for the first time, appear in all its extent. The archives of the Dépot de Guerre, will be also consulted. They will supply the history of the various campaigns, the correspondence of Louis the Fourteenth, of Philip the Fifth, and the Duke of Orleans, of the Maréchal de Berwick, and the Duke de Vendôme. To these will be added maps and plans, and the work will be under the management of the Secretary of War. The same course will be pursued in regard to the archives of the naval department. After the political history of the monarchy, will come under review its moral and intellectual character, and the works which relate to it. Of this description, a MS. of the famous work of Obailard, entitled Sic et Non, supposed to be lost, has been recovered in the library of Avranches. It was this treatise which occasioned the condemnation of its author at the Council of Seris, in 1140. The editor will be M. Cousin. Lastly, the History of Art will occupy the attention of the Committee. The Minister proposes to enter on it forthwith, and for that purpose has caused a complete catalogue to be prepared of the monuments of all classes and ages which have existed, or still exist in France. Such is the substance of M. Guizot's report, which cannot fail to attract the attention of those gentlemen who direct the Record Commission in our own country. A period of fifteen years at least has elapsed since the collections for a complete edition of our national historians commenced, and we have still to hope for the appearance of the first volume! Let us venture to predict, that when it comes forth, it will be able to bear a comparison with the works of a similar class, already complete, or in progress in Italy, France, Germany, Denmark, &c. &c. Even in the recent kingdom of Belgium, the same spirit of historical inquiry seems to have arisen, and a Commission has been issued by King Leopold, the objects of which embrace much more than the English, or even the French; for not only does it contemplate the publication of all historical documents, strictly so called, but an abstract of all the monastic cartularies, and a complete collection of all the tracts in poetry and prose, which serve to illustrate the ancient language and literature of the country! When shall we see such a collection made in England? Let the admirers of Chaucer and Peirs Plouhman reply, if they can. Yours, &c. PLAN OF THE CATHEDRAL OF OLD SARUM. IT will be recollected that, owing to the dryness of last summer, the foundations were perceived, through the grass, of the ancient Cathedral on the hill of Old Sarum. Mr. Hatcher, the author of a recent "Account of Old and New Sarum,*" did not neglect the opportunity thus afforded, of obtaining information relative to this long-vanished edifice, and from such traces as he found, assisted by the analogies of other structures, similar in their destination and the period of their erection, he exercised his ingenuity in the formation of the plan, which we have now the pleasure to lay before our readers.t * See our vol. II. p. 273. + Of the entire bill of Old Sarum former plans have been made, and copies have been published in various forms; Φ. The Saxon diocese of Wiltshire was divided from the more ancient bishopric of Sherborne, about the middle of the ninth century, and the see was fixed at Wilton. Herman, a somewhat sometimes the streets are laid out, we presume on the authority of Leland, and sometimes a pretended view of the Castle is added; but we will not allow this opportunity to pass without remarking that that Castle is copied from the sepulchral brass of Bishop Wyvill in Salisbury Cathedral, where it was intended for a representation (whether a correct one we are unable to say,) not of the Castle of Sarum, but of that of Sherborne, of which Bishop Wyvill was Constable. See Gough's Sepulchral Monuments," Vol. I. p. 132, and the engraving in Car ter's "Ancient Sculpture and Painting." 66 Ælfstan Bishop of Wilton is mentioned in a charter of Edgar in 868. restless prelate, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, made an unsuccessful attempt to remove the see to Malmesbury; but a few years after, on the death of the Bishop of Sherborne, he effected the reunion of the dioceses of Dorsetshire and Wiltshire, and finally, after the Norman Conquest, removed the see to the hill of Sorbiodunum, or Searesbyrig. This change he was enabled to accomplish under the authority of an ordinance of the Council held at London in 1075, which directed that Bishops' sees should be removed from obscure places to the towns of the greatest importance in their dioceses; though it appears, from several old authors, that Old Sarum was never much of a city, but only, as the castle of the Sheriff of Wiltshire, it had become the seat of the civil jurisdiction of the county. Herman is said to have commenced the cathedral of Old Sarum; and after his death, in 1077, the work was carried on and completed by his successor Osmund. The edifice was completed in the year 1092, when, with the assistance of Walcheline Bishop of Winchester, and John Bishop of Bath and Wells, (one authority says with seven Bishops,) he performed the ceremony of dedication, on the nones of April. Only five days after, a violent storm destroyed the roof, as is commemorated in the following lines of the rhyming chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, So gret lytnynge was the vyfte yer, so that al to nogt The rof of the chyrch of Salesbury it broute, Ryght evene the vyfte day that he yhalwed was. Unless there is some confusion, the coincidence here is extraordinary, that the church should be dedicated on the fifth of April, in the fifth year of the King's reign, and that it should be so greatly injured five days after. Yet the last fact is repeated by Knighton. However, the church was completed by Bishop Osmund, and he was buried in it in 1099. His bones were afterwards translated to the new Cathedral; and he was canonized in 1456. His successors at Old Sarum were Roger, who died in 1139; Jocelyn who died in 1184; Hubert Walter, translated to Canterbury in 1193; Herbert Poore, who died in 1216; and Richard Poore, in whose time the present Cathedral of Salisbury was founded. The following may be considered as an approximate measurement of its several parts, which display great harmony of proportion :-Total length, 270 feet; length of the transept, 150; of the nave, 150; of the choir, 60; breadth of the nave, 72; of which 18 feet were taken on each side for the aisles; of the transept, 60. At the west end, the aisles, to the length of 30 feet, appear to have been partitioned off, as if for chapels. The foundations of the nave were found to be above seven feet thick, and those of the transept above five feet, without the facings. The reasons for the removal of the clergy from this church, were the bleakness of the situation, which occasioned their buildings to suffer frequently from storms, a want of water, and quarrels with the soldiers of the castle. The following lines, whether written at the time, or at a subsequent period, express the sentiments of the ecclesiastics on the subject, Quid Domini Domus in Castro, nisi The other important particulars that Leland furnishes of Old Sarum, are these: "There was a parish of the Holy Rood, and another [church] over the East Gate, whereof yet some tokens remain. "I do not perceive that there were any more Gates in Old Salisbury than two: one by east, and another by west. Without each of these Gates was a fair suburb; and in the east suburb was a parish church of St. John,* and there yet is a chapel standing. "There have been houses in time of mind inhabited in the east suburb of Old Salisbury; but now there is not one house, either within Old Salisbury or without, inhabited. "There was a right fair and strong Castle, belonging to the Earls of Salisbury. Much notable ruinous building of this Castle yet there remaineth. The ditch that environed the town was a very deep and strong thing." Mr. Bowles, in the concluding pages of his "History of Lacock Abbey," to which interesting and animated work we are indebted for the plans, has given the following eloquent description of the view from Old Sarum: having completed the last sheets of this "It was on the 16th day of February, long story of other days, I stood on the summit of the silent mound of Old Sarum, the eventful scene of much of this history. I stood on the site, as it is conceived, of EDWARD THE SHERIFF's Castle, recalling the names, and characters, and events, of a distant age, when, on this spot, a City shone, with its Cathedral, and its Norman Castle, lifting their pinnacles and turrets above the clouds; and here, on this majestic and solitary eminence, the Regal form of the stern Conqueror, his mailed Barons, the grey-haired and mitred Osmund, who had exchanged his sword for a crozier-and young Edward, ancestor of the Foundress of Lacock, seemed to pass before me, followed by the crowned Troubadour, Richard of the "Lion's Heart"-his heroic Brother of the "LONG SWORD," buried in the Cathedral below; and ELA his bereaved and pious Widow, pale, placid, and tearful, the Foundress of that Abbey whose Annals we have been the first distinctly to relate. "I turned my eyes, and beheld the vast * Traces of interments, indicating the cemetery of this church, were found in 1834. U |