296 president's address. 



and of wliicli the pen says nothing. Little should we know of 

 our island in the times past, or of our ancestors, its inhabitants ; 

 little of the Celtic or Saxon age, of Rome herself in Britain, if the 

 antiquary was silent ; and but for the ancient ruin, the hidden 

 temple, the buried villa, the broken wall, the tottering fortress, 

 which shew us what is past and what to come, we should forget 

 the law and condition of our being, the irrevocable decree, the 

 sure decay and final disappearance of every work of man, of 

 every thing human, and of the earth itself. 



Mr. Headlam, the worthy representative of Newcastle, in 

 Parliament, became a member this day. 



The Evening Meeting, which took place in the Literary and 

 Philosophical Society's Library, Tuesday, 16th November, six- 

 teen members and some ladies being present, closed the year, 

 when I find a paper was read, commanding great attention, by 

 my young friend, Mr. Peatherstonhaugh, M.A., of Durham, upon 

 the Evidences of the Roman Occupation of Chester-le-Street. I 

 have not seen the notes whence this paper Was delivered, but I 

 learn that it evinced much power of research and observation ; 

 and I congratulate you on the active services of a member so 

 talented and well informed as Mr. Peatherstonhaugh undoubt- 

 edlj is. 



I hope he did not fail to call attention to the genius of a modern 

 Chester artist, preserved in a garden by the road-side, and osten- 

 tatiously exhibited — a mason, who thinking the Roman sculptor 

 had not done justice to himself or his work in an altar of some 

 value, re-dressed the relic in the improved fashion of the 

 eighteenth century. 



I would notice a few plants and animals of Durham, such as 

 the Dame's Violet, the Yellow Star of Bethlehem^ the White 

 Meadow Saxifrage, the Yellow Pansy of our banks j and a few 

 charming songsters I remember when a school-boy, with the 

 Willow Wren, Redstart, Tree Pipit, Fly Catcher, Wood War- 

 bler, and other wanderers, which still gladden us from April to 

 September. Some plants, I used to pick up at Houghall, were 

 said to have been cultivated by the monks, men of learning and 



