According to this statement, it seems that the receipts from 1815 to 1827, a period of twelve years, have been 25,9101. 7s. 10d., and the disbursements 22,515l. 19s. 2d., which added to the balance in hand, 7577. 4s. 5d., makes 23,2731. 3s. 7d.; but although the receipts have nominally exceeded the expenditure by 26377. 4s. 3d., the stock of the Society has gradually dwindled from 8000l. to 60007. though it is at present 6500l. three per cent. consols. Of the merits of this peculiar mode of finance, we confess ourselves profoundly ignorant; and as the utmost secrecy is observed with respect to the accounts, it is impossible even to guess at the motive for selling out stock when the annual receipts appear to have uniformly exceeded the annual payments. By an understanding less acute than that of the " Treasurer of the Society of Antiquaries," it would be inferred, that if in 1816 the stock was 80007., three per cents, and between that time and the present the receipts had exceeded the expenditure by 26371. 4s. 3d., the stock at this moment, instead of being 1500l. less than in 1816, ought to have been very considerably increased. In the state of darkness in which the Society is studiously kept with respect to its affairs, it is impossible to elucidate the subject, and we shall consequently leave it to the proper officers to explain what now seems inexplicable. Certain it is, that the annual receipts are at least 25007., and that in the last year they were 28507.; an increase which would be a subject of congratulation, were it not for the fact, that a great influx of members tends to reduce the Society still lower in the public opinion; for if admission be regulated by no other principle than " the more, the merrier," what honour can it confer upon those who belong to it?

We now proceed to inquire what the Society has produced from 1815 to 1827. In 1817, the eighteenth volume of the Archæologia appeared; the seventeenth having been published in 1814, the nineteenth in 1821, the twentieth in 1824, and

the twenty-first volume in 1827. Hence four volumes of the Archæologia, with about ninety plates of the Baieux Tapestry, Cathedrals, the Temple Church, Tewksbury Church, &c. form all the Society's productions for twelve years, though within that period the enormous sum of twenty-two thousand five hundred and fifteen pounds has been expended!

It is not necessary to allude to the literary merits of the four volumes in question, nor to speculate whether the same quantity of paper and type might not have been much more advantageously appropriated; but, taking for granted that it was most valuable, it is barely credible that, with such funds, and so numerous a list of members, so very little should have been produced. Those volumes contain altogether 2357 quarto pages1; which, allowing that the Society consisted, on the average, of seven hundred and fifty Fellows, presumes that about three pages and a half have been contributed by each member in twelve years! The plates which occur in the volumes are perhaps as good as are necessary; but we suspect very strongly that an exorbitant price has been paid, since, instead of throwing open the execution of them to the engravers at large, the work is monopolized by the "engraver to the Society;" and the sum for which he says he will undertake to produce them alone determines whether the drawings shall be engraved or not; but no attempt is ever made to ascertain whether another artist would engrave them as well and for a lesser price. A great injustice is thus shown to artists in general, whilst a bounty is held out for imposition on the part of one individual. Would not common sense dictate, when it was thought desirable that certain drawings should be engraved, that some officer of the Society, and it is the special if not the only duty of the Director to do so, should submit them to three or four eminent engravers, and report their different estimates to the Council? Thus much with respect to the manner in which the person is selected to engrave the plates, and which is as injurious to the interests of the Corporation, as it is ungenerous to the host of meritorious artists whose talents entitle them to a share of the patronage of such an institution. Of the plates in the " Vetusta Monumenta," those of the Baieux Tapestry are the most curious: but the engravings of the cathedrals, we are told even by architects, to whom, if to any

The pages containing the list of presents, and the index, are not included in the number, though those which are devoted to the table of contents are so, where, instead of the simple title of each article, the whole description that occurs at the commencement of it is repeated, with no other apparent motives than to give the printer a better job, and to exhibit a magnificent array of F. R. S.'s, F. S. A.'s, and half the other letters of the alphabet!

2 We are informed that one of the most eminent men of the profession was so disgusted with the glaring errors he detected in the plates of one cathedral, that he absolutely expelled them his library! And, as a proof of the taste evinced in other plates of the

one, they would be useful, are, if not wholly valueless, at least engraved upon far too large and expensive a scale. Excepting to a very few of these plates, not a single line of letter-press has ever been published; and the Baieux Tapestry, which has been completed upwards of four years, remains without one word of illustration, though various papers have been read on it. Is it that the officers, from some of whom we ought to expect it, are afraid to grapple with the subject? or are they too indifferent, or too willing to render their respective offices complete sinecures ? The senior Secretary's profound antiquarian knowledge, and deep research, could not be better employed; and, to render the dissertations complete, let the Treasurer, of whose fitness for the task his luminous account of Tewksbury church is a specimen, devote to it a small share of his unrivalled historical attainments. To be serious, however it is melancholy to reflect that above twenty-two thousand pounds have been thrown away in so short a period, upon the production of little more than two thousand quarto pages, containing such an overwhelming proportion of vain and profitless speculations upon stones and mortar, British encampments, Roman remains, Runic inscriptions, &c.

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But we are bound to observe, that the whole of the amount in question has not been devoted to the works of the Society. A part has been bestowed in what some will doubtless consider a more profitable manner, since food for the body, instead of for the mind, has absorbed a by no means inconsiderable portion of its revenues. Instead of every member who attends the annual dinner paying his proper share of the whole expense incurred, seven shillings only are demanded of him; and the difference, which it is scarcely possible to reckon at less than fourteen shillings per head, is paid for by the Society! Nor is this the only expenditure of the kind. It is known by very few members, that a sumptuous dinner is given once a year to the officers and rest of the Council, and the two Auditors, at which every delicacy and every variety of wines are, we hear, introduced; and which repast usually costs about forty pounds. These expenses, added to the charge for the dinner, on the anniversaries, cannot be reckoned at much less than one thousand pounds in twelve years! Whether this appropriation of funds, destined for far nobler purposes, be common to other literary or scientific societies in England, we know not; but if so, we assert that such conduct is unknown in other countries, and tends to render our institutions ridiculous in the eyes of the whole world.

"Vetusta Monumenta," it is merely necessary to allude to the etching of a Roman helmet in the British Museum, which absurdly fills an immense sheet; but where the only mark of its authenticity, the ear-piece, is omitted, because it had fallen off the original relic, and lies by its side.

It seems to have escaped the attention of the officers as well as of the Society at large, that a control of the most extensive nature is vested in the Fellows over the expenditure; for, by the thirteenth chapter of the statutes, it is enacted, that "every payment exceeding the sum of fifty pounds shall be made by an order of the Council; but not until the same, having been laid before the body of the Society, shall be approved and ratified by them." Every shilling, therefore, above that sum which has been paid without such ratification has been illegally disbursed, and those who have sanctioned it are responsible. The annual expenses vary from one to two thousand pounds; and, without including the salaries of the officers, it is incredible that many of the items do not exceed fifty pounds. For example, the printer's and engraver's bills; and yet, when have they been submitted for the approbation of the Society? The statute alluded to is one of the most valuable that exists, since it vests a wholesome, and, when the Council is formed of such elements as at present, highly necessary power, in the whole body to correct the combined effects of supineness, ignorance, and intrigue. We are afraid the costs of the dinner to the Council and officers are not quite high enough to render it necessary that they should be authorised by the body at large, or it would be amusing to hear the noble President read from the chair," Is it your pleasure, gentlemen, to approve of the payment of for the expenses of a dinner to the President, Officers, Council, and Auditors of the Society, on the day of March last?" But the payment of the expenses of the anniversary dinner, without a similar proceeding, is, we are convinced, illegal. It is obvious that the Council have not the power of undertaking any publication whatever, if the expenses of it will exceed fifty pounds, without risking the chance of having to pay for it themselves; and it is to be lamented that the Society had not the spirit, when the payment of the greater part of its engravings were submitted for its approval, if such ratification ever took place, to have rendered those who ordered them answerable for their imbecility.

We have postponed speaking of the salaries of the Secretaries and Librarian, because we wished to notice the subject in connexion with the proposition which, at the unanimous recommendation of the Council', was made on the 15th instant, when the Society resumed its sittings, to increase that of the second Secretary fifty guineas per annum, because he has had the labour of preparing all its publications for the press for some years. In considering this application, it is impossible to refrain

We should like to know how many of the Council were present on the occasion: these names too would afford a clue to the real motives of the proposition.

from alluding to the speech of the President in 1784, when a second Secretary was first appointed; or, from contrasting the motives which then induced an individual to accept of the situation with those which, it must be inferred, actuate the person who now fills it. After recommending Mr. Brand for the office, Mr. King thus continued, "And I cannot but observe, that as the salary of our new Secretary is so very inconsiderable, the emolument can be no object to any man of such respectability, as it is needful for us to have the assistance of; and that nothing but that noble enthusiasm of spirit, which is the most needful and effectual thing of all others, to promote the advancement of science, could induce any member of this society to stand forth on this occasion 1."

Alas! that "noble enthusiasm" is extinct, and the office appears to be now valued merely with relation to the pounds, shillings, and pence, which are to be derived from it. Thus in these degenerate days, when literature is reduced to a mere mercantile speculation of profit and loss, we must, we fear, look at the situation of "Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries," like many others, and calculate with a tradesman-like attention, how far the corporation can afford to comply with the importunities of its servants for an increase of wages. Although, since 1784, the salaries attached to those offices have, we have cause to believe, been once, if not twice augmented, in proportion perhaps as the honour arising from them was deemed to grow less, the funds, if properly managed, would admit of a fair remuneration to its Secretaries, and one hundred guineas, which, is the salary of the senior Secretary, is not too much; hence, if Mr. Ellis's is less than that sum, for no information was given of its amount, and for aught the members know, it may be one thousand farthings or one thousand pounds per annum, it should perhaps be increased. The measure is, therefore, in itself, to some extent, a just one; for when the senior Secretary receives 1057., with apartments, coals, and candles, &c. for doing comparatively nothing; his colleague, who is at least heard once in a week, is deserving of equal reward. His present salary, as Secretary, seems, however, from the proposition to give him more money, to be deemed, even by his friends of the Council, fully adequate; and it is as editor of the Society's publications that he is to be additionally remunerated; hence it is solely with reference to this claim that the question ought to be considered. But let us first inquire, is the Treasurer, as well as the senior Secretary, an automaton? is the Director an automaton? is each of the Vice-Presidents an automaton? and,

Speech delivered by Edward King, Esq. President, on resigning the chair, 23rd April, 1784, 4to,