ANTIQUARIAN RESEARCHES —Society of Antiquaries, 43; British Archæological Asso- catum. 32 kukenny and South East of Ireland Archæological Society, 53; the Arrhævi gical Association of Brittany, 54; Wroxeter Excavations HISTORICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS REVIEWS.- Exam's Principles of Gothic Eccle- mastara. Artā tev ture, 33, De Quincey's Collected Works, 61; Chadwick's Life and I.mes of Irunze, Im For, 64, Neate's Two Lectures on the Currency, 65; Shakspere's MSIFIA, DEWLY divided and arranged - Some Years After, 66; Peat's Fair Evanthe- Houderwick • Lays of Middie Are-Adams' Twelve Foundations-Milner's Heavens and the farth, 6”, Kandal on the Tities of our Lord-Marriott's Lectures on the Bomans — Ice's strictures en Coler's Shakespeare-Payne's Studies in English Poetry — Parkers' Recent Puburations, 68; Dodd's Parliamentary Companion - Lowndes. El bographer's Manual – Ames' Welsh Valley - Life of John Steggall- GEITUARY - ♥ th Memars of Prince Metternich-The B.shop of Antigua, 83; The Rev. OUR ANGLO-SAXON ANTIQUITIES: A FEW SUGGESTIONS ON THE PROPRIETY OF FURTHER RESEARCHES. IN 1853, an Anglo-Saxon cemetery was explored at Harnham, near Salisbury, and a number of relics obtained, some of them of a very interesting description. They were presented by the owner of the land, Viscount Folkestone, to the British Museum. The particulars will be found in the Archæologia, vol. xxxv. The expences were defrayed by the Society of Antiquaries. In 1854, researches were made on the site of a cemetery at Wingham, near Sandwich, and a few relics obtained, which were deposited in the British Museum. The expences of the excavation were defrayed by the Society of Antiquaries. In 1856, Anglo-Saxon burial-places were explored at Filkins and at Broughton Poggs in Oxfordshire. Some interesting remains, discovered at these places, were offered to the Trustees of the British Museum at somewhat less than the cost of the excavations, but were declined; they were, however, accepted by Mr. Joseph Mayer, who readily paid the whole expences, and they are now in his museum at Liverpool. In 1857, another cemetery of the Anglo-Saxon period was explored at Brighthampton, near Witney. The result was very encouraging, and in the autumn of the following year further researches were made on the same site, which led to additional results of a highly interesting character. The expences were defrayed by a subscription, promoted by the President of Trinity College, Oxford; the President and Fellows of St. John's College; the Rev. Richard Gordon, of Elsfield, Oxon.; Beriah Botfield, Esq., M.P.; E. Martin Atkins, Esq., and other gentlemen. The relics discovered have been deposited in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. The particulars of these researches will be found in the Archæologia, vols. xxxvii. and Xxxviii. The sites of many other cemeteries of the same period are well known, and it is proposed to explore them during the ensuing summer, as opportunity may be afforded, and to deposit such relics as may be found in the British Museum, or in some well-established local collection. Subscriptions in furtherance of this object may be sent to W. S. W. VAUX, Esq., M.A., F.S.A., British Museum, London. JOHN YONGE AKERMAN, LONDON, Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries. THE Royal Academy of Arts is now on its trial before the public for alleged off-nees, which, had they any substantial foundation, its truculent and unreasoning assalants would have had no legitimate pretext for prosecuting with such envenomed rancour and animosity. The parties to the indictment are a small knot of agitators, composed chiefly of disappointed artists and u'tra liberal newspaper writers, in that advanced state of progress which rengtases the usefulness of no institution whatever which has either age or art cratical traditions to recommend it. A large majority of the charges which have been preferred against it are so notoriously unfounded that, but for the industry with which they have been impressed upon the public rs sed sape cadendo, any attempt to refute them would be Batererogatory. The assailants on this occasion have assumed the functions of ju7209, jurymen, and witnesses, and in the absence of any plea on the art of the accused, who refuse to recognise the competency of the tribunal here wi..ch they have been cited, they have assumed that all their alleget, ns have been proved, and have proceeded to sentence and execution arer mgly, without deigning to examine a tittle of the evidence which has been accessible to them from the beginning of the controversy. The charges which have been thus recklessly brought against a body of the tup ght and scrupulously conscientious gentlemen who have ever astered the affairs of a great and most important institution, public in the sense of benefits widely conferred, resolve themselves, in so many words, to these: Envy, hatred, and uncharitableness in the aggregate; a nej tim of the most corrupt description; and an unblushing per n of the genus (meaning the outside genius) which has been the C of el mint of their success. Folly and imbecility are not crimes, or tres m„ht be added to the category of their imputed offences; but if the severer insulations should be accepted, there can be no difficulty in ad g their mental disqualifications; for anything more suicidal than the at of men who would paralyse the exertions of those to whom they tion: Sted for by far the largest measure of their success, it is scarcely too.' De toe tice ve. If, indeed, the members of the Royal Academy have G137. MÃO. VƏL CUVIL systematically excluded from all participation in their honours and responsibilities, a large proportion of the artistical talent of their age; if they have obtruded their own "mediocrity" upon the public in the best places upon their walls, whilst they have banished to the ceiling or the floor the works of those aspirants for fame to whom they owe the larger portion of their attractions and receipts; they ought indeed to plead guilty to the imputation of fatuity (after all, a misfortune rather than a crime,) which has been brought against them; for fatuous they must have been beyond all ordinary imbecility under such a contingency. If, however, as the "Athenæum" asserts, they have retained enough of mischievous cunning to be "unjust and oppressive" to their brother artists; to "tamper with elections;" to "intrigue, slander, and hang (as they do now) good pictures badly, and bad pictures well," they are not merely fools, but dangerous idiots, who ought to be placed under restraint with the least possible delay. Mr. John Pye, in his recent tirade against the Royal Academy, refers his imputations of imbecility to its first exhibition in 1769, which included the names of Reynolds, Gainsborough, West, and Wilson. The "Athenæum" takes a wider range and comprises in its various anathemas all Royal Academicians whatsoever from the year 1769 to the year 1859 inclusive. It tells us that "Forty men self constituted" (how are all bodies of professional men elected?)"get rich by the exhibition of the works of six or seven hundred artists and pocket the profits;" and yet that "these seven hundred men who contribute the largest part, often the best, have no share in the fund or voice in the government of the institution." If this assertion could be supported by any reliable evidence, the aforesaid idiots should, at all events, be released from the imputation of being incapable of managing their own affairs, and removed to the category of those astute criminals who can not only manage their own business with the keenest apprehension of their own personal interests, but can convert the talent, reputation, and earnings of their neighbours to their own pecuniary benefit; in fact, to that leading principle of an "advanced stage of progress," the repletion of their own "pockets!" We have thus placed the assailants of the Academy between the horns of a dilemma. The successive administrators of its affairs have been either knaves or fools; but a management which has largely increased the income of the institution, and supported the character of British art in all parts of the civilized world, can hardly take refuge in the alternative left thein by their assailants. If, indeed, as the " Athenæum" asserts, the diploma of the Royal Academician does not" mean talent," but a place at a "fat annual dinner, and the chance of a good unfair place" in an exhibition from which the funds that supply that dinner and other luxuries have been obtained; if correct in its belief, that "all that art has ever done in England has been done not through, but in despite of, the Royal Academy," and that were "Raffaelle and Michael Angelo alive at the present time it would starve them," the institution, from its origin to the present time, would seem to have been deserving of universal condemnation. But what are the facts? With a set of the Catalogues of the Royal Academy before us, from its first exhibition in 1769 to the present year, being ninety years from the date of its establishment, we can affirm with confidence that there is scarcely an English painter of any deserved eminence who has not been at one time or other a successful candidate for its honours, and who has not risen to the position he finally occupied in his profession through his connexion with this much-abused body. The exceptions are, indeed, so few and |