122 Kington St. Michael. [John Britfon. 



enterprising and active mind was incessantly at work, either in 

 fulfilling old engagements or projecting new ones ; in collecting 

 materials for histories never to be completed, editing the composi- 

 tions of others, contributing to periodicals, sorting, indexing, and 

 arranging the contents of his own drawers and portfolios, and not 

 least of all, in a very large correspondence. Besides all this, he 

 acted for many years as Registrar of the "Royal Literary Fund," 

 and Honorary Secretary to the "Wiltshire Sociefi/" a charitable 

 Institution founded in 1817. To the Rmsell Imtitution, the Graphic 

 Society, the Architects' and Antiquaries' Club, and other associations 

 of similar kind he gave much of his attention ; and was one of the 

 foimders of the Geographical Society. In Wiltshire he was well 

 known as a chief promoter of its first Topograpliical Society, and 

 as a constant attendant upon the meetings of the one which exists 

 at present. 



It wiU be doing no injustice to the worth of this most indefati- 

 gable gentleman, to repeat now that he is no more, an opinion of 

 his literary ability pronounced during his life. He was not a man 

 of marked originality or great mental power ; but as a careful 

 and diligent writer in a branch of Literature insufficiently treated 

 before his time, he did excellent service in calling the attention of 

 the educated public to our long-neglected National Antiquities : 

 and there can be little doubt that his elegantly illustrated works 

 were a chief exciting cause in bringing about an improved state of 

 public feeling towards those subjects.^ And when the reader glances 



1 The English Encycloptedia. C. Knight, Art. Britton. The true point of 

 Mr. Britten's merit is jnstly seized in the following passage of an address by 

 Digby Wyatt, Esq., delivered at a general meeting of the Royal Institution of 

 British Architects. "The pictorial illustrations of our national monuments at 

 the close of the last century were of the most loose and imperfect description. 

 Since the careful prints of Hollar, scarcely any engravings of architectural sub- 

 jects had appeared worthy of notice or reliance ; and the early productions of 

 the Antiquarian Society presented the only approximation to accui'acy. James 

 Basii-e, Rooker, and Lowry, were the fashionable engravers of such subjects, 

 and John Carter, and Fowler, who illustrated stained glass and ancient mosaics, 

 almost the only trustworthy draughtsmen. It was mainly through Britten's 

 energy that a reformation was effected. His activity and enthusiasm soon 

 gathered about him all those rising men whose names arc now so familiar to us. 

 He saw from the improvements which had been eifectcd, mainly by Stothard, and 



