XXV. Description of the Matrix of the Seal of Southwick Priory, in Hampshire; in a Letter to Thomas Amyot, Esq. F.R.S., Treasurer, from Frederic Madden, Esq. F.S.A.

I beg leave to submit to the attention of the Society impressions in wax of the singular and beautiful Seal of Southwick Priory, in Hampshire, to which I am happy to be enabled to add, by permission of the owner, John Bonham Carter, Esq. M. P. the original Matrix from which the impressions were taken. It is presumed with some confidence, that this Matrix is the only specimen in existence of a very peculiar and artificial mode of forming ancient conventual Seals, nor have my researches enabled me to discover any similar instance of a seal so made, except that of the Priory of Christchurch, Canterbury. It is much to be regretted, that the few writers who have endeavoured to illustrate the use of ancient English Seals, should have chiefly directed their attention to the antiquity of the practice, or to the explanation of the figures, badges, or bearings of the Seals themselves, but afford us but little, if any, information concerning the mode of preparing the wax, taking the impressions, affixing the seals to the deeds, or even of the forms and material of the matrices. In short, whatever is known of the theoretical, we are as yet almost ignorant of the practical use of sigillation adopted by our ancestors.