which must have been entered from without; and a vaulted roof probably divided it from the first floor, which would also have access only from the outside. The excavations which have lately been made have been the means of ascertaining this point, as well as of opening up a building outside, supposed to have been an early chapel, as also of bringing to light leaden pipes connected with the early water-supply of this part of the Castle, which appears to be very old, Roman tiles being inserted in the basement of the keep, and its walls being 17 feet in thickness below, and 14 above. Mr. E. P. Loftus Brock discoursed to the party standing within the empty keep; and looking upwards, the dome-like stone roof could be seen, still perfect, 75 feet above our heads.

It only remains for me to express the satisfaction which was felt at the manner in which we had been received by the savants of Pembroke shire, headed by the learned Mayor of Tenby, W. H. Richards, Esq., and the Town Council, who had placed the Town Hall at our disposal for the evenings, and brought, together with the Corporation plate, maces from Haverfordwest and Pembroke, which were discoursed upon by Mr. G. Lambert, F.S.A., with many interesting details.

Mr. Edward Laws, our Local Secretary, was indefatigable in giving us the benefit of his great antiquarian knowledge of the county and of its history. At the evening meetings, too, which were well attended, he introduced many subjects for discussion; and in his paper on the Gwyddyl and the Gael he introduced a tangled skein of Celtic lore which may yet furnish many a discussion in the future, until the appearance of some deus ex machina shall cut such a complicated knot.1

A degree less complicated than this was the question of place-names, their origin and their meaning. Passing Pembrokeshire in review, Sir James Picton could point to many of undoubted Danish origin, as did also the President in his address, naming Stockholm and Skomer, Haverfordwest, Milford, Fishguard, and Hasgard, and expressing some doubt whether Tenby might not be of Scandinavian origin.

Sir James Picton, in his rather free interpretation of some others, called forth Mr. W. de Gray Birch's warning not to trust too much to apparent derivations, unless confirmed by documentary evidence at known chronological periods, and he showed how mistakes might be made in this way. That of "Cam-bridge" from "Grantabrigia" was, perhaps, not so happy an example as that of Oxford, which drew forth a learned article on local names in The Times newspaper of October 8, 1884, a portion of which I will quote:

"There was a time, beginning in the twelfth century, when learned

The difficulties of the subject are admitted in the learned work, Vestiges of the Guel in Grynedd, by the Rev. W. Basil Jones, M.A. London, 1851.

curiosity set to work to make British names for English towns, and to quote such fictions as if they were the true originals. The result has been a confusion from which the subject has not yet recovered. In this way the Welsh name for Oxford is Rhydychain, from rhyd, a ford, and ychain, oxen; and this was Latinised into Urbs Rhedicina. In the thirteenth century it appears in the Mabinogion in the form Rytychen. A correspondent who writes from Welshpool does not seem to be aware that this name is artificial, and stands on a totally different footing from the Welsh names he quotes from near the border, as Trallwyn (town of the pool) for Welshpool, Trefaldwyn (Baldwin's town) for Montgomery, and Pengwern for Shrewsbury. In these cases the Welsh names seem to be original, and two of them altogether independent of English names. In the case of Welshpool the English name seems to be a translation of the Welsh. Thus we see that there are British names for English towns, which are genuinely British, and a true part of the Welsh tradition. There are others that have been made artificially, of which Rhydychain is one, and Ynys Vitrin may possibly be another "

Thus, to archeologists a knowledge of the Welsh language is as necessary as it is to clergymen appointed to benefices in Wales. This was apparent to a writer of a letter to Archbishop Tenison in 1703, among the MSS. of the archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth, in which the writer says, "when we had bishops that could preach in Welsh, it did keep the unity of the Church as well as any part of the nation." The present Bishop of St. David's, our President, very properly considered the question of Welsh-speaking clergy on a recent appointment to the living of Llangattock; and Mr. S. W. Kershaw, F.S.A., Librarian of the Lambeth Palace Library, is my authority for this assertion.

In conclusion, I may remark that one of our Honorary Secretaries, Mr. E. P. Loftus Brock, F.S.A., never more cordially exerted himself, giving a running commentary on the architecture of the churches and other buildings, and devoting his special attention to the history and architecture of the castles. Our other Honorary Secretary, Mr. W. de Gray Birch, F.S.A., was not less at home in describing the seals and archives of Tenby and Haverfordwest, dedicating much time to them on two occasions. Mr. G. R. Wright, F.S.A., Hon. Congress Secretary, was even more energetic than usual, with great difficulties of distance to contend with, in bringing, as he did, to a successful issue, by the co-operation of Mr. Edward Laws, this second Congress in the Principality, under the patronage of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, and the presidency of the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of St. David's.

Note. Since the above was written, Mr. E. P. Loftus Brock has

furnished me with the following architectural details as to the west front of St. David's Cathedral :

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:

The western portion of the church was rebuilt some sixty or seventy years ago; but this is again in course of rebuilding in the purple coloured stone referred to. The design is Norman in style, copied from a sketch made by the elder Pugin from the old west front before it was taken down. The original design is thus restored to the church as nearly as may be. On taking down the recent front it was found that the projecting western buttresses contained some wooden shores which had apparently been placed in haste against the original front to keep it from falling, and built around afterwards by the new masonry."

Mr. G. R. Wright, F.S.A., Hon. Curator, then read an interesting paper on the "Maundy Ceremonies", and exhibited a wooden bowl used for distributing provisions, a piece of linen towelling representing the washing of the poor people's feet, two drinking-cups, and a large collection of Maundy money, some of which was specially exhibited by Mrs. Arthur Cope in connection with this paper; as well as a complete set from Charles II's time, in good preservation, by Dr. T.J. Woodhouse of Fulham.

An interesting discussion ensued, in, which Mr. Bidwell (SubAlmoner), Mr. Birch, and Mr. Compton took part. Mr. Arthur Cope also made some remarks on the curious custom of levying "deodands”, which formed, as Mr. Wright had explained in his paper, a portion of the funds of the royal charity.

Antiquarian Entelligence.

Surrey Bells and London Bell-Founders: a Contribution to the Comparative Study of Bell-Inscriptions. By J. C. L. STAHLSCHMIDT. (London: E. Stock, 1884.)—The literature of bells has always been attractive, and the few notices of bells and bell-inscriptions that have appeared from time to time in our columns have not been the least interesting subjects of which archæology takes cognizance. Of the origin of bells little is known; but there can be no reasonable doubt that the capability of sheets of certain metals to transmit, when struck, sounds to a considerable distance was well and universally known at a very remote period. In this form the bell would be rather a gong than a bell, and it is found extensively in use among Oriental peoples. The turning in of the edges of a sheet of metal, to enclose a