88 The Forty-Third General Meeting. 
all probability it would do speedily if a new Church were built in 
the village; whilst others maintained that, whether the Church was 
likely to go to ruin or not, if left alone, an Archeological Society 
such as our own should under no circumstances give its sanction to 
such a proposal as the removal of an old building and its re-building 
stone by stone on another site. In the face of this difference of 
opinion it was resolved that our Society should not commit itself 
to one side or the other, and that an answer in this sense should be 
returned to the letter of the Society for the Protection of Ancient 
Buildings. 
The next business was the proposed sale of a number of FOSSILS 
belonging to the Society which have no connection with the county, 
and which there has never been room to exhibit at the Museum. 
This proposal, brought forward by Tue Rev. E. H. Gopparp and 
seconded by Mr. A. B. Fisuer, was carried unanimously—and 
the officers of the Society having been formally re-elected, the 
Members adjourned, some twenty-five of them joining the excursion 
to Longford, whilst the remainder stayed in Salisbury itself. A 
three miles dusty drive brought the party to LONGFORD CASTLE, 
kindly thrown open to them by Lorp -Rapwnor, though, as the 
number present was too large to be taken round the castle at once, 
there was but too little time for the enjoyment of the many notable 
pictures by Holbein, Vandyke, Claude, Quintin Matsys, Mabuse, — 
Gainsborough, and Reynolds, and the fine specimens of furniture 
with which the house is filled. The grand Holbein portrait of 
Erasmus, and the marvellous steel chair, of German work, probably 
unrivalled in its way, among a multitude of good things, stand 
out perhaps pre-eminently. 
Returning to Salisbury, the Members made their way to THE 
PALACE, where Tue Bisuor kindly received them at tea in Bishop 
-Poore’s thirteenth century undercroft, and afterwards showed them 
over the other parts of the interesting old house. Though perhaps 
not unknown to many of the Members, the quite unrivalled view 
of the Cathedral and the spire from the palace gardens is a sight 
not to be forgotten—the most beautiful thing, indeed, to be seen 
in the City of Salisbury. It is worth noting here, too, that the 
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