PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 189 



found corresponds with what is marked in a Polyhian 

 Camp as the Quaestorium : ahhough the Roman Camp at 

 Haresfield, so far from being Polybian, is of very late 

 form. I may remark, apropos of the abundance of coins 

 of the Constantinc era, that I have seen an exactly similar 

 lot of 700 found at Kingsholm : and another 700 odd 

 found in one heap on Mount Lebanon. 



But John Niblett's best find at Haresfield was a silver 

 coin. " This is a denarius of Theodosius. It is valuable, 

 because it belongs to just the last period of the Romans 

 in Britain. I found it on the site of a Villa on one of my 

 farms. I don't mind telling you where it was : but I 

 don't want it to get out, or we shall have all the anti- 

 quaries here. They are dreadful thieves : they have an 

 idea that what is old belongs to everybody. You know 

 there was So and So. He came to see me, and got me to 

 show him a coin he had coveted. When my back was 

 turned he slipped it into his pocket, and of course I never 

 saw it again. — Ask him for it, you say ? I have asked 

 him, but he declares he knows nothing about it. — No. 

 I shan't tell them where the Villa is. — Why they'd steal 

 the eves out of your head. I know them of old ! " 



It is time I should draw this chat to a close : for I hope 

 it may be enough to give an idea of the sort of men who 

 were prominent in the Cotteswold Club five and thirty 

 years ago : the rest of the picture being made up of 

 country squires and clergymen of the old school ; one or 

 two Professors with spectacles, and a bagful of gryphites 

 and pygasters and pectens, and a vocabulary that would 

 frighten owls : and last, not least, a contingent of old 

 Indian oflicers from Cheltenham, tanned by the sun, and 

 touched on the liver : and whose talk was of elephas 

 orientalis, cholera morbus, and the Nizam. 



I have alluded to William Lucy as our " retiring " 

 President. It is preciselv because he is such a retiring 

 M 



