96 ARCHAEOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE. Gloucester and Bristol are very convenient ; and it is readily approachable from all parts of Wales, as well as by the Great Western Railroad from London. The local preparations for the meeting are already begun. Letters for the Secretaries of the Association should be addressed to " Mr. Pickering, 177, Piccadilly, the publisher of its Journal ; or to the local Secretary, G. Grant Francis, Esq., Swansea." Cambridge Antiquarian Sociery, Dec. 4, 1848. — At this meeting, the Rev. C. Hard wick read a dissertation on a satirical poem, the date of which, from the language and historical allusions, appears to be about 1320. It is preserved in a volume of sermons by Rad. Acton, presented to St. Peter's College by Thomas Beaufort, half-brother of Henry IV. The poem is in rhyme, the versification very peculiar. It is an indis- criminate and unsparing attack upon all orders of society above the peasantry ; of high interest as an illustration of manners, and the state of the couutiy at the time. Mr. Wright printed a fragment of this curious poem in his " Political Songs," from an MS. in the Advocates' Library. Mr. A. W. Franks communicated a copy of the grant of arms to King's College, from the original amongst the college muniments, dated 27th of Henry VI., much anterior to the grants made to other colleges, in the reign of Elizabeth. It specifies the reasons for which the charges were granted. Mr. Franks exhibited a cast from an impression of the College Seal, appended to a deed dated 27th of Henry VL, on which difi:ereut bearings appear ; and he showed that in all probability the seal now used is the same matrix, but the present shield of arms had been substituted for the original scutcheon. Mr. C. C. Babington, and the Rev. J. J. Smith, gave an account of the vestiges of buildings brought to light by the exertions of the Hon. R. C. Neville, at Ickleton, as related in a previous part of this Journal. They questioned, however, the correctness of the notion that these remains are to be regarded as Roman, alleging that the mere foundations afford no architectural data ; and they regarded the antiquities found as insufficient to prove the Roman age of the building. It was observed that the use of Roman bricks, and the continuation of the apparatus for warming houses, introduced by the Romans, is not a decisive evidence of Roman origin, as both were certainly used at times long after the departure of that people from Britain. Adjoining to these foundations are remains of another building, which had given rise to considerable discussion, being an oblong room, apparently divided lengthwise by two rows of pillars, and called a Temple, Basilica, or Church, by diffei'ent persons. The inspection of its plan appeared to negative the first supposition, and the absence of an apse, so frequently found in early churches, was regarded as rendering the last improbable From examinations of the work, rude and deficient in regularity, and in the relative distances and size of the supposed bases of the pillars, it was con- ceived that this also is of later times than the Roman age, and that the bases might have been the supports of wooden props to the roof, such as existed in the Sextry Barn at Ely, described by Professor Willis.' ' Whatever opinion may be entertained the learned antiquaries of the University in regard to the supposed coluuinar arrange- wouhl scarcely have refused to recognise the nients of this building, we must conclude that strong probability that these remains are
