ANTIQUARIAN RESEARCHES. 169

effects have followed the mortification of a plan, de-stroyed either by design or by accident. MadameSevigne relates a melancholy instance of thiskeen and desperate sensibility, as it may be called,where the maitre-d'hote of a French noblemanfell upon his sword and expired, because the rotiwas ill served or ill cooked. After all, may it notbe the number and variety of his resources whichgive to the Antiquary's mind a nerve, an elasti-city, that he shall recover you a blow or a fallby which another man shall be stunned or killedoutright. For had it been possible for an Anti-quary to have died of chagrin, it must have oc-curred in the case below cited,* which we have

* ARCH.EOLOGICAL ANECDOTE, 1789.

" We hear, that a valuable morsel of antiquity, containinga Saxon inscription, commemorative of particulars attendingthe death of Hardyknute, has been discovered among thefoundations of his Palace in Kennington Lane. This memo-rial is in Saxon characters, sculptured on white marble, which,though discoloured by damps, is still in high and excellentpreservation.

" The curiosity before us, but for an accident, might havereturned to its former obscurity. An able and intelligentdraughtsman luckily saw it in a window at a cutler's shop onthe Surrey side of Blackfriars Bridge. It was subsequently

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