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ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, 



SiE JOHN MACLEAN, F.S.A., F.R.S.A. (Irl.) 

 V.P. Royal ArcJueological Inst. Great Britain and Ireland, &c. 



The subject I have selected upon which to address you this 

 afternoon as President, will not, I fear, afford scope for such 

 scientific and brilliant effusions as you have been accustomed to 

 hear delivered from this chair by my predecessors ; nevertheless, 

 the subject, though modest in its character, is one of very great 

 importance. It is "The sources from which materials may be 

 drawn, and evidence obtained, for writing a New History of 

 Cornwall upon a wider and more accurate basis than that which 

 is afforded by what are now considered the standard histories of 

 the county." This Isew History is a work greatly needed. My 

 address will be a sort of sequel to one I delivered, close upon 

 20 years ago, at Exeter, from the Presidential chair of the 

 " Historical Section of the Eoyal Archaeological Institute." But, 

 as D'Israeli once said, " many things have happened since then," 

 and in nothing, surely, have greater changes appeared than in 

 the opening out of archives, both jDublic and private, for the 

 study of history both general and local. 



The writer of history should approach the subject with an 

 open mind, repressing all temptation to prejudice. An author 

 who writes to support preconceived notions does not write history. 

 This was the case with Macauley. His style was beautiful, clear, 

 charming, and carried the reader aloug with him, but, unfortu- 

 nately, his works cannot be relied upon as history. Such, also, 

 was the case with an eminent friend of my own, now alas I 

 departed. There is also one other caution I would venture to 

 mention. We should not, either in reading or writing, look at 

 circumstances, or the feelings and actions of persons in the 

 12th or 13th centuries through our spectacles of the 19th, but 

 endeavour to place ourselves in their positions as regards their 

 feelings, religions — prejudices, if you like, and degree of culture. 

 Unless we do this we can scarcely be impartial. 



