eel 
The Dinner. 141 
the first of these was that of “ Long life and prosperity to her 
Most Gracious Majesty the Queen.” 
Tne Prestpent said it was now his pleasing duty to ask the 
Mayor and Corporation of the Borough to receive the thanks of 
the Society for their very kindly, friendly, and brotherly reception. 
They had taken thirty-five years to come amongst them, and it was 
very kind of them not to think they had been slow about it. He 
believed they were not sorry to have lived in a generation which 
saw the visit of this venerable Society to Calne, and so, perhaps, the 
fact might take away the sting of their otherwise inexplicable 
neglect of so important a place as the Borough of Calne. It was a 
very great pleasure and happiness to him that this visit should come 
during his presidency. Calne was a place he had always regarded 
with very great affection, and it was especially happy to feel that 
one had dropped in the centre of a district so full of antiquities and 
which have been so carefully and so jealously guarded. England 
sometimes was looked upon on the Continent, and by those who did 
not know us, as a place given up to trade and commerce, and where 
_ everything was measured by money. He certainly did not think 
that was the case at all with regard to many, and particularly our 
antiquities. He was very much struck with a remark of a learned 
friend of the University of Berlin (Professor Emil Hiibner), who 
had edited the Roman inscriptions in a good many countries, 
amongst others those of Great Britain, and he said most distinctly 
that there was no country in the world with which he was acquainted 
where the Roman inscriptions were so carefully guarded and so free 
from forgery as they were in England. The reason of that was that 
all classes had co-operated in the work of guardianship of our arche- 
ological treasures. There had been a liberal spirit diffused through- 
out the country amongst those engaged in trade and commerce, 
quite as much as amongst the owners of ancestral homes and broad 
_ aeres, and the result had been that wherever they went they found 
that whatever there was worth preserving had been carefully pre- 
served. Therefore it was with great pleasure he was able to meet 
the Mayor and Corporation of this borough, and to thank them for 
what they had done; and for what they would continue to do, in 
