A curious narrative communicated, almost a century afterwards, to the Society of Antiquaries, by James THEOBALD, proves that in this respect the gallery of antiquities—notwithstanding the noble benefaction to Oxford—was even more unfortunate than the library of books. At the time when these gifts were obtained for Oxford and for the Royal Society, another extensive portion of the original collections had already passed into the possession of William HOWARD, Viscount Stafford, and had been removed to Stafford House. Lord STAFFORD was a younger son of the collector, and appears to have received the choice artistic treasures which long adorned his town residence by the gift of his mother. [Sidenote: DISPERSION OF PART OF THE ARUNDEL MARBLES.] According to EVELYN, Lady ARUNDEL also ‘scattered and squandered away innumerable other rarities, ... whilst my Lord was in Italy.’ But in this instance he appears to speak by hearsay, rather than from personal knowledge. TIERNEY, the able and painstaking historian of the family, asserts that its records contain no proof whatever of the justice of the charge. [Sidenote: _History of Arundel_, p. 509.] And he traces the origin of EVELYN’S statement to a passage in one of the letters of Francis JUNIUS, in which it is said of Lady ARUNDEL that she ‘carried over a vast treasure of rarities, and convaighed them away out of England.’ Even to JUNIUS, notwithstanding his connection with the family, the charge may have come but as a rumour. Be that as it may, the subsequent dispersion of many treasures of art which the Earl had collected with such unwearied pains and lavish expenditure is unquestionable. Lord Henry HOWARD, it has been shown, excepted the ‘statues’ from his gift to the University. They remained at Arundel House, but so little care was bestowed upon their preservation that when the same owner afterwards obtained an Act of Parliament empowering him to build streets on part of the site of Arundel House and Gardens, many of these statues were broken by the throwing upon or near them of heaps of rubbish from the excavations made, in the years 1678 and 1679, for the new buildings. These broken statues and fragments retained beauty enough to attract from time to time the admiration of educated eyes when such eyes chanced to fall upon them. Those which long adorned the seat of the Earls of POMFRET, at Easton Neston, in Oxfordshire, were purchased by Sir William FERMOR, and were given to the University of Oxford by one of his descendants. Others which are, or were, at Fawley Court, near Henley, were purchased by Mr. FREEMAN. Others, again, were bought by Edmund WALLER, the poet, for the decoration of Beaconsfield.