An Address to the Cotteswold Club, delivered on January the 



31s/, 1854, 



By T. BARWICK LLOYD BAKER, ESQ., President. 



Eight Summers, my friends, I think I may say of enjoyment, 

 and we will hope of improvement, to all of us, have now passed 

 over our Cotteswold Club, and again at our Winter Meeting it is 

 my task to lay before you a slight reminiscence of what we, as a 

 club, have seen and done in the last two years. 



Such a retrospect is usually made annually ; but a circumstance 

 occurred last year which, alas, threw us out of our usual course. 

 I need not call on those comparatively few who stood, in July, 

 1846, on Birdlip hill, around Sir Thomas Tancred, who had called 

 us together, and at his suggestion formed the plan of those plea- 

 sant rambles which, under his guidance, have given us for now 

 nearly eight years some of the most satisfactory and enjovable 

 days we have spent I need not, I say, call on those few, but I 

 appeal to all who have since joined our gatherings, and have seen 

 how his love of science and his constant good nature and attention 

 to all have, up to last year held our club together to say whether 

 the loss of such a man was not sufficient to throw us out of our 

 usual course, and excuse any breach of our regular routine. 



True, he did not leave us without finding a successor. True, 

 that that successor has supplied the place right well and truly 

 grateful are we to him for the zeal and kindness and attention he 

 has shewn to us, yet I think that even Professor Buckman will be 

 one of the first to join us in regretting the absence of Sir Thomas 

 Tancred. 



But let us lose no time in vain regrets, as we have much to do. 

 On February the 10th it had been arranged that the Club should 

 meet at Bristol. Many of us came down on the previous evening, 

 and greatly enjoyed some hours spent at the house of Mr. King, 

 the celebrated optician, in seeibg a most interesting collection of 

 Diatomaceao and Desmideee, prepared by Thwaites, and beautifully 

 shewn by one of the finest and most complete microscopes ever 

 made for the reception of Boss's object glasses. The interest of 

 these, and of many other curious instruments among them the 

 then new stereoscope was much heightened by the kindness and 

 the happy explanations of Mr. King himself, and it was late ere 

 we returned to our inn. 



The next day, after breakfast, we proceeded, under Mr. King's 

 guidance, to a most curious old house, now a bookseller's, but 

 formerly the residence of that princely merchant of Bristol, 

 Canynge, the re-founder of that architectural gem of the old city, 

 the church of St. Mary de Eedcliffe, where we afterwards saw his 

 tomb. The back part of the present shop was formerly a Chapel, 

 or Oratory, and remains if unimproved, at least unspoiled ; the 

 floor, and a gallery half way up the walls appear untouched since 



