the Procuracy of Lyra at forty marks. This priory, having been founded when there were not more than nine or ten churches in the ifland, the Monks enjoyed a larger jurisdiction than thofe of later institution, when most lords of great poffeffions, having built new churches, had appropriated the tithes of their lands to them.

Hiftory and Antiquities of the Oratory of Burton in the Ifle of Wight. From the fame.

TH

Sir

HE Convent, or Oratory of Burton, or Barton, having been diffolved long before the general fuppreffion of monaftic foundations, efcaped the notice of Dugdale, Speed, Tanner, and other writers on religious houfes, fo that its existence had nearly funk into total oblivion. John Oglander indeed mentions it in his manufcript Memoirs, but his information appears to have been merely traditional: its history is however preferved in the register of John de Pontiffera, Bishop of Winchefter, wherein the ftatutes of the house are confirmed by an inftrument, in which the bishop affirms he had feen the charters of John de Infula, Rector of Shalfleet, and of Thomas de Winton, Rector of Godfhill, founders of the Oratory of the Holy Trinity of Burton, for the ordering and governing the faid Oratory made, and in full 1282.] force, under the feals of

the founders, as follows:

I. That there fhall be fix chaplains and one clerk to officiate both

for the living and dead, under the rules of St. Auguftin.

II. That one of thefe fhall be prefented to the Bishop of Winchefter, to be the archprieft; to whom the reft shall take an oath of obedience.

III. That the archprieft fhall be chofen by the chaplains there refiding, who fhall present him to the bishop within twenty days after any vacancy fhall happen.

IV. They fhall be fubject to the immediate authority of the bishop.

V. When any chaplain fhall die, his goods fhall remain to the Oratory.

VI. They fhall have only one mefs, with a pittance, at a meal, excepting on the greater feftivals, when they may have three meffes.

VII. They thall be diligent in reading and praying.

VIII. They fhall not go be yond the bounds of the Oratory, without licenfe from the archpriest.

IX. Their habit fhall be of one colour, either black or blue; they shall be clothed pallio Hibernienfi, de nigra boneta cum pileo.

X. The archpriest fhall fit at the head of the table, next to him those who have celebrated magnum miffam; then the priest of St. Mary; next the priest of the Holy Trinity; and then the priest who fays mafs for the dead.

XI. The clerk fhall read fomething edifying to them while they dine.

XII. They fhall fleep in one room.

XIII. They fhall ufe a fpecial prayer for their benefactors. XIV. They fhall in all their ceremonies,

seremonies, and in tinkling the bell, follow the use of Sarum.

XV. The archprieft alone fhall have charge of the bufinefs of the house.

XVI. They fhall, all of them, at their adıniffion into the house, fwear to the obfervance of these ftatutes.

Thomas de Winton, and John de Infula, clerks, grant to John Bishop of Winchefter, and his fucceffors, the patronage of their Oratory at Burton, in the parish of Whippingham, that he might become a protector and a defender of them, the archpriest, and his fellow chaplains.

The bishop, at the inftance of John de Infula, the furviving founder, Thomas, being then dead, or that, after a year and a day from their entering into this Oratory, no one fhall accept of any other benefice, or fhall depart the house. Actum et datum in dicto Oratorio de Burton. a. 1289, Jordano de King fton et aliis tefti

bus.

The archprieft being 1386.] fufpended by the bishop,

the dean of the island was ordered to take charge of his Oratory in the house at Burton: foon after, the archpriest being a cap1390.] tive in France, and the houfe of Burton in a ruinous condition, the bishop gave orders for the house to be repaired, and other neceffary things to be done. The Oratory was, in 1439.] the eighteenth year of Henry the Sixth, furrendered into the hands of the bishop, and, together with its lands, by the procurement of bishop Wainfleet, granted to the College of Win

chefter: it was endowed with the manor of Whippingham, the demefne lands of Burton, or Barton, and fome lands at Chale. The fite and demefnes of the Oratory are still held under a leafe from the Warden and Fellows of Winchefter College; and part of the old building is yet standing.

Punic Infcriptions in the Weftern Boundaries of Canada; from the Gentleman's Magazine for August 1781.

Itin, p. 553, is the following N the Journal Encyclop. 1781, article: Un Profeffeur des Langues Orientales à Cambridge en Amerique vient d'envoyer à M. de Gebelin, auteur du Monde Primitif,' trois Infcriptions Puniques, qu'on a trouvées gravées fur des rochers, à l'embouchure d'une riviere qui eft à 50 milles du fud de Bofton. Elles furent gravées par les Carthaginois qui aborderent fur cette plage meconnue. Elles ont pour objet leur arrivée, & les traités qu'ils firent avec les habitans du pays. M. de Gebelin va donner un memoir fur cette importante decouverte." If this intimation does not come from M. G. himself, then one must fuppofe that there is some one in America that can make out a Punic infcription, which is more than we knew before. I know a perfon of high rank and underftanding, who is perfuaded, that the common Irish is Punic, and that many of them have long known as much. If fo, they have little more to do than to learn the

Punic letters, and they all in ftantly become profeffors in this moft ancient and radical language, which is fo little known to the moft accomplished linguifts. For Inferiptions on Rocks, fee Gent. Mag. vol. xxxv. p. 374. 401. and Phil. Tranf. vol. Ivi. art. viii.

"In later times there have been found a few marks of antiquity, from which it may be conjectured that N. America was formerly inhabited by a nation more verfed in fcience and more civilifed than that which the Europeans found on their arrival there, or that a great military expedition was undertaken to this continent from thefe known parts of the world. This is confirmed by an account which I received from M. de Veraudrier, who commanded the expedition to the fouthward in perfon. I have heard it repeated by others, who have been eye-witneffes of all that happened on that occafion. Some years before I came into Canada, the then Governor-general Chev, de Beauchaniois gave M. de Veraudrier an order to go from Canada with a number of people on an expedition acrofs N. America to the S. Sea, in order to examine how far those two places are diftant from each other, and to find out what advantages might accrue to Canada or Louifiana from a communication with that ocean. They fet out on horfeback from Montreal, and went as far due W. as they could on account of the lakes, rivers, and mountains, in their way. As they came far into the country beyond many nations, they fometimes met with large tracts of land free from wood, but co

vered with a kind of very tall grafs for the space of fome days' jour ney. Many of these fields were every where covered with furrows as if they had been ploughed and fowed frequently. It is to be ob ferved, that the nations who now inhabit N America could not cultivate the land in this manner, because they never made use of horfes, oxen, ploughs, or any inftruments of husbandry, nor had they ever feen a plough before the Europeans came to them. In two or three places, at a confiderable diftance from each other, our tra vellers met with impreffions of the feet of grown people and children in a rock; but this feems to have been no more than a Lufus Natura. When they came far to the Weft, where to the best of their knowledge no Frenchman or Eu ropean had ever been, they found in one place in the woods, and again on a large plain, great pillars of ftone leaning upon each other. The pillars confifted of one fingle ftone each, and the French could not but fuppofe that they had been erected by human hands. Sometimes they have found such stones laid upon one another, and as it were formed into a wall. In fome of thofe places where they found fuch ftones, they could not find any other fort of ftones. They were not able to discover any characters or writings upon any of these ftones, though they made a very careful fearch after them. At laft they met with a large stone like a pillar, and in it a finaller ftone was fixed, which was covered on both fides with unknown characters. This ftone, which was about a foot of French measure

in length, and between four and five inches broad, they broke loose, and carried to Canada with them, from whence it was fent to France, to the Secretary of State, Count de Maurepas. What became of it afterwards they know not, but think it is preferved in his collection. Several of the Jefuits who have seen and handled this ftone, in Canada unanimoufly affirm, that the letters on it are the fame with thofe which, in the books containing accounts of Tataria, are called Tatarian characters; and on comparing both together they found them perfectly alike. Notwithstanding the queftions which the French on the S. Sea expedition alked the people there, concerning the time when and by whom thefe pillars were erected, what their traditions and fentiments concerning them were, who wrote the characters, what was meant by them, what kind of letters they were, in what language they were written, and other circumftances, they could never get the leaft explication; the Indians being as ignorant of these things as the French themfelves. All they could fay was, that thefe ftones had been in thofe places from time immemorial, The places where the pillars ftood were 900 French miles weftward of Montreal."

virtue receives public honours. It is in a village of Picardy, a place far diftant from the politeness and luxury of great cities. There, an affecting ceremony, which draws tears from the fpectators, à folemnity, awful from its venerable antiquity and falutary influence, has been preferved, notwithstanding the revolutions of twelve centuries; there the fimple luftre of the flowers with which innocence is annually crowned, is at once the reward, the encouragement, and the emblem. Here, indeed, ambition préys upon the young heart, but it is a gentle ambition; the prize is a hat, decorated with rofes. The preparations for a public decifion, the pomp of the feftival, the concourfe of people which it affembles, their attention fixed upon modefty, which does itfelf honour by its blufhes, the fimplicity of the reward, an emblem of thofe virtues by which it is obtained, the affectionate friendfhip of the rivals, who, in heightening the triumph of their queen, conceal in the bottom of their worthy hearts the timid hope of reigning in their turn: all thefe circumftances united give a pleafing and affecting pomp to this fingular ceremony,whichcaufesevery heart to palpitate, every eye to fparkle with tears of true delight, and makes wifdom the object of pation. To be irreproachable, is not fufficient; there is a kind of noblenefs, of which proofs are required; a noblenefs, not of rank and dignity, but of worth and innocence. Thefe proofs must include feveral generations, both on the father and mother's fide; fo that a whole family is crowned upon the head of one; the triumph K of

of one is the glory of the whole; and the old man with grey hairs, who sheds tears of fenfibility on the victory gained by the daughter of his fon, placed by her fide, receives, in effect, the reward of fixty years spent in a life of vir

tue.

By this means, emulation becomes general, for the honour of the whole; every one dreads, by an indelicate action, to dethrone either his fifter or his daughter. The crown of rofes, promifed to the most prudent, is expected with emotion, diftributed with justice, and establishes goodness, rectitude, and morality, in every family; it attaches the best people to the moft peaceful refidence.

Example, powerful example,acts even at a diftance; there the bud of worthy actions is unfolded, and the traveller, on approaching this territory, perceives, before he enters it, that he is not far from Salency. In the course of fo many fucceffive ages, all around them has changed; they alone will tranfmit to their children the pure inheritance they received from their fathers: an inftitution truly great, from its fimplicity; powerful under an appearance of weak. nefs: fuch is the almoft unknown influence of honours; fuch is the ftrength of that eafy fpring, by which all men may be governed: fow honour, and you will reap virtue.

If we reflect upon the time the Salencians have celebrated this feftival, it is the most ancient ceremony exifting. If we attend to

its object, it is, perhaps, the only one which is dedicated to the fervice of virtue. If virtue is the most useful and eftimable advantage to fociety in general, this establishment, by which it is encouraged, is a public and national benefit, and belongs to France.

According to a tradition, handed down from age to age, Saint Medard, born at Salency, pro prietor, rather than lord, of the territory of Salency (for there were no fiefs at that time), was the inftitutor of that charming feftival, which has made virtue flourish for fo many ages. He had himself the pleafing confolation of enjoying the fruit of his wisdom, and his family was honoured with the prize which he had instituted, for his fifter obtained the crown of rofes.

This affecting and valuable feftival has been tranfmitted from the fifth century to the present day. To this rofe is attached a purity of morals, which from time immemorial, has never suffered the flightest blemish; to this rofe are attached the happiness, peace, and glory of the Salençians.

This rofe is the portion, fre quently the only portion, which virtue brings with it; this rofe forms the amiable and pleafing tie of a happy marriage. Even fortune is anxious to obtain it, and comes with respect to receive it from the hand of honourable indigence. A poffeffion of twelve hundred years, with fuch fplendid advantages, is the fairest title that exifts in the world.

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