improvements on the throwing, twisting, or spinning of sewing silks, organzine, bergam, and such other descriptions of silk as the said improvements may be applicable to.-March 6. W. Palmer, of Lothbury, London, paper-hanger, for improvements in machinery, for the purpose of printing or staining paper.-April 4. R. Winter, of Fen-court, London, for an improved method of conducting the process of distillation.-April 28. S. Hall, of Basford, for a method of improving lace, net, muslin, calico, and any other description of manufactured goods whose fabric is composed of holes or interstices, and also thread or yarn, as usually manufactured, of any kind, whether the said manufactured goods, or the said thread or yarn, be fabricated from flax, cotton, silk, worsted, or any other substance or mixture of substances whatsoever.-May 7. W. Mitchell, of Glasgow, for a process whereby gold and silver plate, and any other plate formed of ductile metals, may be manufactured in a more perfect and expeditious manner than by any process which has hitherto been employed in such manufacture.-May 12. J. Woolams, of Wells, for improvements in wheeled carriages of various descriptions, to counteract the falling, and facilitate the labour of animals attached to them, and to render persons and property in and near them more secure from injury.-June 3. C. Mackintosh, esq., of Crossbasket, Lanarkshire, for a process of manufac ture, whereby the texture of hemp, flax, wool, cotton, and silk; and also leather, paper, and other substances, may be rendered impervious to water and air.June 3. R. Mushet, of the Royal Mint, Towerhill, Middlesex, for a mean or means, process or processes, for improving the quality of copper, and of alloyed copper, applicable to the sheathing of ships and other purposes.-June 21. J. Green, of Mansfield, for an improvement in certain machines used for roving, spinning, and twisting cotton, flax, silk, wool, or other fibrous substances.-June 24. J. Bourdieu, esq., of Lime-street, for a mucilage or thickening matter to be used in printing or colouring linen, woollen, and cotton cloths and silks, in cases in which gums, mucilages, and other thickening matters are now employed. Communicated to him by a foreigner residing abroad.—June 24. ANTIQUITIES AND MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE. CHAN NHANCERY Records. labour and researches promoted by the royal commissioners on public records, have led to the discovery of a great variety and number of unarranged records of the Court of Chancery. They have been found dispersed through the Recordoffice, the chapel, and the room in the White Tower, in lockers, drawers, and cupboards, as well as in the great heap (where many charters were also found), under the arch in the Tower of the city of London. They consist of partitions of lands, assignments of dower, writs of scire facias to repeal letters patent, with the pleading thereon; "of these latter documents there are 56 issued on behalf of Henry Prince of Wales, to repeal letters patent of queen Elizabeth, by which she had granted to divers persons several of the possessions of the Duchy of Cornwall." There are, besides, many other curious and valuable documents of the reigns of Henry 7th and Henry 8th, and various other important records relating to lands. When the records in the Tower were examined in 1800, by order of parliament, according The to the return, it does not appear to have been known that there were any proceedings in the Court of Chancery preserved there, of an earlier date than the reign of queen Elizabeth, except some few in the reign of Henry 7th; and there have since been discovered, besides the documents already noted, in an obscure part of the north gallery of the chapel of the White Tower, a series of those proceedings, consisting of bundles of bills, answers, and depositions, during the reigns of Henry 6th, Edward 4th and 5th, and Richard 3rd. The great mass of unsorted records lying under the arch at the north-east corner of the White Tower, first discovered in the year 1809, have been taken out and sorted. The Chancery records, to the amount of upwards of seven thousand, have since been unfolded, cleaned, smoothed, and arranged in portfolios, under the names of the several chancellors; chiefly during the reigns of Henry 3rd, Henry 8th, Edward 6th, Philip and Mary, queen Elizabeth, and James 1st. There have already been found (observe the commissioners) the proceedings in eight hundred and forty suits, whilst cardinal Wolsey was chancellor; the proceedings in 1,560 suits, in the chancellorship of sir Thomas Audley; and the proceedings in 1,250 suits in the time of sir N. Bacon. The Cottonian Manuscripts. The commissioners have caused the catalogue of the Cottonian MSS. to be printed; and have prefaced it with a long, but exceedingly interesting, "account of the formation, contents, and catalogues of the collection of Cottonian MSS." This preface gives some particulars of this memorable collector. Sir Robert Cotton, who was a descendant from a very ancient family, which, in the reign of Edward 3rd, flourished in the county of Chester, was born at Denton, Huntingdonshire, January 22, 1570. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he early imbibed a taste, and laid the foundation for his pre-eminent learning in the antiquities and history of his country. On his leaving college, this bias was greatly increased by the free intercourse he immediately commenced with those celebrated antiquaries, Jocelin, Lambard, Camden, Noel, and several others, who, about that time (though unsuccessfully) attempted the establishment of an Antiquarian Society. He neglected no opportunities to acquire chronicles, chartularies, and other original muniments; and many presented themselves, as numbers of such documents at the late dissolution of the monasteries had found their way into private hands, who were rarely aware of their importance. In 1599, he accompanied Camden in a journey to the north of England, where they jointly ex plored the whole extent of the Picts' wall, and brought away several inscriptions and monuments, which he ultimately presented to his college at Cambridge, where they are now carefully preserved. After an active public life, this preface feelingly observes"It is, no doubt, greatly to be lamented that a life so meritorious should, toward its close, have been imbittered by base calumny and the arbitrary proceedings of those from whom he had an undoubted right to expect distinguished favour and protection. By order of the privy-council, once in the reign of James 1st, 1615, and again in the reign of Charles 1st, 1629, his library was locked up, as not of a nature to be exposed to public inspection, and he was himself excluded from the use of it!" Shortly before his death, he caused it to be signified to the privy council," that their so long detaining his books from him, without rendering any reason for the same, had been the cause of his mortal malady." He died May 6, 1631. "That the library continued in sequestration some time after his death, appears manifest (observes the royal commissioners' preface) from the petition of sir Thomas Cotton, his only son and heir, wherein he states that his study had been a long time locked up, and himself debarred from the use of it; and that it appeared from a schedule of the contents of the said library, prepared for the purpose, that there were no books or papers therein but such as were the undoubted property of the petitioner; he therefore praved that he might henceforth have the free use of his study, it being the best room in his house. Although no account is extant that the prayer of such petition was complied with, there is every reason to believe that it was soon after granted; and that sir Thomas, to whom the property had devolved, continued to the day of his death, which happened in the year 1662, in quiet possession of his library." Stukeley relates that the high sheriff for Bedfordshire (Bramstall), in 1650, was greatly instrumental in preserving this inestimable treasure, during the convulsions of the civil wars, in which, remarks the preface, "all documents of a constitutional or legal nature were industriously sought after, in order to be destroyed." The Lansdown Manuscripts. A catalogue of the "Lansdown Manuscripts," likewise has been printed by authority of the commission on public records. This collection of manuscripts was purchased in 1807, by a vote of parliament, of the representatives of the then late marquis of Lansdown, for the sum of 4,9251. The catalogue is divided into two parts: the first consisting of the Burghley papers only; the second comprehending the remainder of the manuscripts in general, including the Cæsar and Kennett papers. Of the Burghley papers one volume contains copies of charters, &c. of an early period; but the remainder, amounting to 121 volumes in folio, consist of state papers, interspersed with miscellaneous correspondence during the long reign of queen Elizabeth; and among these is "the private memorandum book of lord Burghley." Exclusively of the larger series, this collection of manuscripts comprehends many valuable works on different subjects. In British History, Topography, and JurispruVOL. LXV. dence, the collection is particularly rich. It contains a beautifully illuminated manuscript of "Har dyng's Chronicle," as it was presented by its author to Henry 6th, which deserves especial notice. It was formerly sir Robert Cotton's, and it differs from the printed copies of the Chronicles (which come down to Edward 4th's time) so much, as not even to admit of collation. There is in it, also, a fair transcript of the "Chronicle of Andrew of Wyntown;" and three volumes of original correspondence, the first containing letters written by royal, noble, and eminent persons of Great Britain, from the time of Henry 6th to the reign of his late majesty. The most important document in the other two volumes is, the memorable letter of lady Jane Gray, as queen of England, to the marquis of Northampton, requiring the allegiance against what she calls "the fayned and untrewe clayme of the lady Mary, bastard daughter to our great uncle Henry th' eight of famous Memorye." There is likewise a valuable" treatise on the court of star chamber, written in the time of king James 1st, and king Charles 1st, by William Hudson, esq., of Gray's Inn." In biblical learning the collection contains two volumes of particular interest. One is a fine manuscript of part of the old Testament, in English, as translated by Wicliffe; the other is a volume elegantly written on vellum, and illuminated, containing part of a French Bible, translated by Raoul de Presle, or Praelles, at the command of Charles 5th of France - a version of extreme rarity even in that country. There are also some fine classical manuscripts; amongst them a fac-simile of the celebrated Virgil in the X* Vatican library, made by Bartoli, thority of parliament, it appears that the kings, heralds, and pur suivants, of the college of Arms (by their memorial in chapter agreed to), represented, that the building, in which their records are preserved, was not only falling fast to decay, but in constant and imminent danger from fire, inasmuch as a sugar-house, the timbers of which are actually inserted in the walls of the college, immediately adjoins the library, and there is no party-wall between the buildings. Though the royal com missioners, by personal inspection, ascertained that it was necessary to remove the college into some public building, or to secure it against the extreme peril of fire to which it was exposed, nothing could be done. The Chapter again memorialized the government, representing that the decay of the building had increased so rapidly as to render it even an unsafe residence to those officers who inhabit certain parts of it; and, in particular, they had observed, that some of the library presses had sunk considerably, and that the books contained in them were suffering from damp. They searched for the cause, and they discovered that the north wall had become so ruinous as to render it necessary to lay a great part of it bare, by taking down three of the said presses, and they were in consequence obliged to remove some hundred volumes of manuscripts, which were contained in them, into the hall, which is the public passage to the office. They also forwarded memorials, with like representations, to the duke of Norfolk, as Earl Marshal of England. The building remaining still the same, the memorialists again di rected attention to this subject, |