The Rev. Prebendary Fane’s Address. 259 
whose absence he particularly regretted, Mr. Poulett Scrope, giving 
all the energies of his cultivated mind to carry out their views.— 
But he must be allowed to say that the gentlemen who formed the 
backbone of the Society—the real vertebra—were present. The 
first of these was his reverend friend, Mr. Lukis, who, if there 
were a barrow to be opened, a Roman pillar to be picked out, or a 
bell to be rung, was present ready to proceed. Next in order came 
an old school-fellow of his, the Rev. Canon Jackson, who, when 
there was an old parchment which nobody could make out, or a 
musty record of an old farm house which nobody could decipher, 
was ready at once to unfold its contents. The third gentleman was 
his reverend friend, Mr. Smith, who identified himself with the 
winged creation. The fourth gentleman he should describe was 
the resurrection-man of the Mammoth and the Boar—a man who, 
leaving the ancient Briton and his ancestors to repose in peace, 
devoted himself to the primeval records of the world, and thereby 
rendered himself a kind of absolute peer in Archzeology—he meant 
Mr. Cunnington of Devizes. If the members of the Society thought 
that the Noble Marquis of Lansdowne, the Noble Marquis of Bath, 
Mr. Poulett Scrope, or any other gentleman, had a higher claim to 
their gratitude than the gentlemen whose names he had mentioned, 
he would tell them that they made a mistake precisely similar to 
that which would suppose that the legs, arms, eyes, or ears, could 
do their office without the spinal marrow which passed through the 
back bone, represented by the vertebra he had referred to. Having 
announced in detail the various proceedings which had been arranged 
for the present meeting, the Chairman, in conclusion, expressed, 
on behalf of his fellow-townsmen, the great pleasure they expe- 
rienced at the meeting of the Society in Warminster. 
Mr. Ravenuttx said he believed it had been arranged that the 
Bishop of the diocese should preside at the CONVERSAZIONE in the 
evening. He was sorry therefore to be the unwelcome informant 
that his lordship, who had come into the neighbourhood the previous 
evening, had been taken so unwell in the middle of the night that 
he had been obliged to return to Salisbury. With respect to the 
Dean, he was glad to say that the cause which prevented him from 
