ge brass of Nero, saying with a scared face, "However could
you tell it was there, sir?" I looked wise, and said nothing.

Among the rarest copper coins was one of Carausius (our English Carew),
with two heads on it symbolling the ambition of our native usurper to
assert empire over East as well as West, and among more treasure-trove
was a unique gold coin of Veric,--the Bericus of Tacitus; as also the
rare contents of a subterranean potter's oven, preserved to our day, and
yielding several whole vases. Mr. Akerman of numismatic fame told me
that out of Rome itself he did not know a richer site for old-world
curiosities than Farley; in the course of years we found more than 1200
coins, besides Samian ware, and plenty of common pottery, as well as
bronze ornaments, enamelled fibulae, weapons of war, household
implements, &c., both of the old British and the Roman, the Anglo-Saxon,
and more recent periods; Farley having been a praetorian station on the
Ikenild highway. This is quite a relevant episode of my literary
antiquariana. As also is another respecting "My Mummy Wheat," a record
of which found its way into print and made a stir many years ago. It
grew from seeds given to me by Mr. Pettigrew out of an Amenti vase taken
from a mummy pit by Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, and very carefully
resuscitated by myself in garden-pots filled with well-sifted mould at
Albury; it proved to be a new and prolific species of the semi-bearded
Talavera kind, and a longest ear of 8-1/2 inches in length (engraved in
an agricultural journal) was sent by me to Prince Albert, then a zealous
British farmer.

Here I will add a very interesting letter to me on the subject from
Faraday, the original being pasted among my autographs. It will be seen
that he excuses having published my letter to him, and refuses to be
called Doctor:--

"Royal Institution, _June 11, 1842_.

"My dear Sir,--Your note was a very pleasant event in my
day of yesterday, and I thank you heartily for it, and rejoice with
you at the success of the crop. It so happened that yesterday
evening was the last of our meetings, and I had to speak in the
lecture-room. The subject was Lithotint: but I placed the one ear
in the library under a glass case, and after my first subject was
over read the principal part of your letter--all that related to
the wheat: and the information was received with great interest by