6 The Twenty -Eighth General Meeting. 



Mr. Talbot — who had been his brother Secretary, and would be so 

 now but that unfortunately, his health was not so good as could be 

 wished — had also done much for the Society, and they owed him a 

 debt of gratitude which they could appropriately acknowledge by 

 electing him also a Vice-President o£ the Society. He also proposed 

 the addition to the Committee of the name of the Rev. Edward 

 Goddard, of Hilmarton, as one who would ably fill the vacancy 

 now existing, and do good work for the Society. 



Mr. Medlioott seconded the propositions, and they were carried 

 unanimously. 



Lord Edmond Fitzmaueice, M.P., as President of the Meeting 

 then delivered his 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS, 



"The Origin of an English County." 



This is a Meeting of the Wiltshire Archseological and Natural 

 History Association. At first sight the union of two such subjects 

 as Natural history and Archaeology may seem incongruous; but I 

 think a moment^s reflection will dispel any prejudice on that head. 

 Archaeology is after all only another name for history, for without 

 it history could not be written ; but the oldest history itself 

 insensibly fades off into a time when man either did not exist, or, if 

 he did exist, left no records behind him, and the only history of 

 which we can take any cognizance at all is consequently the history 

 of nature : the history of the mountain and of the forest j of the 

 wild beast, and of the mute creation amongst which the wild beast 

 moved. But though this is so, our Society is no doubt mainly 

 concerned with the records of man and his work : with the chronicle 

 whereby the monk, toiling in cloisters now crumbling into dust, 

 sought to rescue the events of his time from total oblivion ; with 

 the buildings, whether ecclesiastical or secular, in which each 

 succeeding age embodied its ambitions, its aspirations, and its hopes ; 

 with the canvass upon which the skill of the painter had impressed 

 the likeness of the men who themselves had impressed their 

 character on the times in which they lived. But here this con- 

 sideration arises. We are not the British Archaeological Association 



