The Rev. Prebendary Fane’s Address. 255 
may spend a day’s honeymoon together—town with town, village 
with village, exchanging what I take to be a high part of our 
office—viz.: those offices of hospitality and good-will which, believe 
me, are an integral part of our system, and without which I am 
convinced the social frame can never hold securely together. It is 
this, I repeat, which especially commends the Society to my feelings 
and which induces me, and will continue to induce me, to give it 
my warmest and most cordial support. 
And now having set before you the class of objects which the 
Society has in view, it will be my duty (for the information of those 
who have never attended one of these meetings before), to explain 
the causes of the Society being instituted in this county. It was 
felt, then, from the first, that very few counties in England ought 
to have a stronger and more abiding claim upon archeologists than 
Wiltshire ; because there are few counties which present so complete 
a series of antiquities from more remote to later periods of our 
history. For instance, within a short distance of this town where 
we are met, we have on one of our hill-tops—which I hope some 
of you will inspect before you leave—the first encampment of the 
ancient Belgic warriors, where from their fastnesses they looked 
down on the valley beneath. Again, hard by, we have the more 
finished—the more accomplished, if I may call it so—fortifications 
of Battlesbury, where the emblems of that military power which 
so long possessed our land may still be traced. And, still again 
within easy reach, we have our full share of later antiquities. We 
may find, for instance, in our churches, many signs of medieval 
times—of those times when the crusader went forth, carrying with 
him the love of his God (however mistaken his notions may have 
been according to our more modern views). Thus, our cathedral 
contains the noble Longespee ; and in some of our parish churches 
close by—in one of which I have myself a strong interest—may be 
seen the still-existing effigies of the crusaders of the middle ages. 
Again, coming down to yet later times, may be found various 
remains of extreme interest. Need I remind you that Wiltshire 
contains that magnificent house, which represents a sort of dark 
interval between the middle ages and the later times. When I 
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