skins of * "Mr. Stafford, the present sexton, who was present at the opening of the tomb, assured me that the scull was found lying nearly on the right shoulder, where it was placed, as Mr. S. describes it, by some one before the Dean and others were admitted." +"Could this have been occasioned by any adventitious circumstance?" + "If mortar, it was remarkably white and very fine." Jeal. mag maggots these are supposed to have been produced by some part of the original body having gone into putrefaction (a circumstance imagined sometimes to have happened notwithstanding the precaution of embalming) previous to its removal. The bowels and heart of King John were buried in Croxton Abbey, in Staffordshire, the abbot of which had been his physician, and performed the operation of embalming him.-(See Holinshed.) Thus the maggots, having remained undisturbed, were, upon the present discovery, seen in such great numbers: or, that some part of the dress, being of leather, they might have been produced by the natural putrefaction of that animal substance. The skeleton measured 5 feet 6 inches and a half t.. "The Dress in which the body of the King was found, appears also to have been similar to that in which his figure is represented on the tomb, excepting the gloves on its hands, and the crown on its head, which on the scull in the coffin was found to be the celebrated monk's cowl, which was whole, in which he is recorded to have been buried, as a passport through the Regions of Purgatory. This sacred envelope appeared to have fitted the head very closely, and had been tied or buckled under the chin by two straps, parts of which remained, but the buckles or clasps, which were probably of great value, were gone. The body was covered with a robe, reaching from the neck nearly to the feet §; it had some of its embroidery still remaining near the right knee; it was apparently of crimson damask, and of a strong texture its colour, however, was so totally discharged from the effect of time, that it is but conjecturally it can be said to have been of any, but what has now pervaded the whole object; namely, a dusky brown ;-the cuff of the left arm, which had been laid on the breast, remained. In that hand a sword, in a leather scabbard, had been placed on the tomb, parts of which, much decayed, were found at intervals down the left side of the body, and to the feet, as were also parts of the scabbard, but in a much more perfect state than those of the sword. The legs had on a sort of ornamented covering, which was tied round at the ancles, and extended over the feet, where the bones were visible through the decayed parts; the string about the left ancle still remained 1. The upper part of those coverings could not be traced, and it is undecided whether they should be termed boots, or whether they were a part of the under dress, similar to the modern pantaloons. It would have been fortunate had it been determined whether they were of leather, or of what sort of drapery; most probably composed of undrest leather. "The Coffin is of the Higley stone of Worcestershire, white, and chisel levelled; wholly dissimilar in its kind to either that of the foundation of the tomb, its pannels, covering, or figure of the king. A very considerable fracture runs through it, in an oblique direction, one foot six inches from the left shoulder, to two feet nine inches from the right. The *"The durability of these little semi-trausparent animal substances was absolutely surprising; they bore some resemblance to the covering, taken from the tale part of the shrimp, but not more than a quarter of the size. It is reported that some person intruded in this skin a live maggot, which he used as a bait in fishing, and from this originated the silly tale of a person fishing with one of the maggots found in the body of King John." +"Although the body measured 5 feet 6 inches, and the coffin 5 feet 7 inches at the longest extremity within, there is no reason to suppose he could be so tall by several inches." K... "Certainly not tied." Jeal. "Mr. Stafford informs me it was so strong, as with difficulty it could be rent. This statement and that of Mr. Jeal is corroborated by Mr. Sandford." "The fragments of the sword scarcely retained the appearance of ever having been metal, being corroded completely through, and reduced to a kind of soft brown earth; or, as Butler observes, 'Had eat into itself for lack Of somebody to hew and hack'." K. "The feet were in a wrapping of the same as the under robe, and tied round the leg with a lace of the same." Jeal's MS. 4 Length of the original cover or lid REMARKS BY GREEN.-"It hath already been said, that the foregoing discovery of the remains of King John had resulted from the strong assumptions of conjecture, founded on the opinions of former antiquaries of established character, and supported by those of others of the present times, asserting that the original sepulchre and interment of the royal body was in the Lady's Chapel of this Cathedral; nor has the least circumstance, from the recent disclosure of it in the tomb in the choir, arisen to invalidate those opinions and conjectures. Let then the reader form in his imagination the stone coffin, in which the remains of the king now repose, to be let into the floor of the Lady's Chapel, between the figures of the two bishops already laid there, and so deep as to have its top level with the pavement; and let him also suppose the sculptured figure of the king, now lying on the tomb, placed on the coffin as its covering, and which would apparently seem laid on the floor; he will then have the entire ancient sepulchre of King John, as originally constructed in that chapel, fully before his mind's eye. Those of the two prelates are precisely of the same fashion, laid the same depth in the earth, and in nothing different but the sculptures, and the kind of stone of which they are formed. It is presumed, from the abundant evi- "The difficulty of giving a clearer representation, by an engraving, of the position of the scull of King John, has prevented us from attempting what would rather add to the obscurity of that which we should attempt more clearly to explain. It will be seen by this statement of Mr. Sandford's, the lower jaw, not the upper jaw, was displaced from the scull, and found near the right elbow.' There was no appearance of grey hairs under the covering of the head, nor any toe nails visible, and this is corroborated by Mr. Jeal's MS. "Since drawing up of the above account, we have met with the following notice among Mr. Jeal's papers, and which has never been published:On Tuesday, Nov. 26, 1793, in the presence of the Dean, his son, Mr. Andrew St. John, Mr. Kilvert, |