XXIX 

 Lidications of Glacial Action in Cornwall. — By Mr. Whitley, 



r.M.s. 



An Inquiry into the association of tJie dialects of Devon and Corn- 

 wall—By Mr. E. N. Worth. 



Chronicles of the Cornish Saitits. (V. — S. David). — By Rev. 

 John Adams, M.A. 



Extracts relating to Cornwall, copied in the British Museum. — 

 From Mr. Jonathan Couch, F.L.S., &c. 



The Laocoon. Mr. Smirke presented two Photographs 

 ilhistrative of the differences between the Vatican group of the 

 Laocoon, and the representation of that celebrated piece of sculp- 

 ture as given in an impression from a seal attached to a deed of the 

 last Prior of Tywardreath, and exhibited at the Spring Meeting of 

 this Institution in 1868.* Mr. Smirke stated that the seal, which 

 . was evidently of early date and execution, must have been a gem 

 representing the well-known group ; and its impression was found 

 attached to a deed by which the Prior of Tywardreath conveyed 

 to one of the Arundell family — a retainer of Cardinal Wolsey — 

 the vicarage of St. Anthony-in-Meneage ; the seal itself being, in 

 all probability, the property, not of the Prior and Convent, but 

 of Thomas Arundell, to whom the grant was made, of which this 

 deed was only the counterpart. It was remarkable that there was 

 still extant, in the Priory papers, a document purporting to be a 

 license to a monk of the Priory to visit Rome, at a time not long 

 before the date of this grant ; and the gem may have thus come 

 into the possession of the Prior or his friends. On the discovery 

 of the Laocoon group in 1506, the Pope, who obtained possession 

 of it, consulted Michael Angelo and others as to the proper mode 

 of restoring the missing and mutilated parts of it, especially the 

 right arm of the Laocoon himself They considered that the lost 

 portion of the figure did not leave enough behind to indicate the 

 original position of the arm ; but the task was afterwards under- 

 taken by another sculptor, Baccio Bandinelli, whose work has 

 been pronounced by all subsequent connoisseurs to be ill conceived 

 and erroneous. The present seal is, by general consent, regarded '■ 

 as a better design for such restoration, and has been considered 

 by some competent judges to have been copied from the original 

 group while in a more perfect state. The design presented to the 



* See Fifty-first Annual Beport of the Boyal Institution of Cornioall, 

 p. XYi. 



