64 SECOND ANNUAL MEETING. 
the miscalled work of restoration might have been avoided 
—and how much money, expended solely in doing mischief, 
might have been judiciously applied. Regrets are now 
vain and useless, but the recollection of these sad pro- 
ceedings should stimulate us to more strenuous efforts in 
preserving in their integrity, as far as it is practicable, those 
beautiful specimens of ancient art which we still possess. He 
would refer to a very interesting antiquarian work, just pub- 
lished by Mr. C. Roach Smith, and beautifully illustrated 
by Mr. Fairholt, entitled “ the antiquities of Richborough, 
Reculver, and Lymne in Kent.” Speaking of the church 
lately standing at Reculver, the author observes, “this 
church possessed especial claims for preservation. It stood as 
a monument of the downfall of paganism and the triumph of 
christianity. Upwards of a thousand years our forefathers 
had preserved, endowed, and repaired it, and generation 
after generation had called it theirs, and within its walls 
had ratified the obligations of social life ; they had died and 
were buried about it. Tradition hallowed it as the burial 
place of Ethelbert, who received and protected Augustine ; 
monuments of the ancestors of rich and influential families, 
whose near relatives also lay there interred, stood within and 
around its walls. The church at the commencement of the 
present century, though it had been neglected and was dila- 
pidated, might have been easily repaired ; but the gentry 
and clergy abandoned it to jobbers and speculators, who seized 
upon the venerable pilc, tore it to pieces and divided the spoil. 
The old people, who remember the circumstances, tell, how 
the bells fell to the share of one, the lead to another, recount 
the prices at which the materials were sold, and relate how, 
ere long, the curse of heaven fell on all the destroyers of 
the church, that nothing prospered with them, and that at 
last they and their families came to misery and ruin.”* So 
* Page 200. 
