4 



The Seventeenth General Meeting. 



— all men who have contributed largely to the history of our county. 

 Let me not forget to mention a distinguished member of this 

 brotherhood, who is now living, and who has done me the great 

 honour to be present here to-day to support me at this my first 

 appearance amongst you as your president. I mean Mr. Matcham, 

 of New House. Nor will I omit to notice those following in their 

 footsteps, and most usefully cementing their labours, who have taken 

 great trouble in behalf of the Society, and who deserve our respect 

 and gratitude. Of their work I may say — 



Si monumentum quseris circumspice. 



Allow me here, at perhaps not an inopportune moment, to make the 

 remark that I think it might be advisable, now that so much and varied 

 information has been collected towards the formation of a county 

 history, to put all the papers which treat of one subject together. 

 At present the information appears to the general reader to be 

 scattered through a number of volumes, and he has to seek for it by 

 means of an index. As a suggestion, I would propose that the 

 subject matter belonging to each hundred be collected under that 

 hundred, the history of the different parishes falling into their 

 places in that hundred. There will be a difficulty about this, I feel, 

 as the parochial histories are not yet entirely written, although most 

 excellent examples have been set us by Mr. Wilkinson and others ; 

 and besides, it is not by any means certain that everything which 

 can be said of each parish, has been said. Those excellent papers 

 on {i Ornithology/'' and the " Flora of Wiltshire,'''' would probably 

 have to form a volume each by themselves, as they treat of the 

 birds and the flowers of the county generally. So also such inter- 

 esting papers as those on the " Forest Trees of Wiltshire/'' It has 

 occurred to me, and I merely throw it out as a suggestion, which 

 may perhaps be acted upon hereafter, that the Society might form, 

 by means of photography, a very interesting and valuable collection 

 of the " Worthies of Wilts/'' We cannot have the original portraits, 

 but we (with the permission of the owners) may have copies on a 

 reduced scale, which, though, from want of colour, will not quite 

 satisfy the eye, yet would be sufficiently pleasing and accurate to 



