4 The Thirty-Fourth General Meeting. 
adornment and the reverent festal use of their Churches, are living 
fruits of the same spirit, without which a bishop’s labours would be 
far less bright than, thank God, they are at the present day. There 
are but few of our parish Churches which do not form a worthy 
setting and gathering place for the solemn offices of the Church, 
and especially for that rite of confirmation for which I have reason 
so often to visit them. Therefore, my lord and gentlemen, I thank 
you as Bishop again and again. As President of the Wiltshire 
Archeological and Natural History Society, I have a yet more 
decided and special reason for welcoming you here. Your last 
meeting in this city was in the year 1849. On that occasion the 
veteran, John Britton, then about seventy-eight years old, editor 
and in great part writer of the ‘ Beauties of England and Wales,’ 
and of the ‘ Architectural and Cathedral Antiquities of Great 
Britain,’ but especially connected with this county, put forth a 
circular of some importance. It showed cause why the Wiltshire 
Topographical Society should be transformed into a larger and more 
popular institution, after the example of other local societies which 
had been stirred into existence by the visits of your Institute. The 
plan was not taken up at once, but on October 12th, 1853, the im- 
portant society which I now have the honour to represent was 
brought into actual being at an inaugural meeting at Devizes. The 
foundation of its library and museum was laid by the purchase of Mr. 
Britton’s collection of books, drawings, &c., which are deposited at 
Devizes. The Marquis of Lansdowne was named Patron, and the 
first President was Mr. Poulett Scrope, who in his very interesting 
first address insisted on the duty of the new Society to complete 
the work which Sir Richard Colt Hoare and his assistants had left 
unfinished. Of the twenty-nine hundreds of the County of Wilts, 
he told us, ‘fifteen have been described under the title of Sir 
Richard Hoare’s “ Modern Wiltshire.” But they are, speaking 
generally, neither the most extensive nor the most important.’ He 
then goes on to describe those parts of North Wilts which have been, 
so to say, neglected. To you, then, in some measure, is due the 
foundation of that Society whose twenty-two or twenty-three volumes 
since published are such a treasure to the future historian of the county. 
