Approaching Sales.

Auctioneers will confer a favour by forwarding to the Editor of the ANTIQUARIAN Notices of Sales of Articles of Virtu, for insertion in this Table.

THE ANTIQUARIAN.

SATURDAY, MAY 20th, 1871.

THE PRESERVATION OF ANCIENT

REMAINS.

Fortunately, considerable action in this direction has already been successfully effected, and much gratitude is due to those persons through whose praiseworthy exertions the levelling blow against an ancient building or monument has been happily averted. The daily increasing physical activity of the present age, however, which, unchecked, would soon sweep away almost every remaining vestige of antiquity, proves the need there is of greater watchfulness and guard over these threatened teachers of history. It is pleasing to know that more earnest endeavours are being made for the conservation of all that is

'HE veneration of ancient remains the august produc- worth saving, in our own and foreign countries, by ArchæTHE tion of human hands-is a lawful sentiment, and ological and Antiquarian Societies throughout the kingthe degree of its exercise is unerringly indicative of a people's dom and abroad. advancement in civilisation, because the feeling thereby manifested arises from a regard to man himself to the great worker, who is ever far superior to his highest work.

At home, the difficulties in the way are numerous and great; so obstructive are they, indeed, that Parliamentary action in the matter has been suggested and solicited, and it is well to continue appealing to Government for the appointment of some well-qualified official, whose duty shall be the protection of our ancient remains from immeinterest towards the works of the past, especially in those The awakening in individuals an persons on whose lands such remains exist, is, we are aware, employing the best agency for that desirable end, and it is encouraging to know that this is being more and more accomplished by the public press throughout the country.

With the constant increase of population in cities and hamlets, and the consequent imperative necessity of otherwise occupying the sites of old erections and other artificial human constructions, it becomes quite impossible to pre-diate or early ruin. serve many memorials that our affections would willingly spare. The old and worn-and therefore obscure-must slowly yet inevitably yield to the new and perfect- and therefore plain-as surely as day succeeds to night. The reverend footprints of the past, over which gratified generations have worshipfully pondered, must all gradually become fainter and fainter under the growing traffic of the present.

To mark this absolutism of change over the works of man is both pleasing and profitable, for what is more emotional

than to observe the hoarness, the mellowness, and the natural

final decay of objects whose beginnings date almost from the

immemorial; and what is more instructive than the truthful

teachings from these crumbling witnesses of human history? We can patiently submit to their slow withdrawal, and ultimate disappearance, after they have conferred their full delight, knowing that their long-postponed departure is in obedience to a universal law. Such certain loss it is impossible to avoid; we can only dutifully support them until their end, and thoughtfully behold their expected fall.

But while admitting our powerlessness wholly to preserve the manifold monuments of our ancestors, the mute, yet eloquent, witnesses of their lives and labours, this inability affords no justification or excuse for the wanton removal, alteration, or injury of any such monument spared to us by the more compassionate hand of time. The most merciless destroyers everywhere of historical landmarks are the ignorant and the greedy, who, seeing neither beauty nor utility in these archaic signatures of our forefathers, written here and there upon the land, ruthlessly obliterate them from our gaze and contemplation. Hence the necessity on the part of the antiquarian and the well-informed to assist individually and unitedly in arresting needless acts of destruction or damage.

A correspondent, whose forcible letter, in another column, on the Preservation of Ancient Remains will be perused

with much attention, has induced us to make these few general remarks on this more than national question, and we earnestly invite information from all quarters respecting any present or prospective defacement or destruction of our ancient remains, in order to strengthen that worthy phalanx in arms against vandalism, wherever and by whomsoever perpetrated.

THE

THE GOTHS IN PARIS.

HE paradoxical act of barbarism just committed in artistic Paris, in the wanton destruction of the Vendome Column by the Communists, and the threatened demolition by them of other and more valuable national monuments, is most deeply to be deplored. The approaching entry of the Versaillais into Paris, and the consequent severe. fighting that will most probably ensue on the Champs Elysées, leads us to fear that their cannon directed against the Place Concorde may utterly ruin the fine Egyptian obelisk gracing the centre of that magnificent square, and even endanger the priceless collection of art treasures in the museum of the Louvre. It is to be hoped that in the behalf of humanity and that of art, so dire a calamity will not be permitted to disgrace the history of France.

child, and it was at that time and during her previous pregnancy, the affections of her husband were alienated from her, and fixed upon Jane Seymour, one of the maids of honour. Queen Anne was accused of criminal intercourse with her the 2nd of May was sent to the Tower. Of her conduct brother, Viscount Rochford and four other persons, and on there an exact account may be derived from the letters of Sir William Kingston, the lieutenant, of which five, together with one from Edward Baynton, have been printed by Sir H. Ellis, from the originals in the British Museum. On the 16th May, Kingston writes impatiently to "know the King's pleasure as shortly as may be, that we here may prepare for the same, which is necessary for to do execution." On the 18th he writes: "and in the writing of this she sent for me, and at my coming, she said, 'Mr. Kingston, I hear say I shall not die afore noon, and I am very sorry therefore, for I thought to be dead by this time, and past my pain.’ told her it should be no pain, it was so subtle. And then and I have a little neck; and put her hands about it, she said, 'I have heard say the executioner was very good, laughing heartily." On the 19th of May she was executed on the green before the Tower, denying her guilt, but into a common chest of elm-tree, used to put arrows in." speaking charitably of the King. "Her body was thrown

Henry VI. was, after his death, revered as a martyr by the Lancastrians, and many miracles were reported to have been wrought at his tomb. He was buried at Windsor.

MAY 30th, 542.-This is generally attributed as the day on which King Arthur died at Glastonbury, where he was buried, having been conveyed thither after the fatal battle of Camlan, in Cornwall. Tradition preserved the memory of the place of his interment within the Abbey, as we are told by Giraldus Cambrensis, who was present when the grave was opened by command of Henry II., and saw the bones and sword of the monarch, and a leaden cross let into his tombstone, with the inscription in rude Roman letters, Hic jacet sepultus inclitus Rex Arturius in insula Avalonia, as seen by Leland, and copied from an attested copy by

Camden.

LONDON CRYPTS.

In

THE recent destruction of the ancient crypt at the Aldgate end of Leadenhall Street, was a piece of Vandalism which archeologists were loud in deploring: but, as the City Press points out, they may find some comfort in the fact that there yet remain in the City several of these interesting specimens of the architecture of bygone ages. The principal crypt is that under the Guildhall, which is rich in its antiquarian associations. It is a portion of the ancient hall, erected in 1411. St. Bartholomew's crypt, in Bartholomew Close, is (or was until recently) in good preservation; it is very extensive. There is a tradition that there was once a subterranean passage extending from here to Canonbury. excavating for the foundations for the new offices of the City of London Union, shortly to be erected in Bartholomew Close, some interesting remains will probably be found. The crypt under Bow Church, Cheapside, is said to be of the time of William the Conqueror. Mr. Timbs says Wren thought it to be of Norman workmanship, but was mistaken. There is a crypt of somewhat more modern date-of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries-under Garraway's Coffee House, Change Alley, Cornhill. It is of ecclesiastical character, and has a piscina. There are several groined arches in fine preservation. It is believed that the present floor is not the original one, from the circumstance that a portion of it recently gave way. In addition to St. Paul's Cathedral, the sites of other crypts now in existence in the City are Lamb's Chapel, Monkwell Street; Leather Sellers' Hall, St. Helen's Place; Merchant Taylors' Hall, Threadneedle Street; and the Church of St. Mary Aldermary, Bow Lane. There is also a very fine crypt at St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell.—The Building News.

THE WHITE TOWER OF LONDON. IN reference to this ancient structure, a contributor to sidered that the White Tower was the nucleus of the Tower Notes and Queries writes:-"It has been generally conof London. It was known in the twelfth century that during the Saxon period there was a tower in this locality; learned men of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries termed it Caesar's Tower; and in the present century good authorities have assigned to it a higher antiquity than the Norman period.

"The importance of this tower has always been appreciated by the ruling powers of the nation, insomuch that from the earliest times few of our public buildings have had more real care bestowed upon their maintenance; and until within a comparatively recent period the interior of the White Tower remained substantially in its primitive unadorned state. The most extensive alteration it was subjected to, at any one time, was when Sir Christopher Wren enThe thickness of the mortar joints allowed small flints being larged the windows and faced them with Portland stone. driven into the joints when the building was pointed; and in other respects the walls have been repaired, when needful, to make good the defects of age.

basement remains; the rest of the projection has either been "The south-west angle of the original wide-spreading removed for the convenience of making additions, or may possibly still exist beneath the superincumbent accumulation of raised ground.

corroded the surface of the White Tower, it is plain that the Although the action of the London atmosphere has buttresses were built of hewn masonry for about twenty feet upwards from the plinth, and that two courses of hewn masonry were laid immediately over the plinth.

"The staircase (making due allowance for the addition of some openings, and for the alterations of others) is less modernised than the rest of the structure, and affords a clue building, as must have been perceptible to practical persons to the general construction of the masonry throughout the who have had the opportunity of examining the portions which, from time to time, have been laid bare during the repairs effected within the last thirty years.

66

White Tower, which fourth part only was vaulted, and that The chapel occupies one fourth part of the area of the for three stories in height. The significant importance thus given to a fourth part of the whole building raises a question as to the primary object of the structure, and suggests, in the first instance, a reasonable conjecture, namely, that the White Tower was built for what is now called the chapel, and not the chapel for the White Tower. On the authority of Sir Christopher Wren the chapel is older than the Conquest, and so Romanesque are its few architectural features that archæologists, failing to find the usual Norman ornaments, are driven to describe its details in terms appertaining to classical architecture, such as Ionic and Corinthian; and further, in order to uphold the foregone conclusion that the White Tower is a Norman building, the attention of superficial readers is diverted by at once pronouncing the chapel to be the earliest and simplest, as well as the most complete, Norman chapel in Britain.

DISCOVERY OF A ROMAN TOMBSTONE AT LINCOLN.-An interesting addition to the Roman sepulchral monuments of Lincoln has just been made through the discovery of another tombstone on the site of the new church of St. Swithin, on the west of the lower Roman town. This was found about 2 ft. below the surface, and may well be compared with one now preserved in the cathedral cloister and described in the Archeological Journal, vol. xvii., p. 4; also with another engraved and described in the same volume, p. 20. It consists of the upper portion of a similar tombstone of Lincoln oolite, 2 ft. by 7 ft. wide, ft. by 6 ft. high, and 8 in. thick. "Whatever alterations the Normans may have made in It clearly formed the upper part of a pedimented sepulchral the White Tower, or whatever buildings they may have memorial, on the lower part of which no doubt the inscrip- erected around it, their work soon crumbled away, while that tion or epitaph was cut, but now destroyed. Within a niche of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries proved durable. between pillars and pediment is carved the bust of a young The Royal Sappers and Miners of the nineteenth century man having unparted crisply curling hair, and clothed in a had experience of the labour and difficulty of cutting a tunnel tunic and mantle. His hands are crossed in front, and with through twenty-four feet of Roman wall. The massive prothem he holds a hare. There was also turned up a small portions and the prodigious strength of the White Tower are brass Roman coin, bearing on the obverse the bust of Con-among the strongest evidences of the building being Roman stantius II.

and not Norman."

THE ROUND TOWERS OF IRELAND.

PALESTINE EXPLORATION FUND.

IN a lecture on the "Historical Development of Ornamental THE following notice has been issued to the Subscribers
Art," delivered by Dr. G. G. Zerffi, at the South Kensington
Museum, on the 9th instant, he remarked:-

and others:-Subscribers of Half-a-Guinea and upwards are entitled to the Quarterly Pamphlet published by the Committee. The Secretary will be very glad to be informed of any omission, which he will rectify immediately on notification. New Series, No. I., Jan. 1871, contains:-Mr. E. H. Palmer, M.A. (Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge), on the Desert of the Exodus, with Map of the Country, and numerous Illustrations. New Series, No. II. (immediately), contains: A New Map of Moab — Mr. Palmer on the Lebanon (with an Illustration) — Captain Warren on the Plain of Philistria-Dr. Hyde Clarke on the Pra-Israelite Inhabitants of Palestine-Discoveries by M. Clermont Ganneau, &c. To Non-subscribers, Is. No. 9, Pall Mall East, May 12, 1871.

THE TICHBORNE DOLE.

"The originality of Keltic art could be best studied in the Round Towers. The Round Tower was a building of extraordinary interest, erected for a purpose which it was difficult to discover. We had obelisks, pillars, and towers in India, Scythia, Scandinavia, Mexico, and Peru, among Buddhists, Mahometans, and Christians. To point upwards to some better world, either by means of a symbolic block or the eloquent belfry, the metal hearts of which beat in unison with our joys or griefs, was a natural tendency in man. The Round Towers of Ireland were of Cyclopean structure, i.e., built without cement, and had driven many a learned archeologist into propounding the wildest theories with regard to their origin. Three works on the subject the lecturer commended as especially interesting. Of these, that by Petrie was the most reasonable; that by O'Brien the most paradoxical; and that by Keane apparently the most learned. In addition to these, a whole phalanx of writers had endeavoured to constrain to speech these mysteriously silent stone spectres of a bygone_age. There were fifteen different theories respecting these Round Towers, which respectively asserted: (1) that they were constructed by the Danes; this view was but vaguely supported, and was dismissed as unworthy of credence by Petrie; (2) that they were of Phoenician origin; with regard to this theory, it was highly probable that commercial relations had existed between the Kelts of Ireland and North Gaul and the Phoenicians, for even at the time of Solomon the Phoenicians had extended their navigation as far as the south-western coast of Spain; still we knew too little of their mythology to be able to say what the Round Towers might have signified, even if they were really to be ascribed to them; (3) that they were of purely Christian origin; (4) that they were Persian fire-perty. The venerable dame, however, ordered her attendtemples; this theory went far, and served to connect Zoroaster and the Parsees with the Old Kelts; (5) that they were Druidical, a kind of minaret from which the priests summoned the worshippers on high festivals to prayer; (6) that they were gnomons, or astronomical observatories; this might have been the case; we could not, however, produce the calculations of one of these Keltic astronomers, nor discover any traces of his having made them; (7) that they were emblems of the creative god of nature; this was also possible; emblems of this kind were common to all nations; (8) that they were of Buddhistic origin, and had formed parts of Buddhistic temples; the Daghopas of the Buddhists bore, however, little or no resemblance to these towers; (9) that they were anchorite towers; there was nothing to make us doubt this; some of the early Irish Christians might have wished to live on a lofty height, so as to detach themselves from a sinful world; (10) that they were penitential towers; the cruelty of fanaticism was boundless; why should not some good persons have invented this kind of martyrdom for those who incurred their displeasure? (11) that they were belfries; we could, however, find no traces of bells, and a belfry without them would have been somewhat purposeless; (12) that they were keeps or monastic castles; the distinction between these keeps and the pillars just mentioned was not very obvious; the rules, however, were stricter for those who performed the duty of turning themselves into living statues; (13) that they were beacons; as, however, many of these towers stood in deep valleys, their applicability to this purpose was not apparent; (14) that they were watch-towers; this was, for the reason just adduced, unlikely; and (15) that they were monuments in commemoration of the Tower of Babel, and were erected by the dispersed Cuthites; this theory was the more remarkable, as it had been evolved from the theory of purely Christian origin."

THE family of Tichborne date their possession of the present patrimony, the manor of Tichborne, so far back as 200 years before the Conquest. When the Lady Mabella, worn out with age and infirmity, was lying on her deathbed, she besought her loving husband, as her last request, that he would grant her the means of leaving behind her a charitable bequest, in a dole of bread to be distributed to all who should apply for it annually on the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Sir Roger, her husband, readily acceded to her request by promising the produce of as much land as she could go over in the vicinity of the park while a certain brand or billet was burning, supposing that, from her long infirmity (for she had been bedridden some years), she would be able to go round a small portion only of his proants to convey her to the corner of the park, where, being deposited on the ground, she seemed to receive a renovation of strength, and to the surprise of her anxious and admiring lord, who began to wonder where this pilgrimage might end, she crawled round several rich and goodly acres. The field which was the scene of Lady Mabella's extraordinary feat retains the name of "Crawls" to this day. It is situated near the entrance of the park, and contains an area of 23 acres. Her task being completed, she was re-conveyed to her chamber, and, summoning her family to her bedside, predicted its prosperity while the annual dole existed, and left her malediction on any of her descendants who should be so mean or covetous as to discontinue or divert it, prophesying that when such should happen the old house should fall, and the family name would become extinct from the failure of heirs male, and that this would be foretold by a generation of seven sons being followed immediately after by a generation of seven daughters and no son. The custom thus founded in the reign of Henry II. continued to be observed for centuries, and the 25th of March became the annual festive day of the family. It was not until the middle of the last century that the custom was abused; when, under the pretence of attending Tichborne Dole, vagabonds, gipsies, and idlers of every description assembled from all quarters, pilfering throughout the neighbourhood; and at last, the gentry and magistrates complaining, it was discontinued in 1796. Singularly enough, the baronet of the day had seven sons, and when he was succeeded by the eldest there appeared a generation of seven daughters, and the apparent fulfilment of the prophecy was completed by the change of the name of the late baronet to Doughty, under the will of his kinswoman. (This allusion is to Sir Edward Doughty, ninth baronet, who inherited the "Doughty" estate, then Mr. Edward Tichborne.)