ask, why should the isle of Samos be supposed to produce a clay to which there is nothing analogous in any other part of the globe? When I expressed an opinion that England and France were supplied with this article "from Italy," I was not aware that all three countries possessed accessible materials, amply sufficient both in quality and quantity for the manufacture of earthenware of precisely the same character in colour, hardness, and texture, as the so-called "Samian." Since my communication to your pages on the subject, I have, at the suggestion and with the valuable aid of my friend Mr. Reid of Highgate, made numerous experiments with the clays at various depths in London and its vicinity. That the same material abounds in all three countries there is ample evidence. Fabroni's minute description of the Arezzo clay precisely accords with the characteristics of the vast stratum termed "the London clay," which I need scarcely remind your readers is one of immense extent and thickness. In Kent it is very abundant near the surface, as at Sheppey, Whitstable, &c. In Norfolk, Essex, and Middlesex, it also abounds.* The similarity between the clay deposits of England and France is equally remarkable. When we consider the vast extent of these deposits in both countries, we may fairly infer that the same "school" of artists could produce the same description of articles, whether in England or France. The results of very many experiments with the "plastic clay," the "blue, or London clay," and the fine brown clay immediately above the latter, are nearly similar, and are sufficient to convince me of the correctness of my opinion. It is that brilliant coralline glaze which constitutes the distinguishing feature of this ware, and which alone forms as yet the desideratum; although, from experiments now in progress, I believe it to be a combination of some of the oxides of lead and iron. On this point Mr. Shortt (Antiq. Exeter, p. 112) gives the following extract from the Archæologia, vol. xxv. p. 19:"There is this difference between the red pottery and the real Samian; that the one is glazed, and the other uni formly unglazed; for the fine material of the latter, like the French porcelain, did not require glazing; while the other, formed of native clay, was washed and glazed with salt and a small portion of lead." Yours, &c. E. B. PRICE. P.S.-In justice to Count de Caylus, I must remind W. C. that the Count did not found his opinion solely from the abundance of ancient specimens discovered at Nismes, but also from a careful examination of the native clay of the neighbourhood. (Vide Menard, Hist. de Nismes.) I observe W. C. doubts if any specimens of this so-called "Samian Ware" "have been discovered in Herculaneum or Pompeii." On this point I cannot do better than avail myself of the kind permission of Mr. A. J. Kempe to refer to his son-in-law Albin Martin, esq. of Silton, Dorsetshire, who has recently returned from Naples. The following extract from a letter of Mrs. Martin to her father will, I am sure, be deemed sufficient: "In answer to the questions which Mr. Price asks, Mr. Martin can positively say that vessels of Samian Ware have been found at Pompeii and Herculaneum. The museum at Naples contains numerous specimens (some with elegant designs on them, scroll work, &c.) of Tazza, Pateræ," &c. similar to the fragments you possess. At Puzzuoli I have myself picked up many small fragments of the ware lying about the tombs and in the road." Thus it appears that, if this article really was imported, there is no great improbability in supposing it came from Campania. But if W. C. will try half a dozen experiments with the clays I have mentioned, in a common crucible, I think he will come to the conclusion that we need not travel to either Samos or Campania in quest of materials. It will, perhaps, be found, on investigation, that the material is most accessible in those districts where the discoveries have been most abundant. E. B. P. MR. URBAN, IN a south chapel of the church at Stavelo, in Belgium, is a very curious shrine or sarcophagus, known as the "Chasse de St. Remacle." It has ⚫ Vide Penny Cyclopædia, art. "Clay," hitherto escaped the notice of tourists, those, at least, who have given publication to their memoranda, and is consequently not to be met with in that incomparable fellow traveller," Murray's Hand Book." It is stated to have been made in the reign of the Emperor Henry the Fourth, that is, about 400 years subsequent to the decease of St. Remacle, and that originally there was a small figure of the emperor, carved in agate, surmounting the shrine. The saint in whose honour, and to inclose whose remains this splendid coffin was made, is not mentioned by Butler in his Lives; but, from the Actus Sanctorum, he appears to have been born some time between 612 and 624, and to have been Abbot of Solignac, and subsequently Bishop of Tongres or of Maestricht. He founded the monasteries of Malinedy and Stavelo, and is supposed to have died between 667 and 671. In the words of the Actus: "Utriusque hujus monasterii constructor et primus abbas fuit S. Remaclus, Tungrorum episcopus, cujus sacræ reliquiæ in ecclesia Stabulensi requiescunt in pretiosissima capsulâ venerationi populorum expositæ." He is the favoured saint of the district, not excepting St. Hubert, and is invariably represented accompanied by a wolf bearing a pair of panniers. The popular legend is this: whilst occupied in the construction of the monastery a wolf seized and devoured the ass which was carrying the building stones, whereupon the saint, by a very just retribution, condemned the said wolf to take the said ass's place. Many miracles of this saint are recorded in the Actus, but no mention is made of this singular exercise of his functions. The shrine is of considerable size, and of copper gilt, or what is usually called latten. On one side appears St. Remacle with six of the apostles, three on either side; and on the opposite side St. Lambert similarly accompanied. At one end are figures of the Virgin and Child, with an inscription, but which from being close to the wall is rendered illegible. At the other end is a figure of the Father, and above is the following inscription in the characters of the 11th or 12th centuries. SOLUS AB ÆTERNO CREO CUNCTA All these figures are stated by the sacristan to be of silver gilt, and the whole of the shrine is very richly decorated with mosaics and precious stones, and relievos recording different events in sacred history. In one compartment where the Resurrection is exhibited, the sleeping guard is represented in chain mail, with a square helmet, and a long surcoat. His shield (but whether the device on it is really intended to be heraldic may be questionable,) is charged with two bars. St. Poppo, a subsequent abbot, restored the church of Stavelo, as appears from the Actus Sanctorum in 1040, and from this circumstance the tradition relative to the agate statue of the emperor, and the style of the work, its mosaics, its jewellery, its mailed figure, and the letters of the inscription, we may, I think, assume that it was placed in the church to receive the remains of St. Remacle soon after the restorations effected by St. Poppo. It deserves the attention of the antiquary, and is within an easy ride from Spa. Yours, &c. MR. URBAN, L. Dec. 10. THE quotation made by your Correspondent Mr. J. G. NICHOLS (Oct. P. 376,) respecting the Battle of Barnet, having led me to a reperusal of the volume entitled "Warkworth's Chronicle," I have been struck by a very extraordinary mistake committed by the editor, and which I do not find noticed in the review of the volume in your Magazine for Dec. 1839. It consists in the misapplication to the year 1470 of a document which belongs to the year 1460. Halliwell's Notes, and relates to the It will be found at p. 59 of Mr. * accord made in Parliament on Allhallows eve 1460, for the peaceable continuance of King Henry on the throne during his life, with succession to Richard Duke of York and his issue; and settling a yearly pension of ten thousand marks on the Duke of York and his sons, that is to say, five thousand on himself, three thousand sand on the Earl of Rutland. on the Earl of March, and two thou *"On halmesse evyn," a misprint for "halwesse evyn." This document Mr. Halliwell has quoted as if it referred to the treaty made in France in 1470, which was so far similar that its first condition was that King Henry should for his life remain in possession of his royal dignity, but which in every other respect was totally different. The contracting parties on this latter occasion were Queen Margaret and Prince Edward her son of the one party, and the Duke of Clarence and Earl of Warwick of the other. The succession of the crown was now settled in the first instance on the Lancastrian house, namely on Prince Edward, then betrothed to Anne Neville the Earl of Warwick's daughter (afterwards queen of Richard III.), with remainder to George Duke of Clarence and his heirs, who had married the Earl's elder daughter. Since the date of the former settlement the heads of the house of York named in it were wholly changed in appellation and in circumstance. The Duke of York was dead; his eldest son the Earl of March had reigned ten years as Edward the Fourth; his second son the Earl of Rutland was also dead; and his third son George, having grown up to manhood, and be. come Duke of Clarence, though not actually the heir presumptive of the house, for his brother had sons, was the present representative of its arrogance and ambition. Hence the similarity of the transaction which appears to have misled Mr. Halliwell, whilst at the same time it is surprising he should not have perceived the great discrepancy in the designations of the contracting parties. In another document, which Mr. Halliwell has printed at p. 61, I notice this misreading, "to the uttyrmoste destruccion of the goode commenes of the seyde reme of Englonde; yf yt so schulde contenne ffor the reformacion wherof"— Read contenue. For, &c. In line 17 the deficient word appears in the original (which is there torn, but not entirely defaced,) to be suppresse. In line 20 for mail read maner. In p. 62, line 6, read defensabeli to attende; and in line 7, and the last line of p. 61, read asthyst and restistens (for "assist" and "resistance," not aschyst and rescistens. (In both cases the writer doubled, by error, the st of the next syllable.), At p. 65 of the same notes dominibus is an error for domibus. Yours, &c. H. THE FEMALE BIOGRAPHIES OF ENGLISH HISTORY. BEFORE we commence this series of papers, it is requisite to give some explanation of the objects proposed. Biography is admitted to be universally interesting; and its interest arises from an almost endless variety of causes. The life of a person of humble station and very ordinary talents may gratify us from the fullness of the narrative, the extraordinary nature of occasional incidents, or the similarity of his experience or pursuits to our own. It is only the biography of the very foremost of mankind, or at least the leaders in each particular walk of life, that can command the attention of every reader. All other biographies must fall into classes: men once acknowledged as supreme in their own domain, and unrivalled during their lifetime in no petty sphere of action, must rank in the scroll of history among the crowd of statesmen, divines, or philosophers. Their memoirs must be regarded as illustrative rather of the class than the individual; and valuable rather as parts of the histories of their age or of their studies, than from any celebrity that may still attach itself to their names. Yet, if history is to be estimated by its use, no one will deny the value of such biographies. On the contrary, it will be agreed how desirable it is that biographies should be classed, both for the reciprocal light which they then throw on one another, and for the developement of such other branches of knowledge as are illustrated through them. The biography of the Female Aristocracy of England is a field almost hitherto untrodden. So little pains have ever been taken to collect its materials, GENT. MAG. VOL. XXIII. U that any one on first approaching the task would be led to imagine that they did not exist. Dugdale, in his Baronage, has given, indeed, the alliances of the peers, but in scarcely any instances more than the mere name and parentage of the lady. Any date relating to her is of the rarest occurrence. Neither the period of her birth, nor that of her marriage, nor, what is still more extraordinary, that of her death, appear to be known. If a nobleman had more than one wife, it is consequently often uncertain which was the mother of his children. Nor has such information been generally supplied in more modern works on the peerage. Genealogists have occasionally inserted a date in a pedigree, but that is all. In Lodge's Portraits of Illustrious Personages, out of two hundred and forty memoirs, the subjects of only thirty-one are females, of whom twelve are Queens. More recently the pens of several female writers have been employed on the memoirs of the most illustrious of their sex; and the public have favourably received Miss Halsted's Countess of Richmond and Derby, Miss Strickland's Queens of England, and Miss Costello's Lives of Eminent Englishwomen. But even the latter work, which might be thought to have anticipated our present purpose, comprises no very large number of characters, nor scarcely any before the close of the sixteenth century. It is, therefore, our present intention to try what can be done towards the elucidation of history in this channel of investigation; and if the characters or the adventures of the persons commemorated should not in some cases appear to be of such strong interest as to have merited the attempt to rescue them from oblivion, the reader must bear in mind the principal object of the collection, namely, the future improvement of our historical works on noble families, and the general illustration of history and manners, especially of the latter. Upon that point, indeed, it may be anticipated that the present inquiries will produce many valuable results. We cannot investigate the circumstances of the lives of those persons whose powerful influence has from time to time moulded and modified the usages of society, without bringing to light illustrations of manners both curious and instructive, but which authors of more general aim have allowed to pass into undeserved oblivion. We shall commence the series with the two wives of a potent subject, the first a Princess by birth, and the second a more remote member of the Blood Royal. The former, which now follows, will introduce a contemporary narrative of the funeral of the widowed Queen of Edward the Fourth, now first printed in an entire form. *The contents of Miss Costello's work are as follow: Vol. I. Elizabeth Countess of Shrewsbury; *Arabella Stuart; Catharine Grey; *Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke; Penelope Lady Rich; Magdalen Herbert; Frances Howard, Duchess of Richmond. Vol. II. Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia; Lucy Harrington, Countess of Bedford; Frances Howard, Countess of Somerset ; Elizabeth Countess of Essex; Christian Countess of Devonshire; Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset; Mary Evelyn; Lady Fanshawe. Vol. III. Anastasia Venetia Stanley, Lady Digby; the Countess of Desmond; Elizabeth Cromwell and her daughters; Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson; *Frances Stuart, Duchess of Richmond; *Dorothy Sidney, Countess of Sunderland; Elizabeth Percy, Duchess of Somerset ; *Lady Rachel Russell; Margaret Duchess of Newcastle; Anne Countess of Winchelsea; Mrs. Katherine Philips; Jane Lane; Anne Killigrew; Frances Jennings, Duchess of Tyrconnel; Mary Beale; Anne Clarges, Duchess of Albemarle; Lady Mary Tudor; *Anne Hyde, Duchess of York; Anne Scott, Duchess of Monmouth; Stella and Vanessa; Susannah Centlivre. Vol. IV. Sarah Duchess of Marlborough; and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Of these thirty-seven subjects eleven of the most prominent (which we have marked) were already treated of, by Lodge. Miss Costello's work, however, though somewhat unequally executed, is one of great merit and high interest. No. I.-ANNE LADY HOWARD. THIS lady, the first wife of Thomas Howard, third Duke of Norfolk, did not live to be Duchess of Norfolk, nor even Countess of Surrey. She was the seventh child and fifth daughter of King Edward the Fourth, and his Queen, Elizabeth Wodevile. She was born at Westminster, on the 2nd day of November, 1475, and christened in the abbey church there. In a will made by her father a few months before, and bearing date the 20th June, is the following passage: "Item, where we trust in God oure said wiff bee now with childe, if God fortune it to bee a daughtre, then we wil that she have also xml. marc' (66661. 13s. 4d.) towards her mariage."+ Whilst King Edward was still reigning in prosperity, his female children were contracted in marriage to several foreign potentates: Elizabeth, the eldest, to the Dauphin of France; Mary, to the King of Denmark; and Cecily to the Prince of Scotland. To these prospective alliances he added, in the summer of the year 1479, contracts for the marriages of his daughter Anne to Prince Philip of Austria, and of Katharine to the Infant John, heir apparent of Don Ferdinand, King of Castile, Leon, Aragon, and Sicily. *The daughters of Edward IV. were altogether seven: 1. Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of Henry VII.; 2. Mary, who died young; 3. Cecily, Viscountess Welles; 4. Margaret, who died young; 5. Anne, Lady Howard; 6. Katharine, Countess of Devon; and 7. Bridget, nun at Syon. Their order in Sandford's Genealogical History is incorrect: see the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. C. i. 24; CII. ii. 200. MS. Addit. Brit. Mus. No. 6113, f. 48 b. Excerpta Historica, p. 369. § This Philip (surnamed the Fair) was afterwards the husband of the heiress of Spain, father of the Emperor Charles V. and progenitor of the subsequent Kings of that country, as well as the Emperors of Germany. The inheritance of her father's dominions fell to his wife, Jane, (the elder sister of our Queen Katharine of Arragon,) in consequence of the death in 1497 of her brother John, (also above mentioned as the contemplated husband of Katharine of England,) who eventually married Mary of Austria, sister to Philip, but died without issue, In the former case the contract was executed by the Duke Maximilian and the Princess Mary his wife, the parents of the prince, at St. Omer's on the 18th July, and by King Edward at Guildford on the 16th of August: by which it was covenanted that neither party should contract any other marriage within three years.* In the following year, on the 5th August, the treaty was concluded. The Prince was then styled Count of Charolois. It was agreed, 1. that matrimony should be solemnized so soon as the parties were of suitable age; 2. that King Edward should give a dowry of 100,000 crowns (scutorum), which, however, was remitted by an acquittance granted by Maximilian and Mary month; 3. that, when Anne should at Namur, on the 20th of the same arrive at the age of twelve, the Duke and Duchess of Austria should pay her an annual pension of 6000 crowns of gold (coronarum auri) until her marriage; 4. that she should have a dowry, if widowed, of 2000 pounds (librarum grossorum monetæ Flandriæ) of should be honourably conveyed to her the money of Flanders; 5. that she marriage at their expense; 6. that, should either party die, a like alliance should take place between the survivor and some other son or daughter of the Duke and King, such party on the Burgundian side being the Duke's heirs. Further, by subsequent letters dated in both countries on the 7th August, it was covenanted that, on the consummation of her marriage, the Princess Anne should receive lordships, lands, and rents to the yearly value of 8000 pounds of Artois; but, if she retracted after attaining her twelfth year, that King Edward should then pay 40,000 pounds of Artois.§ Finally, by a public act performed in a certain high chamber within the * Rymer's Foedera, edit. 1711, tom. xii. p. 110. Ibid. p. 134.-In consideration of the same, King Edward remitted the first yearly payment of a pension of 50,000 crowns, which the Archduke had agreed to give, should Edward become involved in a war with France, and thus forfeit a like pension for which King Louis was engaged to him. Ibid. p. 133. Ibid. pp. 128, 130. § Ibid. pp. 129, 130, |