sufficient to show the curiously elegant design of this baptistery, as we may suppose it to have been, the bases of the shafts and other details being tolerably perfect. The enclosure of the well is angular, presenting in plan a kind of asterisk, and from each inner and outer angle has risen a slender and elegant pillar, thus encircling the fount with a double colonnade, which, with the main walls of the building, would support a ribbed and groined roof with intersections and ramifications, resulting altogether in a singular display of taste and beauty. But trees are growing in the midst of the building, and their roots threaten speedy destruction of the chapel walls. Its claims for preservation should be earnestly pressed upon the present owner. If there be such a thing as æsthetic religion, this must have been its most favoured residence: we may contemplate its power to captivate as visited in the summer, with the scorching sun imparting relish for the shade under a canopy of verdant splendour. Embosomed as is this sacred fane in really enchanting scenery, where the gurgling, pellucid stream, and rocks of fantastic shape and singular richness do their utmost with the crowded trees of various foliage to make the glen unrivalled in its charms and sweetness-the woodland songstress holding perpetual festivity, and the darting finny tribe bespeaking an enjoyment of fairy tale rather than of ordinary existence-here the calm retreat and gorgeous scene must have imparted an unearthly sensation most potent for reverie and religious abstraction. In our observations, however, we would not cater for mere fancy and romance, nor by any means commend the lurid and sickly conceptions of ascetic life: the visitant of such an earthly paradise may advance in holy contemplation to the really sublime and beautiful, and not less rational than devout, concentrating his affections upon the great Parent of creation, let the loveliness of nature evoke blissful effusion to the God of nature, who is a God of love. To this little baptistery chapel attention is particularly invited. A ground plan is herewith presented to show the arrangement.*

At the close of the proceedings, Mr. JAMES THOMPSON called attention to a discovery made that morning of a human skeleton at the Bow Bridge, Leicester. The remains consisted of a skull, shoulder bones, ribs, leg and thigh bones, and other osseous particles, together with the skull of a horse, and the horn of an ox. The human remains were laid before the Society, with a view to their inspection. One of the members present being a medical practitioner (Mr. J. Hunt, Thurnby), the bones underwent an anatomical examination. The conclusion arrived at was that the skeleton was that of a man of early or middle life, certainly not more than thirty years of age, of short stature and slight frame. They were found in the mud close to the north side of the bridge • Kindly reproduced in anastatic drawing for this volume by Mr. Bull.

just removed, at the depth of about three feet below the bed of the river. It would appear that the earth had been carried away, and a considerable hollow formed, since filled up with mud, at the spot indicated, and there the bones found a resting place, a short distance below the level of the foundations of the piers of the bridge. Tradition and history both relate that the remains of Richard III., when taken up from their grave in the church of the Grey Friars, Leicester, were carried away by the multitude, and thrown over the Bow Bridge into the river. This tradition or fact is still sufficiently strong to cause an impression in some quarters that the bones now discovered are those of the unfortunate monarch, though there are numerous reasons why such a fact is highly improbable. The skull and other bones bore not the slightest appearance of having been struck or fractured, whereas Richard's body was "hacked to pieces." Richard died aged thirty-five. These were stated by competent judges to be the remains of a young man, certainly not more than thirty years old; neither is it at all probable that the bones of Richard, supposing them to have been thrown over the bridge exactly over the spot where these were found, would not have been more scattered, when the lapse of time is considered between his burial in the Grey Friars and the desecration of his tomb. This discovery, however, is sufficiently curious to elicit many and various remarks and opinions. It was therefore recommended that the bones should be preserved for further examination by anatomists, and those who might be interested in the matter.*

The following paragraphs from the Leicester Chronicle not only give an interesting account of the Old Bow Bridge, but also relate to the above-mentioned discovery.

It

"The readers of this paper resident in Leicester are aware that the old bridge on the western side of the town, known as Bow Bridge, has recently been taken to pieces, stone by stone, and entirely removed, in order to make way for a new bridge, more commodious for foot-passengers, and affording a wider waterway below for the stream, in case of periodical inundations. Bow Bridge was historical. It was that over which Richard the Third, with his army, rode to the neighbourhood of Bosworth, and where, striking his spur against the parapet, tradition tells us an aged woman cursed him and told him that when he next came that way his head should strike where his heel had struck. The ancient fabric had five semi-circular arches. was about six feet wide, with niches at intervals, on both sides, in which persons on foot could stand aside while wagons or other vehicles crossed. Below the niches were piers, with cut-waters on the outside. The bridge was probably constructed in the twelfth century, previous to which there would be a ford; the road having been in all likelihood formed as early as the Roman times, as a via vicinalis, or branch way from the town to the Fosse Road passing by Danett's Hall. In its lower masonry it was the same structure as that over which the host of Richard marched to the fated field of Bosworth; but of late years the parapets have been altered, and a kind of patchwork of brick has been added to various portions.

"During the progress of the work the stream has been stopped and boards have been thrown across the channel, north and south of the site of the old bridge; so that the bed of the old river has been left comparatively dry, and earth has been removed to make way for foundations.

"The bed of the channel does not seem to have been deep-not more than six or seven feet below the surface of the adjoining banks, leaving ordinarily from three to

July 20th, 1862.

The REV. ROBERT BURNABY in the chair.

THE following NEW MEMBERS were elected: Sir Alexander B. C. Dixie, Bart., Market Bosworth Hall; The Rev. J. M. W. Piercy, Slawston; The Rev. John Spittal, Leicester; Mr. J. J. Douglas, Market Harborough; Mr. Alfred Cooper, Leicester.

MR. NORTH (Honorary Secretary) reported that the arrangements for an Excursion to Bosworth Field in conjunction with

four, or at most five feet of water above the bottom of the channel. The nature of the soil here was of course muddy and filthy, being a deposit formed when the waterways near the town were the receptacles of all its refuse matter from manufactories and other places; but this surface deposit being penetrated, the gravel presented itself. It was found that stakes and faggots had been laid below the piers of the old bridge; and in one part, near the eastern end, while the workmen were digging in the bed of the river, in a part where the ground had evidently been at some early period excavated to some depth, and the black, muddy, slushy soil had settled in its place, they discovered a human skeleton. Apparently thrown into the water back downwards, the skull was lying face upwards, the knees drawn towards the head. This was about eighteen inches north of the east pier of the old bridge, and extending three feet backwards, at right angles to the bridge. The skeleton lay about two feet six inches below the bed of the stream, in the black deposit occupying the space which the gravel originally and naturally occupied. Near the bones were found the skull of a horse and the horn of an ox, with other bones of an animal.

"The remains were carefully picked up by the navvies, placed in a basket, and carried to the Borough Surveyor's office. They were afterwards taken to the Town Library, and there exhibited. On Tuesday, Mr. Lankester, surgeon, of this town, very obligingly complied with a request to examine the bones minutely, with a view to determine the sex and probable age of the individual of whose bodily structure they had once constituted the framework. The inspection took place in the Borough Surveyor's office, where Mr. Lankester re-arranged the whole skeleton, finding it very nearly complete. His conclusions are embodied in these notes:

'Having examined the human bones discovered in excavating the foundation of the old Bow Bridge, I find them to represent an almost perfect skeleton, there being only three of the vertebræ, and the smaller bones of the hands and feet, wanting. I have no hesitation in pronouncing the individual to whom the exhumed bones belonged to be about twenty years of age, and, I am inclined to believe, of the male sex; though, owing to a partial mutilation of the pelvis, this point is somewhat difficult to decide upon positively. From the small size of the bones, I infer that the subject under notice must have been somewhat below average height, and of weak muscular development.

'May 29, 1862.'

'H. LANKESTER,
'Surgeon.'

"In order still further to elucidate the mystery connected with the discovery, the skull was on Wednesday laid before a gentleman temporarily resident in this town, who has for many years studied phrenology, and who is the author of a work on the subject, widely circulated in Germany. The report of this gentleman is that the skull is that of a young person, of inferior intellectual development, who possessed some constructive skill, with large animal propensities; and that the skull would not have remained a century in the place and soil where it was discovered.

"The remains have probably been drifted by the current, at some by-gone period, from the place where the body fell, or was thrown into the water, to the hole of soft earth in which they settled near the pier of the bridge. It is not improbable that the person who thus perished was either thrown in violently or was a suicide."