ADDRESS 
BY 
Tue Most Nosie THE Marauis or NORTHAMPTON, 
: Pres.R.S., F.S.A., Hon.M.R.1LA., F.L.S., F.G.S. 
Sir Robert Inglis, who has just yielded to me the honourable situation of 
your President. 
_I am not, as he was last year, addressing you in an ancient and venerable 
_ seat of academic discipline, where the very aspect of the surrounding buildings 
a proclaimed the long residence of learned leisure and elegant taste ;—where, 
_ during the lapse of very many centuries, science and learning have made their 
| abode, and where religion has consecrated their union. There, in that Oxford 
which has sent forth so many labourers for the cultivation of knowledge,— 
| where the divine, the statesman and the philosopher have taken their early 
_ lessons in those arts which were to make their names household words among 
their countrymen—there, where the Royal Society had its cradle, the British 
| Association might well anticipate a generous welcome, and more than that, 
an audience fit though not few, and not only favour but assistance in its 
_ pursuits ;—assistance from a Daubeny, a Powell, a Buckland and others who 
__ were among its earliest supporters and members. In going, indeed, to Ox- 
ford the Association did not go to fresh fields and pastures new. Its visit 
"was no experiment, for it had already gone to the friendly banks of the Isis, 
and found there a kind and warm reception when it was itself but young; 
_ when it had not already received the marked patronage of the British public, 
and when favour and kindness were the more valuable. 
_ The British Association has now arrived at a part of our Sovereign’s domi- 
