Notices of ^rcfjaeologual publications.

ORIGINAL PAPERS, PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OP THE COM- MITTEE OF THE NORFOLK AND NORWICH ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. Norwich, 1850. 8vo. The active and intelligent antiquaries of Norfolk have entered upon the third volume of the series of their Transactions. We regard with cordial gratification the successful progress of the Society, and we have preserved the agreeable remembrance, both of the friendly welcome and fraternal co-operation which contributed so materially to the satisfaction and success that marked tlie Meeting of the Institute in Norwich, and not less of the hopeful presage of results advantageous to the extension of Archaeological science, afforded by their energetic proceedings. The promise has been amply realised ; and, whilst the Norfolk Society has shown, in its meetings and publications, how much may be achieved for the promotion of historical and antiquarian knowledge by inquiries limited to a single county of the empire, they have satisfactorily demonstrated the practicability of giving to subjects and investigations, exclusively local in character, a general interest and bearing upon the history of the nation at large. Under the auspices of their late lamented Diocesan, whose cordial encouragement was ever given to every purpose by which a larger measure of knowledge or of happiness might accrue to those around him, the progress of the Society has been, from the outset, eminently successful. It has, moreover, had the happy result of stimulating the formation of a similar Institution in a neighbouriug province of East Anglia, rich in Archaeological vestiges, and the recent meeting of the Societies of Norfolk and Suffolk at Thetford, evinced the community of purpose by which both are actuated. The investigations to which we would invite the attention of our readers, relate to the early arts and monuments of the locality alone. The Trans- actions, however, published by the Society, present a variety of subjects, strikingly indicative of the Archaeological wealth of Norfolk. We might advert, if our limits permitted it, to contributions in their volumes, by which valuable light has been thrown upon the antiquities of almost every period and every class. The county is rich in vestiges of a primaeval age, and it is instructive to compare examples from remote parts of the British Islands, such, for example, as the highly curious golden ornaments, and relics of amber, (the actual produce, doubtless, of the adjacent coast,) found at Little Cres- singham, as related in the interesting notice by Mr. Barton, with which the third volume commences. The ancient remains which attract the anti- quary in Norfolk, possess some features almost exclusively local. In scarce any other county may so many evidences be collected regarding the advance of the Arts of Design in England, at the period when in Italy and Ger- many they were taking so rapid a development. The gorgeous rood-screens and mural paintings which abound in East Anglia, possess a value, in con- nexion with the history of art, which has happily been long since appre- ciated by that distitiguished and indefatigable archaeologist, Mr. Dawson Turner. We are indebted to him, and to the skilful pencil of more than one fair coadjutor of his extensive research in subjects of this nature, for