wire connected with the negative pole of the same battery. After some weeks' action gelatinous silex surrounded the iron wire, and, after a long period, the same substance filled up the coil of silver wire at the other pole, but in much less quantity. In the course of time one of these insects appeared in the silex at the negative pole, and there are at the present time not less than three well-formed precisely similar insects at the negative, and twelve at the positive pole, in all fifteen. Each of them is deeply imbedded in the gelatinous silex, the bristles of its tail alone projecting, and the average of them are from half to three quarters of an inch below the surface of the fluid.

"In this last experiment we had neither acid, nor wood, nor flannel, nor iron ore. I will not say whether they would have

been called to life without the electric agency or not. I offer no opinion, but have merely stated certain facts."

NEW COLLEGE OF SURGEONS.

Feb. 14. The rebuilding of the Royal College of Surgeons having been completed, the Hunterian oration was delivered by Sir Benjamin Brodie. Sir Anthony Carlisle, the senior vice-president of the college, presided; and the meeting was honoured by the presence of his Grace the Duke of Wellington, the Bishops of London and Chichester, Earl Stanhope, Lord Denman, Lord Stanley, Lord Burghersh, Sir Robert Peel, Sir Robert Inglis, Sir George Staunton, Sir Henry Halford, the Censors of the Royal College of Physicians, and many other eminent and scientific individuals.

SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES. Feb. 2. The Earl of Aberdeen, President, in the chair.

Sir Henry Ellis, Sec. exhibited a plan of the Roman road between Silchester and Staines, executed by two young offcers at the Royal Military College, Sandburst (see our present number, p. 288.)

Sydney Smirke, esq. F.S.A. made a third and final communication on the remains of the original architecture of Westminster Hall, disclosed during the recent repair conducted under the superintendance of his brother Sir Robert Smirke. From the various relics of the original architectural members, found either on one side wall or the other, Mr. Smirke has been enabled to form a restored drawing of the whole interior elevation of the Hall of Rufus, with authority for nearly every feature: this is a most acceptable offering to the architectural antiquary. It appears that the windows were placed with extraordinary irregularity of distance. The whole bore considerable resemblance to the churches of St. Alban's, and Christ church at Oxford. Mr. Smirke concluded his observations with remarking that the Government deserved the thanks of the present and future generations for the liberal and efficient repair which has been accomplished; whilst he deprecated those parts of the accepted plan for the new Parliamentary buildings, by which Mr. Barry proposes not only to alter materially the form of the upper or south end, but, by placing buildings immediately on the east side, to block up or obscure the very windows which have been recently opened, and which now add materially, in point of

light and effect, to the beauty of the in

terior.

Feb. 9. The Earl of Aberdeen, Pres. James Dodsley Cuff, esq. of Stockwell place, Stockwell, was elected a Fellow of the Society.

Mr. C. R. Smith, F.S.A. exhibited a die and counter die for a half-crown of Charles I. found in the recent excavation at Lothbury. They are rudely executed, and were perhaps formed for forgery.

Sir Henry Ellis communicated from the Lansdowne MSS. an account of an attempted assassination of William Prince of Orange, in 1581; addressed to Lord Burleigh, by William Hurlle, who was an A pistol English envoy at Antwerp.

was fired at the Prince, and the bullet entered at one cheek, and passed through the other, without materially injuring the mouth. The pistol burst and injured the assassin, a Biscayan; and he was killed on the spot by the bystanders. The Prince was the victim of another assassin in 1584.

Feb. 16. The Earl of Aberdeen, Pres.

Robert Bigsby, esq. of Derby, and Robert Abraham, esq. of Keppell-street, architect, were elected Fellows of the Society.

A.J. Kempe, esq. F. S. A. exhibited an engraving by Van Hooge, from a drawing by Visscher, representing the descent upon Sheerness, of the Dutch under Adm. de Ruyter in the reign of Charles II. It exhibits a bird's-eye view of the country in an able and interesting manner.

E. J. Carlos, esq. communicated some observations on several paintings, apparently of the twelfth century, on the roof of one of the chancels of St. Nicholas'

Sir Henry Ellis communicated from the Lansdowne MSS. a very curious report of the state of Ulster temp. Eliz., in which it is described as the most rebellious of all the provinces of Ireland, and the families of the ancient English settlers to differ only in name from the savage barbarity of the original Irish. It discloses several curious particulars of the history and migration of families.

Feb. 23. The Earl of Aberdeen, Pres. Mr. C. R. Smith, F.S. A. exhibited a number of the most singular varieties of the fragments of Roman glass and earthenware found in London during the years 1835 and 1836; including three heads cast in glass, being the lower portions of the handles of vases.

Mr. Kempe communicated some observations on the plan of the survey of the Roman Road between Silchester and Staines, made in 1836 by the students of the senior class in Sandhurst college, and recently laid before the Society, as tending strongly to confirm the opinion of Hors. ley, that Silchester was the Calleva Attrebatum of Antoninus. (See an article on the same subject in onr present month's review.) Mr. Kempe's observations were illustrated by a plan of Silchester, and its walls, amphitheatre, &c. as they remained in 1745, compiled from inedited materials preserved in the King's Library, British Museum; and by a plan of the baths discovered in 1833, commuciated to him by the Rev. Mr. Coles, of Silchester.

Sir Henry Ellis communicated from the Lansdowne MSS. a remarkable plan for the formation of an Academy of Horsemanship, with the rules for its regulation, in the reign of James the First, under the patronage of Henry Prince of Wales, the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, and others of the principal nobility and courtiers.

ROYAL SOCIETY OF LITERATURE.

Dec. 22. D. Pollock, esq. in the chair. The paper read was a part of an unpublished life of Sir Peter Carewe, written by John Vowel, alias Hooker, in the time of Queen Elizabeth; communicated by Sir Thomas Phillipps. The writer details, in a very simple and amusGENT. MAG. VOL. VII.

Peter, from a childhood and youth of a very unpromising character, to the height of his brilliant reputation, as one of the most accomplished courtiers and valorous knights in the service of Henry VIII. He received his education-or, rather, his introduction to the stirring life of the period, at the courts of the King of France and Prince of Orange. Returning to England, he rose at once into favour with Henry, by whose command he attended Lord William Howard, on his embassy to James V. of Scotland, and, afterwards, the Earl of Southampton, in his mission to Calais, to bring over Anna of Cleves. He then travelled into France and Italy, proceeding as far as Constantinople. He subsequently took

a part in all the English expeditions against France, distinguishing himself greatly at the sieges of Terouenne and Calais. One of the most interesting passages read, related to the unfortunate loss of the King's ship, the Mary Rose, at Spithead, with 700 persons on board, including her commander, Sir George Carewe, cousin of Sir Peter.

Jan. 26. Colonel Leake, V.P.

The first communication read was, a letter from Colonel Leake to the Secretary, supplementary to the learned writer's paper, On certain disputed positions in the Topography of Athens, which was read in May 1835. In that paper various arguments were adduced, tending to the conclusion, that the conical mountain of St. George, near Athens, the peak of which bears about E.N.E. from the centre of the original site, is the ancient Lycabettus. Those arguments have since received confirmation from the opinions of the Rev. C. Wordsworth, in his work, entitled Athens and Attica.' A more direct testimony, however, than any previously brought forward, as to the position of Lycabettus, is furnished by the words of Marinus, a Greek writer of the fifth century, who relates that Proclus was buried on the eastern side of the city, near Lycabettus. A further reading consisted of part of an essay, the result of considerable research and erudition, on Two Roman Inscriptions relative to the Conquest of Britain by the Emperor Claudius Cæsar,' the communication of John Hogg, esq. M.A.

Feb. 9. H. Hallam, esq. V.P.

Mr. Hogg's memoir was concluded. One of the inscriptions was proved by Mr. Hogg to be spurious, and copied from the other, which consists of the beginnings of nine lines. It was found by the writer, in 1826, in a wall belonging to the Barberini palace at Rome, but it

2 R

In proceeding to comment on the parts of the inscription separately, Mr. Hogg showed that, although the prænomen Imp. is omitted, it belongs to Claudius the fifth Roman Emperor. The cognomen of Germanicus this emperor assumed from his father Drusus, to whom, and to his posterity, it was given by the senate. For the titular formula, Trib. Pot. IX. Cos. V. Imperatori XVI. he proposed, Trib. Pot. XI. Cos. V. Imp. XXII. i. e. A.D.51. Having indicated the incompetence of the authorities-Eutropius, Jerome, Orosius, and Cassiodorus-from whom, as asserting that Claudius annexed the Orkneys to the Roman Empire, Gauges de' Gozze appears to have completed the eighth line, he suggested, as probably a more correct restoration, Gentesque insularum extremarum, or extremas orbis terrai; while the last line, which was also evidently supplied from the same writers, he altered to Primus indicio facto I. R. addidit. The occasion of the inscription having been erected to Claudius at the above date, includes historical circumstances of great interest. Tacitus (Annal. 1. xii. c. 31-37) states that Publius Ostorius, Proprætor of Britain, having already defeated several of the British tribes, marched against the fierce Silures, who, under their renowned chief Caractacus, advanced into the country of the Ordovices, and fortified a steep place in the mountains; that they were there attacked by Ostorius, and, after an obstinate battle and vast slaughter, the Romans gained a complete victory. Caractacus and his family were sent to Rome, where they were exhibited, with great pomp, before the Roman people. This important inscription was originally discovered in the beginning of the Via Flaminia, in the Piazza Sciarra, where formerly was an arch, which Ferrucci and other writers on the antiquities of Rome believe to have been the arch of Claudius. On the same spot have been likewise discovered an antique tessellated pavement, some fluted columns of African marble, the trunk of a statue of a captive Briton, several pilasters, and other remains.

Mr. Cullimore read a paper, written by himself, 'on the Epoch of Amon-meRamses the Great, as determined by the Astronomical Sculptures in his Palace at Thebes.' In a former paper he had shown, that an alabaster scarabæan Calendar, in the collection of Mr. J. Sams, which bears the prenominal shield of monarch's reign with the origin of the Thothmos Mera, appears to connect that canicular cycle, B.C. 1325–1321, which Theon attributes to Menophres-a name differing from that of Mera or Moris only in common orthographical variations. This epoch likewise corresponds with the age of Moris, according to Herodotus -900 years anterior to that historian's visit to Egypt in the latter half of the fifth century B.C. The purpose of the present memoir was to show, that the astronomical remains of Amon-me-Ramses, the Rameses Miamoun of Manetho, (who was the seventh successor of Mera, and the constructor of the Chronological Tablet of Abydos,) furnish coinciding results, fixing the date of the ceiling of his palace of the Memnonium to the year B.C. 1138, or 180 years lower than the epoch of Mera.

NUMISMATIC SOCIETY.

Feb. 23. J. Lee, esq, LL.D. President. J. Y. Akerman, esq. Sec. communicated some remarks on the general neglect of coins by historical writers, called forth by the paper of Mr. Hogg, read before the Royal Society of Literature, which we have noticed under the preceding head. Mr. Akerman remarked that reference to the coins of Claudius the First would have shown Mr. Hogg that the title IM Perator was never used by that Emperor as a prænomen; and, indeed, Suetonius says "prænomine Imperatoris abstinuit; " of the truth of which we have the best possible evidence in his numerous coins. As regards the inscription itself, there can be no doubt that the date, as inserted by Gauges de' Gozze, was supplied on the best authority-the coins above alluded to, which bear a triumphal arch inscribed DE BRITANNIS, and have on the obverse the letters TRIB. POT. IX COS. V. IMP. XVI.; thus showing that the triumph decreed by the Senate to Claudius was while he held the tribunitian power for the IX. and not for the XI. time, as suggested by Mr. Hogg.

Mr. Cullimore, the other Secretary, read a part of a paper, by himself, on the earliest Dariks of the kingdom of Persia.

Sir Henry Ellis communicated a curious contemporary notice, extracted from a newspaper of the time, of the siege pieces struck at Pontefract during the civil war.-Adjourned to March 23.

HOUSE OF LORDS.

Jan. 31. This being the day appointed for opening the Session of Parliament, the Lord Chancellor proceeded to open it by Commission, when the following most gracious Speech was read.

"My Lords and Gentlemen,

"We are commanded by his Majesty to acquaint you that his Majesty continues to receive from all Foreign Powers the strongest assurances of their friendly disposition, and his Majesty trusts, that the experience of the blessings which peace confers upon nations, will tend to confirm and secure the present tranquillity. His Majesty laments that the civil contest which has agitated the Spanish Monarchy has not yet been brought to a close; but his Majesty has continued to afford to the Queen of Spain that aid which, by the Treaty of Quadruple Alliance of 1834, his Majesty engaged to give if it should become necessary; and his Majesty rejoices that his co-operating force has rendered useful assistance to the troops of her Catholic Majesty. Events have happened in Portugal, which, for a time, threatened to disturb the internal peace of that country. His Majesty ordered, in consequence, a temporary augmentation of his naval force in the Tagus, for the more effectual protection of the persons and property of his subjects resident in Lisbon; and the Admiral commanding his Majesty's Squadron was authorised, in case of need, to afford protection to the person of the Queen of Portugal, without, however, interfering in those Constitutional questions which divided the conflicting parties.

"His Majesty has directed the Reports of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the state of the Province of Lower Canada to be laid bafore you, and has ordered us to call your attention to that important subject. We have it also in charge to recommend for your serious deliberation those provisions which will be submitted to you for the improvement of the Law, and of the Administration of Justice, assuring you that his Majesty's anxiety for the accomplishment of these objects remains undiminished.

"We are enjoined to convey to you his Majesty's desire, that you should consult upon such further measures as may give

"Gentlemen of the House of Commons,

"The Estimates of the year have been prepared with every desire to meet the exigencies of the public service in the spirit of a wise economy. His Majesty has directed them to be laid before you without delay. The increase of the Revenue has hitherto more than justified the expectations created by the receipts of former years. His Majesty recommends an early renewal of your inquiries into the operation of the Act permitting the establishment of Joint Stock Banks. best security against the mismanagement of Banking affairs must ever be found in the capacity and integrity of those who are intrusted with the administration of them, and in the caution and the prudence of the public; but no legislative regulation should be omitted which can increase and ensure the stability of establishments upon which commercial credit so much depends.

66

My Lords and Gentlemen,

The

"His Majesty has more especially commanded us to bring under your notice the state of Ireland, and the wisdom of adopting all such measures as may improve the condition of that part of the United Kingdom. His Majesty recommends to your early consideration the present constitution of the Municipal Corporations of that country, the laws which regulate the collection of Tithes, and the difficult but pressing question of establishing some legal provision for the Poor, guarded by prudent regulations, and by such precautions against abuse as your experience and knowledge of the subject enable you to suggest. His Majesty commits these great interests into your hands, in the confidence that you will be able to frame laws in accordance with the wishes of his

Majesty and the expectation of his people.

His Majesty is persuaded that, should this hope be fulfilled, you will not only contribute to the welfare of Ireland, these realms, by securing their benefits to but strengthen the law and constitution of all classes of his Majesty's subjects."

In the HOUSE OF LORDS, the usual Address to his Majesty was moved by the Earl of Leinster, and seconded by Lord