WILTSHIRE MAGAZINE. 
““MULTORUM MANIBUS GRANDE LEVATUR ONUS.’’---OVID. 
GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE INAUGURAL MEETING. 
Tue first Meeting of this Society was held at the Town-Hall, 
Devizes, on Wednesday, October 12th, 1853. It was very well 
attended; from two to three hundred persons, including many of 
the neighbouring Gentry and Clergy, being present in the morning; 
and about two-thirds of that number, at the Conversazione in the 
evening: the Dinner which intervened, having been attended by 
upwards of fifty gentlemen. 
At Twelve o’clock the company began to assemble; and after 
a short examination of the Museum, temporarily formed in an 
adjoining apartment, they proceeded to the Assembly Room; when 
on the motion of Mr. Sorneron, M.P., the Most Honourable the 
Marquis of LanspowNnr was called to the Chair. His Lordship 
offered a few words in accepting the post, and then called upon 
the Rev. W. C. Luxts to read the Report of the Provisional 
Committee, which he did as follows :— 
“ Before proceeding to the further business of this day, it is the 
duty of the Provisional Committee of the Wilts Archeological and 
Natural History Society to state to the meeting the steps by which 
they have attained to their present position, and to request the 
sanction of the Members of the Society to the measures which up to 
this time they have undertaken on their own responsibility. 
“The first impulse to the present movement, was a proposal 
made by Mr. Britton in the early part of the year 1852 to dispose 
of his collection of Books, Drawings, &c., relating to Wiltshire, either 
tosome gentleman connected with the County, or to a public Society 
established at some one of its principal towns. Mr. W. Cunnington, 
to whom we must all confess ourselves deeply indebted, lost no 
time in communicating with some of the principal nobility and 
gentry, and was successful in organizing a Provisional Committee, 
and in obtaining the sum of £100 for this special purpose. 
Negotiations were immediately opened with Mr. Britton, and the 
whole of the Collection alluded to passed into the hands of the 
Provisional Committee for the sum of £150; the terms of pur- 
VOL, I.—NO. I. B 
