An Address to the Cotteswold Club, delivered on January the 
31st, 1854, 
By T. Barwicx Luoyp Baker, Esa., President. 
Hight 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 Tanered, who had called 
us together, and at his suggestion formed the plan of those plea- 
~ gant rambles which, under his guidance, have given us for now 
nearly eight years some of the most satisfactory and enjoyable 
days we have spent—l 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 seeing a most interesting collection of 
_ Diatomacex and Desmidex, prepared by Thwaites, and beautifully 
shewn by one of the finest and most complete microscopes ever 
made for the reception of Ross’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 Redcliffe, 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 
A 
