Doubtless there was an old superstition connected with the "adder-bead" or "snake-stone," and I think it not at all unlikely that the "cor anguinum,” an encrinite in its fossil state so called, had a value attached to it through superstitious observances.

These fossils somewhat resemble a bead, and I have found in ancient graves two specimens buried with relics belonging to the deceased, one from Sarre and the other from Faversham.

These graves were not Celtic, nevertheless the practice might have descended, as when in other respects we find that the Anglo-Saxon who practised interment by inhumation buried an urn or two after the custom of the Romans, whose remains were generally deposited according to the rites of cremation.

I am not aware that these beads have ever been found with British or Celtic remains. The Copenhagen bead, said to have been taken from a Danish grave, could hardly prove their Scandinavian origin. It is an isolated case if correct, and as the great rivers of Northern Europe were once the chief highways for the transmission of Eastern manufactures into Sweden and Denmark, as in the instance of the Arabic coins found in Scandinavia referred to by Mr. Akerman, so one of these beads might have been derived from the East, and been placed as a valuable relic in the grave of its Danish possessor, in the same manner as these Northmen, in their expeditions to North America in the eleventh century, might have obtained specimens of the polychrome bead, and carried some of these objects to Canada; there after a time they became the spoil of the victorious aborigines, when the Scandinavian settlers were overpowered and destroyed. However, we are here attempting to elucidate a discovery which it is difficult to explain. The structure of the bead itself, and the artistic skill required for its manufacture, seems to negative the idea that it belonged to these primitive peoples.

Nothing in glass has been produced by the Celts and Scandinavians analogous to it.

In M. de la Villemarqué's "Chansons de la Bretagne (Barzaz-Breiz) there are allusions to the mythical serpent's egg, "L'oeuf rouge du serpent marin, dans le creux du rocher," which the Merlin of the Bretons is supposed to be constantly in search of. The snake-stones were used as charms and amulets amongst the Druids of Brittany. They might be the "cor anguinum," though the colour is against this idea ("l'oeuf rouge "), or chance specimens of our polychrome bead, the fabrication of

a Tome i. p. 59.

some ancient people, trading with the Celtic tribes of the north-west coasts of France. The remarkable fact connected with these beads is that they are always found in isolated spots, singly, and never with other antiquarian relics. Thus we have scarcely a clue to lead to the discovery of their origin.

Although a solitary specimen found in a Roman, Danish, or Anglo-Saxon grave, would hardly settle the question, except perhaps as regards their antiquity, I do not consider that they can be of modern origin-I mean the productions of the last three or four centuries; my views incline to the opinion that they are objects of great antiquity. Possibly they may be old Venetian, but against this supposition we have the facts that no specimens of them have been found in Italy, and have no instance of the Old Venetians trading to the British Isles.

Where all seems to be uncertainty we must fall back as regards their origin on the few authorities we can quote, or the supposed facts relative to them which we possess, and which are in favour of an Eastern origin, Egyptian or Phoenician.

Thus I find it reported that the beads in the museum of the Louvre were brought from Egypt. One of the British Museum beads was obtained by the Rev. Greville Chester from Dakkeh, in Nubia. The beads in the museum at New York were brought by Dr. Abbott from a tomb at Sakkara, in Egypt, and lastly, whilst giving the final revision to this paper, Dr. L. G. Olmstead, of Fort Edward, N.Y. informs me that he has just seen at Boston one of the Chevron beads in the Museum of Fine Art in that city, which is also said to have been brought from Egypt.

Now, if all or even one of these statements be true, the original type of these beads must be ancient, and the specimens themselves of Eastern if not of Egyptian origin.

This is the conclusion to which I arrive, being ready, however, to admit that where a certain sort of uncertainty prevails an opinion should be advanced with caution, and that the question may still lie open, hereafter to be more satisfactorily solved by some discovery or circumstance which shall conclusively demonstrate the origin of these beads.

I cannot conclude this paper without expressing my great obligation to Mr. A. W. Franks, F.S.A. in many ways for the assistance he has rendered me in the elucidation of my inquiries, and the valuable suggestions he has made in regard to the facts and authorities which I have collected.

POSTSCRIPT.

I have since received from Mr. Franks the following additional information :On looking over my note-books I have found a few mentions of the bead with chevron patterns which you may like to add to your communication.

In the Antiquarium of the Berlin Museum is a specimen 1 in. long, & in. in diameter; as usual it has no history. In the Austrian Industrial Museum at Vienna are two beads and a fragment; one of the beads is of large size; they formed part of a collection purchased at Rome. In the Museum at Hanover are two, which are said to have come from Lüneburg. There is a specimen. in the collection of our friend John Evans, Esq. F.S.A. but without history. Mr. C. T. Gatty, of the Liverpool Museum, informs me that Miss Lovell has one, about 1 in. long, which she found in the garden of Catherington House, Horn Dean, Hants.

The Rev. Greville Chester has obtained, for the British Museum, a very pretty little specimen. from Egypt, only in. long. It is of the usual pattern but cut square, with only four facets at the ends. In the Egyptian section at the Paris Exhibition, 1878, was a very large bead, mounted in bronze at each end. It was among the Arab objects, but I was unable to obtain any information concerning it.

Professor S. S. Haldeman, of Chickies, Pennsylvania, has kindly sent me one of the little beads from North America, and informs me that a large bead 14 in. long has been recently sent to the Smithsonian Institution. This last was found in a mound in Florida. He has also called my attention to the Journal of the Museum Godefroy at Hamburg, in which is an account of the Pelew Islands, where certain ancient beads pass as money and are much treasured up. Among these are four chevron beads, considered by the natives to be varieties of their most valued coin, the Kalebukubs. These four, the only ones known to them, ornament the necklace of the King's youngest daughter. They seem from the engravings to be rounded, like the North American beads, from to in. in diameter, and if correctly drawn have more than twelve points in the stars. The King stated that he believed this kind of coin to have come from the north-west. The ancient beads constitute the principal wealth of the families and cannot be purchased. One small black and white bead belonging to the King is considered to be worth a complete warcanoe. The whole account is exceedingly curious, and is accompanied by the legends of the natives as to how they became possessed of the various kinds of beads, some of which they attempt to imitate by melting fragments of European bottles.

Another remarkable discovery is that beads of exactly the same pattern as the chevron beads, but very small, have been found in ancient Peruvian graves at Ancon. Two of them are in the Ethnographical Museum at Berlin. Others, also found in Peru, and likewise very small, have recently been acquired for the Liverpool Museum.

a Smithsonian Report, 1877. On a Polychrome Bead from Florida, by S. S. Haldeman; where is engraved another, 13 in. long, from Santa Barbara, California.

b Journal des Museum Godefroy, Heft 4, p. 52, and pl. 2, figs. 8, 9. 1873.

XII.-On an Examination of the Tombs of Richard II. and Henry III. in Westminster Abbey. By the Very Rev. ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D., F.S.A., Dean of Westminster.

Read June 26th, 1873.

TOMB OF RICHARD II.

The tomb of Richard II. has a triple interest: for Westminster Abbey; for English History generally; and for the Society of Antiquaries.

(1.) For the Abbey, Richard II. must remain, in spite of all his faults, one of its most familiar and consecrated personages. His coronation is described in the only volume handed down from mediæval times to the custody of the successive Deans of Westminster: namely, the Liber Regalis of Abbot Littlington, of which a reprint has lately been made for the Roxburghe Society by the munificence of Lord Beauchamp. The event was further marked by the first appearance of two features in the coronations, both especially connected with Westminster, the Champion, and the Knights of the Bath.

He was one of the three English Sovereigns married in the Abbey, the two others being Henry III. and Henry VII. His affection for it is proved by the colossal badge of the White Hart in the Triforium, and by the portrait which long tradition has ascribed to him, and which, after its marvellous restoration by Mr. Richmond, has now returned as nearly as possible to its original place in the choir. So anxiously too did he desire to be buried by the side of the Confessor, that, overleaping the precedent set by his father, the Black Prince, he cleared for himself and his Queen a place in St. Edward's Chapel by transporting the coffins and tomb of his two relations, the children of Humphrey de Bohun, to the chapel of St. John the Baptist.

He also, unconsciously perhaps, but not the less effectively, was the originator of the series of illustrious interments which began with his two favourites, John of Waltham, the first of the statesmen, and Robert Waldeby, the first of the men of letters, who were laid in the church, thereafter to receive the long line of graves of distinguished men in Church and State.

In the case of none of the Plantagenet tombs have we a more complete account of its building and of its ornaments; in none did the Sovereign himself take a keener interest during his lifetime. From none was any king kept away by such strange vicissitudes: carried away by his successor to King's Langley,

as if to avoid the occasion of pilgrimages or demonstrations by his numerous adherents; then brought back years afterwards by the youth whom he had himself knighted; or perhaps, as the Scottish chronicler would have us believe, laid in the church of the Preaching Friars at Stirling on the north side of the altar. (2.) Again, for the history of England his tomb marks the close of the first Plantagenet dynasty. The Lancastrian monuments which follow, whether in Westminster or elsewhere, are of a different type; and from this watershed of history the stream of events henceforth flows in a new direction.

In this tomb at Westminster the bones of Richard II. were laid, under circumstances so peculiar that no other like interment has occurred amongst our kings. No other royal death or burial is enveloped in so fearful a mystery as that occasioned by the threefold account of his death. The doubt was entertained in his own time whether the body brought from Pontefract, through London to King's Langley, was not that of his chaplain Maudelyn; and again, whether he was not long afterwards living a state prisoner in Scotland; and then there arose the pertinacious belief of his followers that he was still living like a Prince Henry of Portugal, or a King Arthur of Brittany, in the fortresses of the usurping successor.* The tragedy of his life is centered in his grave, and has been felt alike by poets and historians. The contrast between his portrait and his tomb close by is the same which so deeply impressed the contemporary chronicler of the fourteenth century, and is the same also which no less deeply impressed the poet of the eighteenth century.

"I saw," says Froissart, "two strange things in my time, though widely different, one was the rejoicings at Bordeaux on Richard's birth, the other was the funeral, when some pitied him, but others did not, saying that he had for long since deserved death." And so Gray in his great historical ode :—

Fair laughs the morn and soft the zephyr blows

While proudly riding o'er the azure realm

In gallant trim, the gilded vessel goes;

Youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm,
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway,
That, hushed in grim repose, expects his living prey.

Those who desire to examine the existing evidence and opinions upon this obscure question will do well to consult the following works:-Chronicque de la Traïson et Mort de Richart Deux Roy dengleterre, by B. Williams. English Historical Society, 1846. P. Fraser Tytler's History of Scotland. English Chronicle, Camden Society. Froissart's Chronicles, chap. 118-119, 121. Fox's History of Pontefract, p. 135-140. Devon's Pell Records, pp. 275-6.--" Paid for carriage of the king's body from Pontefract to London, 667. 138. 4d." Archæologia, vol. vi. p. 314; vol. xx. pp. 220 and 428; vol. xxv. pp. 394-397; vol. xxviii. pp. 75, 85, and 95.