At the opening of the second session of this Asso- 

 ciation, it is gratifying to observe that we may con- 

 gratulate each other on the favourable circumstances 

 under which we are again assembled. 



That the city of Bath has ever had, and deserved 

 to have, a name in the literature and science of 

 England, Avill, I trust, be demonstrated in the course 

 of this evening. But when first the Institution was 

 projected, there were too many who, overlooking this 

 fact, or imagining that the literary character of Bath 

 was not sustained by the existing race of its inhabit- 

 ants, regarded as hopeless the attempt to interest any 

 considerable number of persons in a design which 

 appealed only to the literary taste or the scientific 

 spirit of those who patronized it. The city, which 

 at its first foundation had been placed, like Athens 

 herself, under the peculiar tutelage of Minerva, whose 

 temple was in early times its chiefest ornament, and at 

 whose altar a perpetual fire was burning; [1] which 

 to this day, beyond any other city of the empire, is 

 rich in its own remains of Roman art ; which is 

 believed to have produced the father of English his- 



