As our ancestors had neither gardens nor orchards, it would seem they had neither green-crops nor cultivated fruits. The white crop alone engaged their attention: sola terræ seges imperatur. Hence we are prepared for the account which Tacitus gives us of their diet-" cibi simplices, agrestia poma, recens fera, aut lac concretum;" and also for the Latin names which were commonly given to the fruits and fruit-trees which at a later period they cultivated. The Anglo-Saxon peru a pear, mor-beam a mulberry-tree, cyrs-treow a cherry-tree, &c., have cognate terms in most of the other Gothic dialects; and in all probability the Latin names were familiar to our ancestors long before their arrival in this island. The Welsh words per a pear, ceirios cherries, &c., make it further probable that the Latin forms came into the German dialects through a Celtic medium. The same remarks seem also to apply to the names given by the Anglo-Saxons to the common culinary vegetables; pysa a pea (pys Welsh), cawl colewort, nepe a turnip, &c. To suppose that men who for two or three centuries had been in the habit of making incursions into the Roman provinces, and who, if they were not among the conquerors of Rome, must have been in closest connexion with those that were, should have been unacquainted with the names of these simple esculents, requires an amount of scepticism which good sense will hardly sanction, Our pagan ancestors may have been a rude, but they certainly were neither a stupid nor a barbarous people. The writer, however, is well aware that caution is necessary in speculations of this nature. He knows how difficult it sometimes is to distinguish between terms which have come down contemporaneously in kindred dialects from a common source, and those which have been imported from the one language into the other. He would regard as contemporaneous in origin the Latin verb ar-are and the A.-Sax. er-ian, which was long preserved in our Old-English dialect under the form to ear. Nor does he see reason to believe that the Icelandic ard-r is merely a Gothicised form of the Latin aratrum. The Gothic races were probably from the first an agricultural people, and the simple implement which in ancient times was used to turn up the surface of the ground may have been as early known to them as to the Greeks and Latins. At any rate, they must have used some kind of plough long before the Romans approached their borders, and the ard-r may have been a familiar name with them, at a time when the Romans and themselves were alike living in a state of social rudeness. There is, however, a product of the husbandman's labour as yet unnoticed, which our ancestors certainly borrowed from their neighbours, and which as certainly carried with it a Latin term into the German languages. The Germans are said to have drunk ale or beer for their ordinary beverage, but we are told that those who dwelt near the Gauls purchased wine: "proximi ripæ et vinum mercantur." We cannot suppose that the knowledge of this luxury was long confined to the neighbourhood of the river. The word was used in all the Gothic dialects at a period as early as our MS. authorities reach to; and was probably known to all the German tribes centuries before the English settlement of Great Britain. The rude seamen who sailed from the mouth of the Elbe to " harry" the banks of the Seine or the Loire, must have been better acquainted with the Gaulish wines than were their descendants-the stationary and comparatively peaceful colonists of the opposite coasts; and the name was, no doubt, as familiar to Hengist and Horsa, when they landed in Thanet, as to the Romanized Britons who invited them. [To be continued.] (Anniversary.) The Accounts of the Society for the preceding year were presented by the Auditors. A paper was then read as follows: On a Lokrian Inscription." By the Rev. O. Cockayne. An essay on a recently discovered inscription was lately presented to the Society by W. Johnson, Esq. of Eton, and it was thought that some account of the work, with a copy of the inscription itself, would be acceptable to Members who cannot readily obtain access to the library. This paper, therefore, was originally intended simply as a report but some passages in the essay appearing defective, could not satisfactorily be reported without remark, and it will consequently be found that some measure of criticism accompanies a condensation of the readings of the first editor. The title of his publication is Λοκρικῆς ̓Ανεκδότου Επιγραφῆς Διαφώτισις ὑπὸ Ι. Ν. Οἰκονομίδου. Ἐν Κερκύρᾳ. 1850. The inscription is double, consisting of two paragraphs of a Convention between two small Lokrian states on the Korinthian Gulf. It is found upon a plate of brass weighing about five and a half pounds English, preserved in the museum of Mr. Woodhouse at Corfu. In merely reading off the letters, there is, of course, little room for variety of opinion: there lies the record, to which you must come back, say what you will. But even in an arena so small, differences arise it seems impossible to assent to all the readings of the editor. He thus prints the text, allowing for one error of the pen, pointed out subsequently by himself: τὸν ξένον μὴ ἅγεν ἐ τᾶς Χαλεΐδος τὸν Οἰανθέα, μηδὲ τὸν Χαλειέα ἐ τᾶς Οἰανθίδος μηδὲ χρήματα αἴ τι συλῷ. Τὸν δὲ συλῶντα, ἀνὰ τὸ συλῆν τὰ ξενικά, ἐ θαλάσ[σ]ας ἅγεν ἄσυλον, πλὴν ἐ λιμένος τῷ κατὰ πόλιν. Αἴ κ ̓ ἀδικοσυλῳ, τέτορες δραχμαί· αἱ δὲ πλέον δέκ' ἀμαρᾶν ἔχοι τὸ σῦλον, ἡμιόλιον ὀφλέτω Εότι συλάσαι. Αἱ μετα οικέοι πλέον μηνὸς ἢ ὁ Χαλειεὺς ἐν Οἰανθέᾳ ἢ Ωανθεὺς ἐν Χαλείῳ, τῇ ἐπιδαμίᾳ δίκα χρήστω τῶν προξένων. Αἰ ψευδέα προξενέοι, διπλεῖ οἱ θῳἤστω. Αἴ κ' ἀνδιχάζωντι τοὶ ξενοδίκαι, ἐπωμότας ἑλέστω ο ξένος ὠπάγων τὰν δίκαν, ἔχθος προξένω καὶ Ειδιοξένω, ἀριστίνδαν· ἐπὶ μὲν ταῖς μια αίαις καὶ πλέον, πεντεκαίδεκ ̓ ἄνδρας, ἐπὶ ταῖς μειόνοις ἐννέ ἄνδρας. Α' κ ̓ ὁ Γασστὸς ποῦ τὸν βασ[σ]τὸν δικάζηται κατὰς συνβολάς, δαμιωργὼς ἑλέσται τὼς ὁρκωμότας ἀριστίνδαν τὰν πεντορκίαν ὀμός σαντας. Τὼς ὁρκωμότας τὸν αὐτὸν ὅρκον ομνύεν, πληθὺν δὲ νικῆν. It may be convenient to follow the order of M. Ekonomides so far as to examine the text before proceeding to the interpretation. ΗΑΓΕΝ, ἅγεν for ἄγειν ; for the presence of the aspirate no parallel has been produced: only a very doubtful analogy is traced in yeioda. The editor allows also that E for ek is unprecedented : he declines to admit the idea that this preposition recurring four times in the same shape can be an error of the workman; and so far his conclusion appears just. It has been suggested that in numerous cases the inscription, or rather the two inscriptions, present letters which are to be read twice, as in θαλάσας, and in κατὰς for καττὰς for Kara rás. Thus Payne Knight;-" qui scribebant brevitati indulgebant et literas singulas pro binis et duplici potestate præditis tantum non in omnibus adhibuerunt.' This hypothesis our editor has not noticed. It is however supported, in this instance especially, by two glosses he cites from Hesychius, ἔλλυσιν, ἔκλυσιν, Κρῆτες, and Éttwv, čk tŵy. Building upon the tradition of Hesychius, we should get ἐττᾶς, ἐθθαλάσσας, and ἐλλιμένος, which could be obtained from our text by reading the requisite letters twice. A passage, however, of Boeckh (Corpus Inscriptionum, vol. i. p. 725) steps in to deter us from considering this resource necessary: he says, Jam Baoti longius progressi dixerunt ἔππασιν (that is ἔμπασιν = ἔγκτησιν from πάομαι) et ἔπασιν. * * κάππεσον deinde etiam simplex π pro duplici ponentes ut fit in κámerov. If our reading be constructed on this precedent, we shall write ἐθαλάσας, ἐλιμένος, ἐτᾶς, κατὰς, and hold them as dialectic varieties for ἐθθαλάσσας, ἐλλιμένος, ἐττᾶς, καττας, which Hesychius explains to be ἐκ θαλάσσης, and so on. In the Elean inscription ἀλλήλοις is written ΑΛΑΛΟΣ, τἄλλα ΤΑΛ, Διῒ ΔΙ, and (γεγραμμένῳ ΓΡΑΜΕΝΟΙ. Whether these letters are to be read twice, or interpreted as double is a question not worth debating. The Elean inscription never writes the same letter twice together: ours does : we have ten instances in which the duplication would be possible or convenient; and four examples of the same letter repeated. I have noticed but one passage in the poets which illustrates the subject. Alkman, frag. 22: 'Appodira μὲν οὐκ ἔντι, μάργος δ' Ερως οἷα παῖς παίσδει | ἄκρ ̓ ἐπ ̓ ἄνθη και βαίνων, ἅ μή μοι θίγῃς, τῷ κυπαρίσκω. Here καβαίνων is καββαίνων for karaẞairwv, but the feet are all kretics, and the single consonant is necessary to the verse. ΧΑΛΕΙΔΟΣ. Μ. Ckonomides prefers Χαλεΐδος to Χαληΐδος. ZYAOI. The Delphic inscriptions, he observes, fluctuate between συλέω and συλάω. ΘΑΛΑΣΑΣ. The single sigma he attributes to inattention; having overlooked probably the remark of Boeckh above cited. AIK. He prefers to disunite ai xa. ΑΔΙΚΟ ΣΥΛΟΙ. The first occurrence of the word: the analogy of iepoovλeîv would lead him to expect ἀδικοσυλεῖν. ΑΜΑΡΑΝ for ἡμερῶν. He finds the middle a and the spiritus lenis for the first time in this inscription. Compare pap, Doric âpap. [Of this variation we may add as examples "Aprauis for " Apreμis (Koen. Greg. de Dial. p. 139), iapòv for ἱερὸν, and HIAPON for Ιέρων in inscriptions, πιάζω for πιέζω, and ἄρκος for ἕρκος in Alkman and Alkæus, and ὄναροs for ὄνειρος in Herodian (apud Crameri Anekdota, vol. iii. p. 229; ὄναρος, ὄνειρος, Αιολικῶς. Compare ὄναρ). In the Elean inscription παρ πολέμω is surely περὶ |