Both of them were usurpers, and neither of them had any legal right to the throne; and if they had lived nearer these times, and in humble life, it is not improbable that the intrepid disposition and invincible courage of Richard, might have made him a daring robber or highwayman; and the mean and avaricious propensities of Henry might have caused him to become an adroit pickpocket or sordid miser. It was very much the fashion for historical writers who lived in the times of the Tudor sovereigns, in order to court popularity with them, to calumnate Richard, blacken his memory, and in their accounts of him, to represent him as a kind of monster, deformed in person and malignant in mind, with not a few other strange assersions, which subsequent generations have been induced to consider either as absurdities or exaggerations. Upon a cool and dispassionate comparison, however, of the characters of Richard III. and Henry VII., both of them wicked and unscrupulous men, the contrast is not favourable to Henry. Richard committed sanguinary crimes in order to obtain the crown, but even his enemies do not accuse him of any tyrannical actions as a king; Henry had not the opportunity of perpetrating such offences before he obtained the crown, but history is replete with instances of his tyranny and injustice during the whole of his life, after he became a king. Richard possessed great talents and natural capacity, but his reign was so short, that he had not many opportunities of evincing his abilities for exercising the royal functions, yet he passed some excellent laws for the benefit of his subjects; Henry was sagacious and clever in many respects, and during his rather long reign, he also passed some very good laws; but, as has been correctly observed, his laws were ever calculated with a view to his own profit; he encouraged commerce as it improved his customs, and brought money in to his subjects, which he could squeeze out at pleasure. Richard was munificent and liberal; Henry was mean and avaricious. Richard was bold, enterprising, and courageous; Henry was timorous, selfish, and cautious. Richard and Henry, however, closely resembled each other in one respect; each of them was unscrupulous, and did not hesitate, without remorse, to put to death a fellow-creature who had incurred his displeasure, or was an obstacle to the success of his measures. Richard is believed to have murdered his nephews, Edward V., and the young Duke of York; and Henry is known to have inhumanly and very wickedly put to death Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick; an action which has been properly designated "as vile a murder as that of Edward V.; nay, were it possible to speak in palliation of this worst of 1 Carte, vol. ii., p. 866. crimes, Richard was the least culpable, for he had one temptation which Henry had not; Edward V. had an absolute right to the crown, but Warwick only a shadow."1 The crime of illegally depriving a human being of life is very solemnly reprobated by Shakspeare, in his usual beautiful and powerful language "Erroneous vassal! the great King of Kings Hath in the table of his law commanded, That thou shalt do no murder. Wilt thou then Spurn at his edict, and fulfil a man's? Take heed; for he holds vengeance in his hand, EXTRAORDINARY MEETING, Held at the ROYAL INSTUTITON, on the 17th of November, 1856, DR. INMAN PRESIDENT, in the chair. The Council having recommended that ten guineas be paid during the current Session to a Professional Reporter for Reports of the Society's Meetings, this was unanimously carried. The resolution was subsequently confirmed at a Second Extraordinary Meeting held on the 1st of December; and the Council thereafter adopted the Liverpool Courier as the medium of making public the Society's proceedings. THIRD ORDINARY MEETING, Held at the ROYAL INSTITUTION, on the 17th of November, 1856, DR. INMAN, PRESIDENT, in the chair. The following were elected Ordinary Members : CHARLES TINLING, JOHN MARTIN BRIGHOUSE, WILLIAM HENRY BROADBENT, M.D. REV. P. F. J. B. HAINS, RONALD LIVINGSTONE, JOSEPH JOBSON. 1 Hutton's "Bosworth Field," p. 179. 2 Shakespeare's "Richard III.," Act i, Scene 4. G The CHAIRMAN announced the opening of the Museum of Applied Science, and invited the members to inspect it at the close of the meeting. Mr. CUNNINGHAM, F.G.S., exhibited several fossils, which were presented to the Royal Institution Museum. Among these were sandstone from Grinshill Quarries, in Shropshire, containing impres sions of showers of ancient rain in relief, and also the converse; i.e. the veritable pit marks produced by the falling rain, when the sand was in a soft and incoherent condition. Casts of sun cracks in the sand, beautifully preserved, were also seen in the same specimens. He presented a slab of siliceous limestone, which he found on the shore near the Menai Suspension Bridge, containing a beautiful impression of the nondescript animal, called a nereite, which he supposed to be the Crossopodid Scotica. This slab, although found mixed loosely up with others belonging to the lower beds of the carboniferous group, found in that place in situ, belongs to the lower silurian formation, and must have been transported from a considerable distance. He also exhibited another slab, detached from a stratum of limestone in situ, near to where the other specimens were found, containing a petrified sponge in beautiful preservation. The upper surface of the strata, from which the specimen was detached, was covered with these zoophytes, as they originally grew to the extent of from twelve to fourteen feet in length, and from three to four feet in width. Mr. T. C. ARCHER exhibited a sample of the seed vessels of the Ptelea trifoliata, a North American shrub, which had just been added to the new Museum of Science and Art in connexion with the Royal Institution. It was so very much like the hop that it might be introduced with very good effect as a substitute for it, and was well calculated to become a valuable article of commerce. It possessed, even in a more remarkable degree than the hop, the pure and agreeable bitter which is the peculiar property of that plant. He observed Mr. Nuttall, of Rainhill, present, who was doubtless well acquainted with it. Mr. NUTTALL assented. He had seen it growing and flowering very freely in the gardens about St. Helens. The papers of the evening were then read, as follows: ON HORACE'S ODE, "IN ARCHYTAM."-CARM. LIB. I., 28. "Te maris et terræ numeroque carentis arenæ Pulveris exigui prope litus parva Matinum Aërias tentasse domos, animoque rotundum Thus translated in the metre of the original— Ocean and earth and the numberless sand thou hast counted and measured; Yet here art thou confined, Archytas, Under a handful of dust, on the shore of Matinum, a trifling Gift of a generous hand. It avails thee All to explore with thy mind, though a mortal; Nothing to have soared up to the stars and attempted the heavens Thus died Tantalus too, though the guest of the gods, and Tithonus Though to Olympus exalted, and Minos Trusted with Jupiter's councils; and Panthous' son Euphorbos Twice sank down to Tartarean darkness, Though from his shield unfixed he proved his Dardanian lineage, Sinews and skin; he surely of nature and truth an expounder Highly esteemed by thee, Archytas. But for us all is in store one terrible night, and we all must 30 30 35 5 10 15 Some are offered as sport to unmerciful Mars by the Furies; Greedily swallows the ocean the sailor; Mixed with the old are the young in the dense-thronged funerals; not one Ever was spared by unfeeling Proserpine. I too was o'erwhelmed in Illyria's sea by the south wind, Boist'rous companion of setting Orion. 20 But, O sailor, be not unkind, nor grudge me a handful Sand for my head and my bones unburied. Then, if the east wind rages and roars on Hesperian waters, 25 May the Venusian forests be shattered, But thou ever remain unhurt, and ever abundant Neptune, the guardian god of the hallowed town of Tarentum. 30 Still unborn, to involve in the guilt of thy own transgression? And the deserved reward; my curses are heard, if thou leave me; And no sacrifice ever will purge thee. Tarry awhile, however thou hastest, and thrice on my body 35 Dr. IHNE then proceeded as follows: No ode of Horace is more difficult to explain than the following. This is the introductory remark of Mr. Newman to his translation, and of all commentators, ancient and modern. But the difficulty is of their own making; it is the result of too much ingenuity and of too free a play of fancy. They will have it, that this ode is a dialogue between the shade of Archytas, the philosopher, who was drowned in the Adriatic, and a mariner coasting along the shore. The first six lines are attributed to the latter, and the remainder to the Tarentine sage. That this view is entirely untenable I shall endeavour to show first, and then to give what I consider the right explanation. The first six lines are thus translated by Francis : "Archytas, what avails thy nice survey Of ocean's countless sands, of earth and sea? And wing thee to the boundless realms of light." The last two lines and a half, which are a perfectly gratuitous addition to the original, have the effect of begging the question, that poor Archytas, at the time of the supposed dialogue, was lying unburied on the shore. This is, in truth, what all the commentators require us to take for granted, for in the second part of the poem, where the mariner is requested to strew a few handfuls of sand on the dead body, it is |