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to prepare for the press such portions as they deem worthy of being printed.

The rich archives of the ancient Earls of Flanders are at Lille. These documents extend as far back as the eleventh century. Measures will be taken to examine them carefully.

The remains of the ancient archives of Pousillon are at Perpignan. These contain very valuable information respecting the history of that province, and the intercourse between the Crowns of France and Arragon.

To Poitiers, where the archives of the ancient province of Aquitania are preserved, one of the elèves of the School of Charters has been sent, with the title of archiviste, and another, with the same powers, to Lyons.

At Paris, the proceedings of the committee are in full activity. The immense collection of MSS. in the Bibliothèque du Roi, is, for the first time, to be submitted to a general and systematic search. The valuable collections of Colbert, Dupuy, Brienne, de Gaignières, Baluze, the President de Mesmes, and others, will be thoroughly examined. Several individuals, under the direction of MM. Champollion, Figeac, and Guérard, are employed for this purpose in sedulous researches.

Already many works of value have been discovered, and reserved for publication. Among these may be noticed a collection of curious notes, chiefly in Italian, in the handwriting of Cardinal Mazarin, relative to the daily incidents of his government during the struggles of La Fronde, which are shortly to be given to the world, accompanied by a translation and notes; and a Journal of the EtatsGénéraux, held at Tours in 1483, compiled in Latin by Jean Masselin, one of the members, which will also be printed, with a translation.

An important monument of the language, poetry, and history of the period-a Chronicle of the war of the Albigeois-written in Provençal, one of the most interesting documents of the 13th century, is to be prepared for the press by M. Fauriel, the author of the Lectures on the Literature and Poetry of the South of France.

After the peace of 1763, M. de

Bréquigny was sent to London with a bureau of seven persons, charged with a commission to transcribe, from the Records in the Tower, every document relative to the history of France. This undertaking lasted for several years, and produced a collection of about one hundred and fifty volumes in folio, the originals of which have since been lost.* These volumes are now deposited in the Bibliothèque du Roi, and are of great interest and importance. An examination of the contents of each has been ordered, and the publication of the most valuable will follow.

Another source, thought to throw great light on the early political history of the monarchy, will be the various charters and grants made by the sovereigns and feudal lords at various times. These are very numerous, and many unpublished. The Royal Library possesses an extensive collection made by Duprey, in several volumes folio, which will be attentively perused. Those already printed will not be republished. To these will be added the charters of different corporations, gilds, &c. The whole to be under the management of M. Augustin Thierry.

The general archives of the kingdom will equally furnish a great number of detached documents worthy of publication, and the various special archives of the several Ministers will afford ample materials; but, of course, it will be necessary to consult these with caution and judgment, and to confine the research within the bounds properly within the legitimate jurisdiction of history. The archives of the Minister of Foreign Affairs form the most considerable dépot, for extent and value. The publications therefrom will be placed under the care of M. Mignet, who has already prepared an important recueil, as the commencement of the series. This will contain the long and curious negociations relative to the succession in Spain, subsequent to the death of Charles the Second, which began immediately after the treaty of the Pyrenees, in 1659, and terminated only in 1713, at the peace of Utrecht. The policy of Louis the Fourteenth will,

*So says M. Guizot. Let the Keeper of the Records in the Tower look to it!

for the first time, appear in all its extent. The archives of the Dépot de Guerre, will be also consulted. They will supply the history of the various campaigns, the correspondence of Louis the Fourteenth, of Philip the Fifth, and the Duke of Orleans, of the Maréchal de Berwick, and the Duke de Vendôme. To these will be added maps and plans, and the work will be under the management of the Secretary of War.

The same course will be pursued in regard to the archives of the naval department.

After the political history of the monarchy, will come under review its moral and intellectual character, and the works which relate to it. Of this description, a MS. of the famous work of Obailard, entitled Sic et Non, supposed to be lost, has been recovered in the library of Avranches. It was this treatise which occasioned the condemnation of its author at the Council of Seris, in 1140. The editor will be M. Cousin.

Lastly, the History of Art will occupy the attention of the Committee. The Minister proposes to enter on it forthwith, and for that purpose has caused a complete catalogue to be prepared of the monuments of all classes and ages which have existed, or still exist in France.

Such is the substance of M. Guizot's report, which cannot fail to attract the attention of those gentlemen who direct the Record Commission in our own country. A period of fifteen years at least has elapsed since the collections for a complete edition of our national historians commenced, and we have still to hope for the appearance of the first volume! Let us venture to predict, that when it comes forth, it will be able to bear a comparison with the works of a similar class, already complete, or in progress in Italy, France, Germany, Denmark, &c. &c.

Even in the recent kingdom of Belgium, the same spirit of historical inquiry seems to have arisen, and a Commission has been issued by King Leopold, the objects of which embrace much more than the English, or even the French; for not only does it contemplate the publication of all historical documents, strictly so called, but an abstract of all the monastic cartularies, and a complete collection of all the tracts in poetry and prose, which serve to illustrate the ancient language and literature of the country! When shall we see such a collection made in England? Let the admirers of Chaucer and Peirs Plouhman' reply, if they can.

Yours, &c.

PLAN OF THE CATHEDRAL OF OLD SARUM.

IT will be recollected that, owing to the dryness of last summer, the foundations were perceived, through the grass, of the ancient Cathedral on the hill of Old Sarum.

Mr. Hatcher, the author of a recent "Account of Old and New Sarum,*" did not neglect the opportunity thus afforded, of obtaining information relative to this long-vanished edifice, and from such traces as he found, assisted by the analogies of other structures, similar in their destination and the period of their erection, he exercised his ingenuity in the formation of the plan, which we have now the pleasure to lay before our readers.†

*See our vol. II. p. 273.

Of the entire bill of Old Sarum former plans have been made, and copies have been published in various forms;

Φ.

The Saxon diocese of Wiltshire was divided from the more ancient bishopric of Sherborne, about the middle of the ninth century, and the see was fixed at Wilton. Herman, a somewhat

sometimes the streets are laid out, we presume on the authority of Leland, and sometimes a pretended view of the Castle is added; but we will not allow this opportunity to pass without remarking that that Castle is copied from the sepulchral brass of Bishop Wyvill in Salisbury Cathedral, where it was intended for a representation (whether a correct one we are unable to say,) not of the Castle of Sarum, but of that of Sherborne, of which Bishop Wyvill was Constable. See Gough's" Sepulchral Monuments," Vol. I. p. 132, and the engraving in Carter's" Ancient Sculpture and Painting."

Ælfstan Bishop of Wilton is mentioned in a charter of Edgar in 868.

restless prelate, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, made an unsuccessful attempt to remove the see to Malmesbury; but a few years after, on the death of the Bishop of Sherborne, he effected the reunion of the dioceses of Dorsetshire and Wiltshire, and finally, after the Norman Conquest, removed the see to the hill of Sorbiodunum, or Searesbyrig.

This change he was enabled to accomplish under the authority of an ordinance of the Council held at London in 1075, which directed that Bishops' sees should be removed from obscure places to the towns of the greatest importance in their dioceses; though it appears, from several old authors, that Old Sarum was never much of a city, but only, as the castle of the Sheriff of Wiltshire, it had become the seat of the civil jurisdiction of the county. Herman is said to have commenced the cathedral of Old Sarum; and after his death, in 1077, the work was carried on and completed by his successor Osmund.

The edifice was completed in the year 1092, when, with the assistance of Walcheline Bishop of Winchester, and John Bishop of Bath and Wells, (one authority says with seven Bishops,) he performed the ceremony of

dedication, on the nones of April. Only five days after, a violent storm destroyed the roof, as is commemorated in the following lines of the rhyming chronicle of Robert of Gloucester,

So gret lytnynge was the vyfte yer, so that al to nogt

The rof of the chyrch of Salesbury it broute,

Ryght evene the vyfte day that he yhalwed was.

Unless there is some confusion, the coincidence here is extraordinary, that the church should be dedicated on the fifth of April, in the fifth year of the King's reign, and that it should be so greatly injured five days after. Yet the last fact is repeated by Knighton. However, the church was completed by Bishop Osmund, and he was buried in it in 1099. His bones were afterwards translated to the new Cathedral; and he was canonized in 1456.

His successors at Old Sarum were Roger, who died in 1139; Jocelyn who died in 1184; Hubert Walter, translated to Canterbury in 1193; Herbert Poore, who died in 1216; and Richard Poore, in whose time the present Cathedral of Salisbury was founded.

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The following may be considered as an approximate measurement of its several parts, which display great harmony of proportion :-Total length, 270 feet; length of the transept, 150; of the nave, 150; of the choir, 60; breadth of the nave, 72; of which 18 feet were taken on each side for the aisles; of the transept, 60. At the west end, the aisles, to the length of 30 feet, appear to have been partitioned off, as if for chapels. The foundations of the nave were found to be above seven feet thick, and those of the transept above five feet, without the facings.

The reasons for the removal of the clergy from this church, were the bleakness of the situation, which occasioned their buildings to suffer frequently from storms, a want of water, and quarrels with the soldiers of the castle. The following lines, whether written at the time, or at a subsequent period, express the sentiments of the ecclesiastics on the subject,

Quid Domini Domus in Castro, nisi fœderis arca [locus, In Templo Baalim? Carcer uterque Est ibi defectus aquæ, sed copia cretæ, Sævit ibi ventus, sed philomela silet.

The new cathedral was begun in 1220; the bodies of the three bishops, Osmund, Roger, and Jocelyn were removed thither in 1226; and the final consecration took place in 1258. In 1331, King Edward III. granted permission to the Bishop and Dean and Chapter, to remove the stone walls of their church and houses within his fortress of Old Sarum, and to employ them in the improvement of their new church; and of the enclosure of the same. In the same record, reference is made to the chantry, dedicated to St. Mary, which was probably a foundation anterior even to the antient cathedral itself, and which they were permitted to establish anew, in any other place within the fortress. This chapel is again mentioned in the chapter records, in 1392, as then wanting repair, as well as its organ. In the valuable account which Leland has left us of Old Sarum, it is stated that the only token then remaining of the cathedral was "a chapelle of our Lady, yet standing and mainteynid."

The other important particulars that
GENT. MAG. VOL. IV.

Leland furnishes of Old Sarum, are these:

"

There was a parish of the Holy Rood, and another [church] over the East Gate, whereof yet some tokens remain.

"I do not perceive that there were any more Gates in Old Salisbury than two: one by east, and another by west. Without each of these Gates was a fair suburb; and in the east suburb was a parish church of St. John,* and there yet is a chapel standing.

"There have been houses in time of mind inhabited in the east suburb of Old Salisbury; but now there is not one house, either within Old Salisbury or without, inhabited.

There was a right fair and strong Castle, belonging to the Earls of Salisbury. Much notable ruinous building of this Castle yet there remaineth. The ditch that environed the town was a very deep and strong thing."

Mr. Bowles, in the concluding pages of his " History of Lacock Abbey,' to which interesting and animated work we are indebted for the plans, has given the following eloquent description of the view from Old Sarum:

44

It was on the 16th day of February, having completed the last sheets of this long story of other days, I stood on the summit of the silent mound of Old Sarum, the eventful scene of much of this history. I stood on the site, as it is conceived, of EDWARD THE SHERIFF's Castle, recalling the names, and characters, and events, of a distant age, when, on this spot, a City shone, with its Cathedral, and its Norman Castle, lifting their pinnacles and turrets above the clouds; and here, on this majestic and solitary eminence, the Regal form of the stern Conqueror, his mailed Barons, the grey-haired and mitred Osmund, who had exchanged his sword for a crozier-and young Edward, ancestor of the Foundress of Lacock, seemed to pass before me, followed by the crowned Troubadour, Richard of the "Lion's Heart"-his heroic Brother of the "LONG SWORD," buried in the Cathedral below; and ELA his bereaved and pious Widow, pale, placid, and tearful, the Foundress of that Abbey whose Annals we have been the first distinctly to relate.

"I turned my eyes, and beheld the vast Traces of interments, indicating the cemetery of this church, were found in 1834.

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and solitary plains below, stretching on every side, like Ocean-To the northwest, hid only by an intervening elevation of the Downs, STONEHENGE, "wonder of ages," was still sitting in her sad glory, to which most ancient Temple of the Sun it might be conceived the Bards, descending in procession, whilst it was yet dark, on solemn festivals, from the sacred hill of Salisbury,* and joining in the open space, between the vast forests,+ struck their harps in acclaim, as the mighty object of their adoration slowly ascended above the eastern hills.

"To the west, south-west-east, and north-east-strode on, in direct lines, over hill and vale, with traces, after fifteen centuries, distinct as yesterday-the FOUR MIGHTY ROMAN ROADS, here meeting as in a centre. Immediately on right, a little below the mound on which the Norman banner floated on the aerial keep of the Citadel, we marked the site of the ancient and vanished Cathedral.

our

"Towards the east, anciently appeared the battlements of Clarendon Palace; to the south-west, the field of tournament, of which the chivalrous Coeur de Lion appointed five in England; to the east and south-east, crowning the further heights, the camps, occupied by the Belgic invaders, in their progress to the Severn, still seemed to awe the surrounding country; whilst a series of barrows terminated the view, until their forms were lost in the distance.

"But the most interesting sight remained. On the left, surmounting the towers and lesser spires, the houses, and smoke, of the City of the Living, shone the aerial spire of the Cathedral of New Sarum, with the morning sun on its elfin shaft; and could we be insensible to the thought, that within those walls the sacred rites of Christian worship, with a purer and more scriptural service, had

Solis-bury. See Davies's Celtic Antiquities, hill of bards."

Namely, of Clarendon, united with the New Forest, and extending to the sea-the vast woody track of Cranbourne Chace-Great Ridge-Groveley, &c.

been uninterruptedly kept up-save in the short intervening space of the fanatical republic-for SIX HUNDRED years, as duly and solemnly as when the youthful Henry, and his Justiciary, Hubert de Burgh, offered their gifts on the altar? with this difference, indeed, that the plain sacramental bread had succeeded the Elevation of the Host, an emblem derived from the ancient Druidical worship of the Sun, on its first elevation above the horizon? And could we forget that the PLAIN OPEN WORD OF GOD, the white amice, the decent forms, had succeeded the pompous ceremonial and pageantry of Popish rites, whilst the children of the choir, instead of tossing to and fro their censors, with the words of Latin, repeating by rote, "meâ culpâ, meâ maximâ culpâ," now, after the chant, are seen, bending their heads over their Bibles, as the lesson for the day is read, presenting one of the most interesting sights of the PROTESTANT, or rather purer Catholic Church.

"To return to the desolate hill. No human creature was in sight, save some poor women gathering sticks among the thorns of the ramparts. A few sheep were bleating in the foss. The rivers Nadder and Avon were seen tranquilly meandering in the nether vale; whilst the solitary tree, in an adjoining meadow, under which, for centuries, the burgesses for this ancient City had been elected,now with its bare trunk seemed to resemble its fortune, one branch only remaining.

new

"I descended, musing on the events which a new Parliament, under auspices, might bring forth, either FOR GOOD OR FOR EVIL; perhaps in the end destined to leave the PRESENT CATHEDRAL AS DESOLATE AS THE FORMER! These events are in the hand of God; be ours submission and prayers."

The emblem is therefore round, surrounded with a blaze of jewellery, as rays of the luminary which it represented. This might be called, indeed, the " cient faith!!" as the early corruptions of the Christian creed have been absurdly called.

MEMORIALS OF LITERARY CHARACTERS.-No. VII.

LETTERS OF LORD BOLINGBROKE.

an

THE following letters of Henry St. John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke, together with some of other writers which we shall publish on a future occasion, have been kindly communicated to us from transcripts of the originals, by the grandson of Edward Long, Esq. the Historian of Jamaica, who prefixed to them the following memorandum:

"MEM. These Letters, of whose authenticity I have not the smallest doubt,

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