A statue of Martin Luther has been unveiled at Washington.

Chester Castle is no longer to be used as a prison for civil offences.

The Curfew Tower, one of the oldest portions of Windsor Castle, is being repaired.

“The Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys,” in ten volumes, is promised in Édition de luxe form by Messrs. Dodd, Mead & Co.

A commemorative tablet is about to be placed at No. 46, Rue Richelieu, Paris, the house at which MoliÈre died.

Corringham Church, which has been elaborately restored at a cost of £10,000, has been re-opened by the Bishop of Lincoln.

The Trustees of the British Museum have purchased an early impression of Jacobi’s last engraved work, the “School of Athens,” by Raphael, in the Vatican.

The “Libraries of Boston,” about to be published by Messrs. Cupples, Upham & Co., will treat of more than 100 collections, both public and private.

Messrs. Trubner & Co. have ready “ArchÆology in India,” with special reference to the works of Babu Rajendralala Mitra, by Mr. James Fergusson.

Shakespeare’s table was exhibited at the Shakespearean Show held on behalf of the Chelsea Hospital for Women, at the Albert Hall, on the last three days of May.

In cutting a trench in the Bois de Bologne, near Paris, the workmen have found a whole series of coins struck under Valois, from 1337 to 1342. Nearly all are in a good state of preservation.

On Monday, June 16, was commenced the sale of the collection of objects of art formed by Sir Andrew Fountaine in the early part of the last century. Details of the sale are unavoidably postponed to our next.

Mr. Charles B. Strutt, of 34, East-street, Red Lion-square, is preparing for publication a work entitled “Some Account of Historical Chairs, of all Periods and Countries.”

Mr. H. Chetwynd Stapylton, the author of the “Eton School Lists,” has nearly completed a new volume, uniform with its predecessor, bringing the list of old Etonians down to the Election of 1877.

The Italian Government, says The Times, has concluded, through Professor Villari, the negotiations for purchasing the Italian MSS. in the Ashburnham Library. The amount to be paid for them is £23,000.

A reprint of the 1825 edition of Mr. Robert Chambers’s “Illustrations of the Author of Waverley,” being notices and anecdotes of characters, scenes, and incidents described in his works, has been issued in Edinburgh.

The coming portion of Tischendorf’s Greek Testament promises to be of interest. It has been prepared by Dr. Caspar RenÉ Gregory, with the aid of the late Dr. Ezra Abbott, and will contain an account of Tischendorf’s life and writings.

Messrs. Sampson Low & Co. announce a new work by Mr. Charles F. Blackburn, entitled “Hints on Catalogue Titles, and on Index Entries.” The book includes a rough vocabulary of terms and abbreviations, chiefly from catalogues, and some passages from “Journeyings among Books.”

Great changes are to be carried out at Genoa; the fortifications to the east of the city, and the marble walk round the lower part of the harbour are to be pulled down, to make room for a military parade ground and for purposes of trade, and the famous old “Bank of St. George,” now used as the Custom House, is to be turned into an Art Museum.

The second year’s issue of Mr. Henry Morley’s “Universal Library” will include Herrick’s “Hesperides,” Boccaccio’s “Decameron,” Sterne’s “Tristram Shandy,” George Chapman’s “Translation of Homer’s ‘Iliad,’” “MediÆval Tales,” “The Alchemist and other Plays,” by Ben Jonson, Hobbes’s “Leviathan,” Butler’s “Hudibras,” More’s “Utopia,” Bacon’s “New Atlantis,” &c.

An inventory has just been made of the National Library of France. It contains 2,500,000 volumes. The cabinet of manuscripts includes 92,000 volumes, as well as 144,000 medals of all periods, both French and foreign. The engravings comprise over two millions of plates, preserved in 14,500 vols. and 4,000 portfolios. The more precious volumes, amounting to 80,000, are kept in the reserved gallery. In 1868 24,000 readers attended the reading-room, and in 1883 the number was 70,000.

The Times records the discovery of a Roman villa at Woolstone, in the Vale of the White Horse, Berkshire, where some fine tesselated pavements have been disclosed. Several interments have also been revealed, apparently of the Anglo-Saxon period. The seax or knife dagger is, strange to say, still attached to the girdle of two of the bodies, presumed to be those of Anglo-Saxon ladies. The excavations, which are closed to the general public, were inspected on May 23rd by the members of the Oxford Architectural and Historical Society, and the Newbury District Field Club.

The following articles, more or less of an antiquarian character, appear among the contents of the magazines for June: Art Journal, “The Western Riviera;” Cornhill, “Some Literary Recollections;” Literary Chronicle, “Researches for MSS. in the Levant,” and “Contents of the British Museum Library;” Blackwood, “New Views of Shakespeare’s Sonnets;” Army and Navy Magazine, “Pepys as an Official;” Eastward Ho! “Bethnal-green Museum;” Cassell’s Magazine, “The Folk-lore of Colours,” and “A Pilgrimage to Holy Island;” Magazine of Art, “Raphael and the Fornarina,” “The Keramics of Fiji,” and “Greek Myths in Greek Art.”

A Roman family burial-place has been lately discovered during some excavations at Lincoln. It contained a large number of urns, with a furnace or oven at the eastern end. “Unfortunately for the interests of archÆology,” writes the Rev. Precentor Venables, “the discovery was made just when the excavators commenced their work, and from their ignorance of the value of the remains much of interest was destroyed before the foreman arrived. The whole of the oven had been demolished, only leaving one reddened wall, indicating the action of intense heat, and the blackened stones of the flue. The burial-place or ‘loculus’ was, however, perfect. It consisted of a stone-chamber, 5 ft. 10 in. in length, its breadth varying from 2 ft. ½ in. at the lower end to 3 ft. 1 in. in the middle.”

Catalogues of rare and curious books, all of which contain the names of works of antiquarian interest, have reached us from Messrs. Meehan, 32, Gay-street, Bath; Messrs. Reeves & Turner, 196, Strand, W.C.; Messrs. Fawn & Son, 18, Queen’s-road, Bristol; Mr. W. P. Bennett, 3, Bull-street, Birmingham; Mr. C. Hutt, Clement’s-inn-gateway, Strand, W.C.; Messrs. Robson & Kerslake, 43, Cranbourne-street, W.C.; Mr. W. H. Gee, 28, High-street, Oxford; Mr. W. Wesley, 28, Essex-street, Strand, W.C.; Messrs. Jarvis & Son, 28, King William-street, W.C. The last-named is called the “Dickens’s Catalogue,” and may be regarded as complete a list as possible of the various editions of Dickens’s Works and “Dickensana.” The complete set, inclusive of works, extra illustrations, and portraits, is priced at £200; the price for the “Dickensana,” which is described as “very interesting and scarce,” is set down at another £60.

On May 22 was celebrated in London, at Lutterworth, where he died, and at other places in England, the Quincentenary of Wycliffe, the great English Reformer. Among the most noticeable features of the commemoration was the opening of a Wycliffe Exhibition at the British Museum. Contemporary printed books and engravings and commemorative medals formed the chief attractions in the Luther celebration last year. To illustrate the life and works of his English predecessor the resources of the manuscripts department have been chiefly drawn upon; and as Wycliffe’s name, before all others, is identified with the translation of the Bible into English, a great part of the collection displayed in the King’s Library consisted of a fine series of manuscripts of the two versions of the Wycliffe translation.

On Wednesday, May 28, Mr. J. T. Wood, F.S.A., lectured in the Ephesian Gallery of the British Museum on “The Marbles from the Great Temple of Diana.” The lecturer said it was needless for him to tell the story of his finding the temple of the great goddess of the Ephesians. It would take too much time, and it had been so often told before that he might take for granted that his audience knew all about it; but he might say that it was a very difficult thing to accomplish, and that it was six years before he succeeded in hitting upon the site. It was found one mile from the city of Ephesus, among corn fields, on level ground, where there was not the slightest sign of any ruins. Having found the site he discovered sufficient of the remains to enable him to make a true elevation of the temple, but there were some details still missing which he hoped would be obtained by further excavations. They had before them a rough diagram from which they would see that it had 100 columns externally, each 6 ft. in diameter, and nearly 60 ft. in height. Only a portion of the superstructure had been found, which was the lower part underneath the capitals, some of the lions’ heads, and some of the enrichment of the cornice. The coloured diagrams were meant to show that the whole of the temple was coloured. The remains which they saw before them had lost their colour since they were placed in the museum, with but few exceptions, but there was one specimen before them in which the colour was clearly demonstrated. Several of the coloured diagrams would, however, show the state in which he found the fragments. He should tell them that these remains were found between 20 ft. and 24 ft. underground, and their being at so great a depth beneath the surface accounted for the great expense of these excavations, the Government having spent £12,000 upon them during the five years which it took him to clear out the temple. He need scarcely tell them that the remains they now saw were from the last of the three successive temples. He found evidence that all the bases were of about the same size, and that the same marble was used. There were two stones at the end of the temple which, he believed, belonged to the frieze of the temple, and which were got out from the drums of the last temple. One, which was marked H 4, he believed would be proved to be, what he had always thought it was, a portion of the frieze. Upon it was a representation of Hercules struggling with a female figure, and he believed it was Hercules taking the girdle of the Queen of the Amazons. The stone was very much hacked and disfigured. Mr. Fergusson thought that a column had been placed upon this; but there were reasons to the architectural mind which precluded the idea that this stone could have been part of the pedestal of a column. There was a second stone which he believed was a portion of the frieze of the temple. Upon one side of it was a representation of either Hercules lifting AntÆus, or Hercules struggling with Cacus, probably the latter. On the other side they had the figure of a stag. These were the only stones which he claimed to be portions of the frieze. There was a third stone which was found in the aqueduct, and another which might or might not have been a fragment of the frieze, but it was at all events a corner-stone. All these blocks were supposed to have come from the same building, but whether they were portions of pedestals, on which columns had been placed, as contended by Mr. Fergusson, was a question which would probably be decided by further excavations. Alluding to a fragment of a sculptured column marked H 3, Mr. Wood said the question was whether Pliny would have called it a sculptured column if it had been of the height of this drum. Some people thought the columns in the diagram could not have been sculptured above the height of one drum, but he begged to differ from them. Passing on to another fragment of a sculptured column, the lecturer said he looked upon it as the most beautiful of all, and it was a pity it had been so much hacked about. This temple was built in the time of Alexander the Great, and when he visited Ephesus he wished to have his name inscribed upon it. The lecturer pointed out other specimens, one being a beautiful stone which had formed part of the base of a column, and another in which the delicate proportions of the fillet between the flutings were very noteworthy. He further remarked upon fragments of roof tiles, lions’ heads, and various fragmentary specimens of Ionic columns. There were also some splendid specimens of profiles of base mouldings, a representation of a medal of Gordianus found on the site, &c. Mr. Wood gave a continuation of his lecture on Wednesday, June 18.