Mr. Poulett Scrope’s Address. 13 
others. Indeed there is scarcely any district of England whose 
local history has been, till very lately, so much neglected, or where 
so much, even now, remains to be accomplished. 
And yet how rich it is in matters of commanding interest to the 
historian, and the antiquary! In the uncertainty which rests on 
the early annals of the island, through the want of written records, 
or the fabulous contradictions of such as we possess, history turns 
for information to the monuments of antiquity which its primitive 
inhabitants have left upon its surface. And where are to be found 
remains of this class in any degree comparable to the wonderful 
Celtic temples, and tumuli, and earthworks, with which our county 
abounds? Stonehenge and Avebury are to Britain what the Pyra- 
mids are to Egypt—the colossal and mysterious relics of an other- 
wise unrecorded age, and people! Passing on to a period, the 
darkness of which is penetrated by some faint gleams of historical 
light—that of the Roman occupation of the island—we find the 
vestiges of these military propagators of civilization and art—their 
roads, camps, stations, villas, thickly strewn over the soil of our county, 
and attesting their lengthened residence here. In a still later age, 
Wiltshire is known to have been one of the chief theatres of the 
sanguinary and protracted warfare waged by the invading Danes 
and Saxons with the aboriginal Britons, and with one another. 
Within its limits the heroic Arthur, and still more illustrious 
Alfred, contended at different periods for the liberties of their 
country, and won their most celebrated victories. Again, when the 
Normans had in turn conquered the isle, and imposed their feudal 
system on the self-governed Saxons, this district was the chief battle- 
field in that memorable contest, between rival sovereigns and their 
mailed Barons; the issue of which determined not only the ruling 
dynasty, but also the constitutional character of the realm. And 
the dwarfed remains of the Baronial strongholds of Sarum, of Lud- 
gershall, of Devizes, Malmesbury, and Marlborough, are invested 
with a halo of interest from their connection with the fierce and 
desolating struggles of that stormy period. At a much later epoch 
of civil warfare, that of the Great Rebellion, and again in the 
Revolution of 1688, this county was likewise the scene of important 
events, deeply interesting to the Constitutional historian. 
It may, therefore, be safely asserted that the history of no part of 
the kingdom is more deserving of close examination and study: 
while it is too certain that few counties have profited less from the 
labours of the local historian. It is true that considerable attention 
has been paid to the ancient and mysterious monuments of our 
Downs; and some rather startling theories have been broached in 
explanation of them; though I am far from intending to depreciate 
such speculations, for which there is ample ground in the singular 
character of these remains. The work on Ancient Wiltshire of 
Sir Richard Hoare is, indeed, a splendid contribution to the early 
