49 
of others) to some. great Norman house, will not entitle the 
Topographer to introduce baronial biographies, and nothing 
beyond a mere skeleton pedigree of such a family as Lacy, 
Courtenay or Warren is ever admissible. 
With a few remarkable exceptions of rare interest pure 
Topography must be content to make its beginning with the 
reign of the Confessor. Roads, barrows or fortresses of earlier 
date may exist, but of them we commonly know no local history. 
We either know nothing of them but what we see, or else what 
we know is national history. Interesting conjectures such as those 
which take the Club in pilgrimage to Eddington, the probable site 
of Alfred’s most critical victory ; to Dyrham, where, perhaps, the 
battle passed after which Bath lay in dust so many years ; to 
Camerton, where the late ingenious Mr. Skinner. re-erected the 
towers of the Cunobelins; or to Marshfield, one of the alleged 
scenes of the martyrdom of the holy Oswald ; such speculations 
may adorn your book as being professedly digressions, but between 
them and the recorded facts of Topography there is a chasm which 
is not bridged over in half a dozen places in England if we except 
a few of the royal castles and older abbeys. Has it not struck 
you how rarely the inscribed Roman stones have served any 
topographical purpose? At Bath nota word is found about the 
hot waters ; at Colchester not a mention of Camulodunum; on the 
Wall but little of the Wall; at Highcross no monument of the 
Roman geographical centre of England ; and nowhere any record 
of Albanus, of Aaron, or of Julian. The inscribed lead is, 
perhaps, the best thing the Roman antiquaries have to show ; the 
coins illustrate Roman history, but rarely or never British 
topography. In a few rare instances the History of Beda, 
or Saxon Chronicle, names a village which has, perhaps, been 
recognised and identified, but is as probably erroneously so. For 
an instance, the Saxon Chronicle records an earthquake at 
“ Wick.” How glad would field club geologists be to know 
where Wick stood! We are at liberty to hypothesise that the 
D 
