140 
CAnlthall and the Seymours. 
By the Rey. Canon J. EH. Jackson, F.S.A. * 
ROY way ‘of introduction to this paper, I borrow from a very 
y, high authority, a few sentences that seem to describe with 
great accuracy, the particular kind of research that falls within the 
prevince of the Archeologist. 
Lord Chancellor Bacon, in his “ Treatise on the Advancement of 
Learning,” is speaking of Civil History. He says, “It is of three 
kinds, not unfitly to be compared with the three kinds of pictures 
or images; for of pictures or images, we see, some are wafinished, 
some are perfect, and some are defaced. So of Histories we may 
find three kinds; Memorials, Perfect Histories, and Antiquities ; 
for Memorials are history unfinished, or the first rough drafts of 
history; and Antiquities are history defaced or some remnants of 
history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time. Memo- 
rials, unfinished, are preparatory notes, to serve the compiler of the 
perfect history. Antiquities, or the remnants of history, are, as 
was said, fragments from a wreck ; when industrious persons, by an 
exact, and scrupulous diligence and observation, out of monuments, 
names, words, proverbs, traditions, private records and evidences, 
fragments of stories, passages of books that concern not story, and 
the like, do save and recover somewhat from the deluge of time.” 
I do not remember to have ever met with a happier and more 
cheering description of our pursuits; for they now and then need 
refreshment. I mean by refreshment, the encouraging approval of 
thoughtful and intellectual men. We are twitted, sometimes, with 
spending our time in raking into old rubbish, wearing out our eyes 
with decyphering faded handwriting, and the like: so it is well to 
be able to exhibit as an answer the deliberate judgment of so great 

* Read before the Wiltshire Archeological Society, at Devizes, Tuesday, September, 8th, 1874, when 
the original documents from.Longleat, out of which it was chiefly compiled, were exhibited by the 
kind permission of the Marquis of Bath, 
