In Jftenroriam. 



THE LATE ME. HENRY BURDEN, OF BLANDFORD. 



As a member of the Field Club I may be pardoned for recalling 

 to the notice of the members the death of this gentleman, who was 

 one of our body, though perhaps not very generally known, as the 

 latter period of his life was passed in comparative privacy, partly 

 from infirmity but chiefly perhaps in accordance with his natural 

 disposition and his acquired habits. But Mr. Durden was in 

 reality different from what he appeared to be to a common acquaint- 

 ance. His love of antiquity and research into the early history of 

 this country led him to bestow from early years some portion of 

 his leisure hours on the study of these subjects, and on the 

 collection of objects of primitive art, to illustrate their various 

 departments. I have known Mr. Durden personally for sixty 

 years and more, and remember very well the time when he began, 

 as a youth, to collect the treasures which have made his name 

 famous, and which by degrees grew into the splendid and valuable 

 museum which he has died possessed of. Some years before that 

 event occurred, I know that the late Charles Roach Smith, F.S.A., 

 a name well known to archaeologists, entreated his friend Durden 

 to publish an illustrated catalogue of his collection ; this suggestion 

 was not acceded to, but not disregarded, and was deferred until the 

 last year of his life, when the work was carried out by his friend 

 Mr. George Payne, F.S.A., with the assistance of his own M.S. 

 notes of his discoveries, and of the relics in his collection, made 



