A complete Greek and German Dictionary of Homer, and of the Homeric age. By Dr. G. C. CRUSIUS, of the Lyceum, in Hanover.

Observations on the Preservation of Health. By JOHN HARRISON CURTIS, Esq.

Gleanings, Historical and Literary, consisting of upwards of seven hundred choice selections from ancient and modern standard authors, &c.

The Second Volume of the History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. By the Rev. J. SEATON REID, D. D. M.R.I.A. This volume brings down the civil and ecclesiastical history of the province of Ulster to the Revolution, and contains much information respecting the North of Ireland hitherto unpublished; with an Appendix of original papers.

Letters of the Dead, by the Rt. Hon. Sir R. WILMOT HORTON, Bt.

The History of England, by THOMAS KEIGHTLEY, Author of "The History of Greece," &c.

April 6.

ROYAL SOCIETY.

F. Baily, esq. Treas. V. P. The following gentlemen were elected Fellows:- Robert Hunter, esq.; John Forbes Royle, esq. M. D. and Lieut. J. R. Wellsted, R. N. A paper was read, entitled Further Observations on Voltaic Combinations, by John Fred. Daniell, esq. Professor of Chemistry.

April 13. Mr. Baily in the chair.

Wm. Arch. Armstrong White, esq. F.S.A. was elected a Fellow; Prof. Daniell's paper was continued.

April 20. The Earl of Burlington, V.P. Fred. C. Skey, esq. was elected Fellow. Read, Observations taken on the Western Coast of North Africa, by the late Mr. David Douglas, with a report on his paper, by Major Edw. Sabine, R. Art. F.R.S.

STATISTICAL SOCIETY.

April 17. At the ordinary monthly meeting the following documents were received:

1. A Report of the Committee on Medical Statistics; stating that the committee has hitherto been engaged chiefly in preparing queries, and suggesting forms. They have prepared a tabulated statement of the number and particulars of cases of suicide in Westminster, which have been subjects of coroners' inquests, from Jan. 1812, to Dec. 1836; and seven statistical accounts relating to the Lyingin Charity attached to Guy's Hospital.

2. A Report of the Committee on Criminal Statistics; stating that the committee had completed, and accompanied with an explanatory paper, a form for the GENT. MAG. VOL. VII.

future registration of all desirable information respecting the condition and character of persons charged with offences, the nature of the offences, and the circumstances which have led to their perpetration, with the results of the investigation or trial.

3. A Return to the Society's printed Questions, for the collection of Local Statistics; containing a series of answers relating to the township and parish of Winwick in Lancashire, prepared by R. A. Hornby, esq.

4. A communication from the Secretary of the Statistical Society of Bristol, giving an account of its formation, constitution, and progress.

5. A communication from the Secretary of the Statistical Society of Manchester, giving a similar account of that Society.

6. A paper on the influence of age on the mortality of the population of Sweden. By T. R. Edmonds, esq.

GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

March 22. Read, part of a paper " On the supposed ancient state of the North American continent, especially on the extent of an inland sea, by which a great portion of its surface is conjectured to have been covered; and on the evidence of progressive drainage of the waters; by Mr. Roy.

BOTANICAL SOCIETY.

3 X

INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS.

Jan. 10. At the first meeting of the session, Lieut.- Col. Pasley gave an account of his experiments on the manufacture of artificial cements.

Jan. 17. This was the Annual General meeting, when the following officers were elected: President-James Walker, esq. F.R.S. L. & E.; Vice PresidentsW. Cubitt, esq. F.R.S., B. Donkin, esq. F.R.A.S., J Field, esq. F.R.S., H. R. Palmer, esq. F.R.S.; Council-F. Bramah, esq., I. K. Brunel, esq. F.R.S., G. Lowe, esq. F.R.S., J. Macneill, esq. F.R.A.S., W. A. Provis, esq., R. Stephenson, esq., J. Simpson, esq.; Audi. tors-N. Nicholls, esq., J. Howell, esq.; Treasurer W. A. Hankey, esq.; Secre tary T. Webster, esq. M.A.; Foreign Secretary S. Whitwell, esq.; Collector -Mr. G. C. Gibbon.

Jan. 31. Read, a description of a new Boring apparatus, by Mr. Mitchell, jun. of Sheerness; and a paper by Mr. Ballard, on breaking ice, by forcing it upwards. Mr. Blunt gave some account of the Geodetical operations now going forward in America.

Feb. 7. Read, on the generation of steam through the medium of surcharged steam, by Mr. Perkins; and Mr. Blunt gave an account of the rates and construction of American steamers.

Feb. 14. On the construction of Railways, by Mr. Reynolds.

Feb. 21. On the method of producing truly Spherical Balls, by Mr. Grey and Mr. Marsh; a paper describing an Expansion table for Steam, by Mr. Edwards, of Lowestoft.

Feb. 28. On a new Lewis, by Mr. Robertson, of Glasgow.

March 7. On a machine used for scouring out small rivers, by Mr. Hays; on a bridge erected over the Calder navibation, by Mr. Bull; and a report by the Secretary on Lieut. Denison's experiments on timber.

March 14. Discussions on the decay of timber when in contact with stone, and on the strength of cast-iron girders, &c.

March 21. A paper by Mr. Bray, on the last named subject, and a report by the Secretary on Mr. Hodgkinson's experiments on the forms requiring the greatest breaking weights.

April 4. Two papers on experiments instituted by Mr. Horne, for determining the best force and position of wooden bearers.

Most of these subjects, and others of passing interest, gave rise to discussions at the same or subsequent meetings.

ture.

April 17. J. B. Papworth, esq. V. P. Several donations were announced, the most important of which was a copy of the publications issued by the Trustees of the British Museum, of the Ancient Marbles and Terra Cottas. It was announced that this was the first donation from that body to any Society.

Mr. Wallace presented a specimen of the Rosso antico of Derbyshire, a beautiful marble, but which is only found in quantities too small for application to architecture or sculpture on a large scale.

A continuation of the Correspondence between Schultz and Goëthe was read, the subject being the authenticity of the work attributed to Vitruvius. The opinion of the writer was that the work was a compilation commenced about 970, and finished in 998, by or under the auspices of Pope Sylvester II.*

P. F. Robinson, esq. read a paper on the excavations which have been made at St. Mary's Abbey, York, above ten years since, (and partly published by the Soc. of Antiq.) Several beautiful drawings of plans and details, and many casts of bosses, and other fragments of great beauty, discovered during the excavations, were shown in illustration of the subject. One of the bosses showed a small bust, very inartificially introduced into a group

The literature of architecture would suffer but little by the establishment of this point. Vitruvius has often proved a blind leader to equally blind followers.

of leaves, which perhaps may be the portrait of the Sculptor. Another boss exhibited the Holy Lamp, enveloped by foliage typical of the Lamb which Abraham was ordered to substitute for his son. Some of the mouldings exhibited undercutting, applied with great propriety and skill, to give a high degree of relief to leaves and flowers. The piers of the Chapter House exhibit a very fine example of Norman decoration. A question formerly arose as to the form of the arch which these piers sustained, the fragments of which are disposed at the Philosophical Society's Rooms, which now occupy a portion of the site of the Abbey, in a pointed form. The views were made by Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Richardson, of York, and were very elegant specimens of architectural drawing.

Mr. Donaldson then read an essay, illustrated by numerous drawings, on the description of masonry known as "the Cyclopean."

OXFORD UNIVERSITY.

April 5. Of the two prizes insti

tuted under the will of the late Mrs. Denyer, that "On the Divinity of our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," has been awarded to the Rev. W. Wellwood Stoddart, M.A., Fellow of St. John's College; and that "On Original or Birth Sin, and the Necessity of New Birth and Life," to the Rev. Henry C. Brookshank, M.A. of Wadham College.

April 15. In a convocation holden this day, it was determined that the Ministri or Assistants in the Bodleian Library should no longer be, of necessity, Members of the University, and that the stipends payable to those officers should, for the future, instead of being a fixed sum by statute, be at the discretion of the Vice-Chancellor of the University and the Curators of the Bodleian Library. It was also agreed, in the same Convocation, to place at the disposal of the Curators of the Bodleian Library an annual sum of £400, for five years, for the purpose of enabling them to complete the Catalogue of that Library, already in so forward a state as to justify a confident expectation that, with this assistance, a commencement of printing may be made in the course of the ensuing summer.

in the University of Durham, and it is expected that a further sum will be applicable to similar purposes.

The Professor of Greek, the Professor of Mathematics, and the Rev. G. S. Faber, B.D., are to be Examiners of the Public Examination in Theology for the present year.

ISLINGTON LITERARY SOCIETY.

April 15. The first stone of an edifice now in the course of erection for the purposes of this society, was laid by the president, Mr. Charles Woodward, in the presence of the Vice Presidents, Building Committee, and other friends of the society. About eighty members of the society afterwards celebrated the event by dining together at Canonbury Tavern.

THE SOANE MUSEUM, LINCOLN'S INN

FIELDS.

This splendid museum having been secured to the public by an act of Parliament during the life of Sir John Soane the testator, the trustees, since his death, have entered upon their duty, with the curator and assi-tants appointed under that act, and bave opened the museum, library, &c. for the present, on Thursday and Friday in each week, during the months of April, May, and June, under proper restrictions. Admission can only be gained by tickets signed by the curator or trustee, and these can be obtained by respectable persons on a personal or written application to those official gentlemen, the object of the donor being to afford opportunities for artists and amateurs in art, to improve their taste and to cultivate their talents by studying the fine remains and perfect specimens of ancient and modern art with which these rooms abound, at their convenience. The trustees are, Sir Francis Chantrey, R. A. F.R.S.; Samuel Thornton, esq., many years governor of the Bank of England; Samuel Higham, esq. comptroller of the National Debt Office; and J. S. Bicknell, esq. The curator, who resides in the museum, is George Bailey, esq.

UNITED SERVICE MUSEUM, WHITEHALL. Dr. Ritchie has begun a series of lectures on experimental Philosophy-the properties of matter-statics, mechanics, strength of materials, laws of motion, hydrostatics, &c.; and Dr. Lardner is delivering others on the particular subject of steam communication with India.Captain Norton, late of 31st regt. is also about to discourse on rifles, shells, and sundry modern projectiles, with some remarks on the Boomarang or New Holland spear, and on the ancient Balista. This thriving institution, promising such accession of general information to the services, is an example of what may be done

by the aggregate of small contributions. The Members of the Museum are composed of officers (active and retired) of the navy, army, marines, militia, East India Company's land and sea services, yeomanry, lord lieutenants and deputy lieutenants of counties, governors of Irish counties, and civil functionaries attached to either branch of the service. Already has the Museum acquired respectable funds from which it was proposed by the council to found a permanent Professorship for the instruction of the members in mathematical and experimental science. At the general meeting on the 24th of March an amendment was carried for the delivery of lectures, for the present year. Experience will show how efficiently this plan may work. Perhaps if the funded property of the society increases, already amounting to between 3000l. and 4000i. both plans may be put into operation. His Majesty takes we understand a most generous interest in the institution, and was a principal means of its being accommodated with the mansion for its library, arms, models, &c. &c. in Scotland yard.

INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT LAW.

The important question of International Copyright Law is now exciting general attention. Not only in France

and England, but in America, the question is already in the hands of the respective governments. A more important measure for the interests of literature throughout the world could scarcely be conceived. An address has lately been sent over to the Congress of America on the subject, signed by most of the first writers of Great Britain, together with the proceedings taken by the Congress upon it.

ITALIAN MANUSCRIPT.

A discovery has lately been made at Rome of a manuscript life of Pope Alexander VII., attributed to Cardinal Sforza. This work has been brought to light from the dust of the old libraries by the learned Abbé Titto Ciccomi. It contains very full details of the epidemic which was communicated from Naples to Rome in 1476, and speaks of the wise precautionary measures adopted by the Sovereign Pontiff.

It appears that 2,000 people died per day at Naples of the disease, which is supposed to have been the cholera, and upwards of 8,000 persons fell victims to it at Rome. It appears that it was the fashion then, as it was of late, to deny the contagion of the disease; but the Pope, who was of a different opinion, had every possible means employed to prevent communication with the sick.

It is re

markable that other Roman relics have been found near the same spot, but always in one line, seeming to prove that they were deposited (according to the recorded custom of Roman interments) by the road-side without the city.

Sir Frederic Madden, F.S.A. communicated a paper entitled "Documents relating to Perkin Warbeck, with remarks on his history."

April 13. The Earl of Aberdeen, Pres. Thomas Massa Alsager, esq. of Queensquare, Bloomsbury, was elected a Fellow of the Society.

The Rev. Edward Duke, F.S. A. exhibited five crucibles found over the porch of St. Thomas's church, Salisbury, and which are figured and form the subject of a dissertation in his recently published volume of " Prolusiones Historica; or, the Halle of John Halle."

The Rev. Joseph Hunter. F.S.A. exhibited a covenant of sale of a tenement in Canterbury, curious from its bearing date in the reign of Jane Queen of England (commonly called Lady Jane Grey), viz." decimo quinto die Julii, anno regni d'ne Jane dei gr'a Anglie Francie et Hibernie regine, atque in terra eccl'ie Anglicane et Hibernice supremi capitis primo." The reading of Sir F. Madden's paper was continued.

April 20. Hudson Gurney, esq. V. P. Sir F. Madden's paper on Perkin Warbeck was concluded. In order to intro. duce the documents he has discovered, he took a view of all that has hitherto been related of the career of this extraordinary pretender, and of the scanty records hitherto published regarding him. After an examination of all the historical writers of the period, Sir Frederic has found that the original authorities regarding Perkin Warbeck may be reduced to three, namely,

Fabyan, Bernard André, and Polydore Vergil. The Life of King Henry the Seventh by Sir Francis Bacon is entirely derived from previous publications; but, with regard to Perkin Warbeck, Sir Fre deric has unravelled a very singular chain of error which has been propagated principally through the misapprehensions of that historian. It originated from a merely collateral and comparatively unimportant anecdote related by Bernard André; that Perkin, when a boy, had been some time servant to one Edward, a converted Jew, to whom, on his Christian baptism, King Edward IV. had stood godfather. Speed altered the word servant to son; misled by which, Bacon proceeded to connect and identify the Jew with John Osbeck, whom Perkin in his Confession acknowledged to have been his father, and to call Perkin, instead of Edward, the King's godson; at the same time, he hazarded the conjecture, that, "as it is somewhat suspicious for a wanton Prince to become Gossip in so meane a house, it might make a man think that he might indeede have in him some base bloud of the House of Yorke." This last surmise, first thrown out by Bacon, has been unfairly assumed by Hume as the opinion of persons living at the period; the whole forming a remarkable instance of the careless manner in which our most popular historian has adopted the materials for his elegant but superficial performance, and of the gradual growth of historical errors.

The original documents now brought forward, are:

1. A Letter of Warbeck to Isabel Queen of Spain, written in 1493 from Dendermonde in Flanders, at the time he was there resident under the protection of the Duchess of Burgundy, and professing to detail the particulars of his previous history, in which there is a general correspondence with the story given in his Confession, on which Walpole and his followers have formerly thrown doubts. Perkin's Autograph is attached to this document.

2. The original papers of Instructions given by Henry VII. to Richmond otherwise Clarenceux King of Arms, when sent as Envoy to the courts of France and Rome in 1494. In these documents the pretender is spoken of with great contempt, but which Sir F. Madden considers was rather assumed than sincerely entertained by the King. He is stated to be a native of Tournay, and son of a boatman named Werbec, a statement which coincides so far with the Confession, as that the latter declared his grandfather to have been a boatman, and though his father's real name was Osbeck, "the name of Warbeck (as Lord Bacon says)

was given him when they did but guesse at it."

3. The Deposition of one Bernard de Vignolles, a Frenchman, dated at Rouen, in 1495-6, disclosing a plot to take away King Henry's life, with other the proceedings of the conspirators in favour of Perkin Warbeck. It is disclosed that Perkin was known to the conspirators "by words of secret signification," as "the Merchant of the Ruby;" a name which may hereafter serve to explain other papers of the period.

4. A letter of Perkin, written from Edinburgh in Oct. 1496 to Sir Bernard de la Forsse, soliciting his good offices in Spain. This is signed "Yo frend Rychard off England," in a bold and thoroughly English character, as is the sig nature," Rychard," to the former letter.

5. A letter from Henry VII. to Rodrigues Gonzales de Puebla, Envoy from Spain, in answer to a congratulatory epistle on the final overthrow and capture of Perkin.

These important documents, together with that part of André's history which relates to Perkin Warbeck, will be immediately published by the Society in a new part of Archæologia.

April 24. The feast of St. George falling this year on a Sunday, the anniversary was held this day, when the Earl of Aberdeen was re-elected President, with the following Council: the Duke of Sussex; Thomas Amyot, esq. Treas.; the Bishop of Bath and Wells; John Bidwell, esq.: Henry Brandreth, jun. esq.; Decimus Burton, esq.; Nicholas Carlisle, esq. Sec.; C. P. Cooper, esq.; Sir Henry Ellis, Sec.; John Gage, esq. Director; Hudson Gurney, esq. V.P.; Henry Hallam, esq. V.P.; W. R. Hamilton, esq. V.P.; Rev. Philip Hunt, LL. D.; Sir Frederic Madden; the Marquess of Northampton; Sydney Smith, esq.; Sir Geo. T. Staunton, Bart.; Rich. Westmacott, esq. R.A.; Rt. Hon. C. W. W. Wynn, V.P. [The names of the new members of Council are printed in Italics.]

More than forty of the members subsequently dined at the Freemasons' Tavern, where Mr. Gurney presided.

NUMISMATIC SOCIETY.

April 20. Dr. Lee, President, in the chair.

Benj. Nightingale, esq. communicated an essay on the Coinage of the Burmese empire, particularly some coins not noticed in the late Mr. Marsden's handsome publication. It appeared that the opinions of orientalists are divided upon the point whether these coins exhibit letters or ornaments; but Mr. Nightingale is inclined to consider that they are in