34 
than three centuries been borne, as an ensign of authority, before 
those eminent persons who have been the successors of his grand¬ 
father and great grandfather in the office of Lord Mayor of York. 
The letter which accompanied this “ pretty token of remembrance,” 
as the donor himself calls it, was dated the 20th day of September, 
1549. When that letter was written. Sir Martin Bowes had been 
nearly forty years a resident of London, yet it is obvious that his 
memory often carried him back to the city of his birth, and 
“ Told of days long past, when there he roved 
With friends and kindred tenderly beloved.” 
The scenes and incidents of his early youth—the old house in 
Peaseholme where he first saw the light—the quaint little church 
of St. Cuthbert, where he was first taught to worship—the narrow 
streets where “oft his careless childhood strayed’’-—were present 
to his recollection long after he had taken rank among the 
merchant princes of the great metropolis. The wealthy goldsmith 
retained these feelings of veneration for the place of his nativity 
tmtil the very close of his prosperous career. By his last will he 
bequeathed a sum of money to be given yearly to the parson and 
wardens of the parish church of St. Cuthbert, in the city of York, 
for the relief of the poor of the same parish, and for the main¬ 
tenance of the same church and ornament of the same. Sir Martin 
Bowes died in the year 1566, in the 70th year of his age, and was 
buried in the parish church of St. Mary Woolnoth, in Lombard- 
street. The Bowes sword is much smaller than that which 
belonged to the Emperor Sigismund. The blade is about 3ft. 2in. 
long, and the whole length of the sword about four feet. The 
sheath was originally covered with crimson velvet, garnished with 
pearls and stones set upon silver gilt. In the early part of the 17th 
century the sword appears to have sustained considerable injury. 
The velvet of the scabbard required to be renewed, and the orna¬ 
ments to be re-gilt. The gems and pearls with which it was 
decorated had disappeared, and new stones were pni’chased of a 
London lapidary to replace them. There is reason to suppose that 
the sword had been carried away by some officer of the Coui’t of 
Efing James the Eirst, during that monarch’s visit to the city in the 
year 1603, and that it was not recovered without much delay and 
difficulty. 
Mn. Noble read, on behalf of Eobt. Davies, Esq., the following 
notice of the fragment from the Porcelain Tower at Nankin, con- 
