occafioned the bishop to collate to thofe churches which fell to him by lapfe as fully appears by the register of William of Wykeham, who collated to the vicarage of Carifbrooke, void, as he exprefsly fays, through neg. lect of the conftitutions of Otho and Ottoboni. There had been great commotions in the island on this occafion, and to what a height they rofe at Godfhill are feen in Bishop Woodlock's Regifter, wherein the Monks, with their friends, are recorded to have held the church by force. The bishop allo ordered the dean of the island, to put the clerk, collated by him, in poffeffion of the church of Godfhill, devolved to him, by virtue of the canon of the general council.

In the year following, 1308.] the fame oppofition arose

at the church of Arreton, when the bishop directed the dean of the island to induct the clerk by him collated contra omnes et fingulos contradi&torer et rebelles, "against all oppofers." After which the bishop excommunicated nine perfons for obftructing his clerk, with all thofe officiating in the faid church, commanding the dean of the inland to denounce this excommunication in all the churches of his deanery, at the time of high mafs, in which ceremony the cross was to be elevated, the bell rung, the candles firft lighted and then extinguished, with every other circumftance that could give folemnity to the act. This was followed by a fequeftration of the churches of Freshwater and Godfhill, for contempt of the canons; and the bishop excommunicated

those who had violated the fe. queftration.

When King Edward the Third afferted his pretenfions to the crown of France, Carifbrooke, as an alien priory, was, with all its churches, feized by the crown, the king then prefenting to them; and the priory was granted to the Abbey of Mont Grace, in Yorkfhire, founded by Thomas Hol land, Duke of Surry: but Henry the Fourth, in the first year of his reign, probably to remove all caufes of difcontent between the courts of England and France, reftored it, with others which had alfo been feized.

In the reign of Henry the Fifth it was again refumed, and given to the Monaftery of Shene, in Surry, founded by the king, where it continued till the time of its diffolution. In the reign of Henry the Eighth, that abbey leafed it, together with the tithes of Godfhill and Freshwater, to Sir James Worley, at the annual rent of two hundred marks, which leafe was renewed by his fon Richard, whofe widow marrying Sir Francis Walfingham, Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth, it came into his poffeffion. It was afterwards purchased by Sir Thomas Fleming, from whofe family it came to the prefent poffeflors; the vicarage remained in the crown, until Charles the First gave it to Queen's College, Oxford. To the church of Carifbrooke belongs the chapels of Northwood, Weft Cowes, and Newport. At the time of Cardinal Beaufort's taxation; this church was valued at twenty marks per annum, the vicarage at fixteen marks, and

the

the Procuracy of Lyra at forty marks. This priory, having been founded when there were not more than nine or ten churches in the inland, the Monks enjoyed a larger jurisdiction than thofe of later in ftitution, 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 Ile of Wight. From the fame.

HE Convent, or Oratory of

Sir

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 fhall take an oath of obedience.

III. That the archpriest shall be chofen by the chaplains there refiding, who fhall prefent 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 shall 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 beyond the bounds of the Oratory, without licenfe from the archpriest.

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

X. The archpriest shall 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,

eremonies, 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 admiffion 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.

we bio, 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. Alum et datum in dicto Oratorio de Burton. a. 1289, Jordano de King fton et aliis teftibus.

The archpriett being 1386.] fufpended by the bishop, the dean of the ifland 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 con. dition, the bishop gave orders for the houfe 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

cheffer: 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 ftill held under a lease from the Warden and Fellows of Winchefter College; and part of the old building is yet ftanding.

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

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 fome 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 inftantly become profeffors in this moft ancient and radical language, which is fo little known to the most accomplished linguifts. For Infcriptions on Rocks, fee Gent. Mag vol. xxxv. p. 374. 401. and Phil. Tranf. vol. lvi. 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 fourd 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 Mde 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 horseback 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 graft for the fpace of fome days' journey. 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, becaufe they never made use of horfes, oxen, ploughs, or any inftruments of husbandry, nor had they ever seen a plough before the Europeans came to them. In two or three places, at a confiderable diftance from each other, our travellers 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 Natræ. When they came far to the Weft, where to the beft of their knowledge no Frenchman or European 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 fuch ftones 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 thefe 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 smaller 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 loofe, 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 feen and handled this ftone in Canada unanimously 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 afked the people there, concerning the time when and by whom these 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 circumstances, they could never get the leaft explication; the Indians being as ignorant of thefe things as the French themfelves. All they could fay was, that these stones had been in thofe places from time immemorial. The places where the pillars ftood were goo French miles westward of Montreal."

virtue receives public honours. It is in a village of Picardy, a place far diftant from the politenefs and luxury of great cities. There, an affecting ceremony, which draws tears from the fpectators, a 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 preys upon the young heart, but it is a gentle ambition; the prize is a hat, decorated with roíes. The preparations for a public decifion, the pomp of the festival, the concourfe of people which it affembles, their attention fixed upon modefty, which does itself honour by its blushes, the fimplicity of the reward, an emblem of those virtues by which it is obtained, the affectionate friendship 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, whichcausesevery heart to palpitate, every eye to fparkle with tears of true delight, and makes wifdom the object of paffion. To be irreproachable, is not fufficient; there is a kind of noblenefs, of which proofs are required; a nobleness, not of rank and dignity, but of worth and innocence. These 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