things are worth nothing; but they still seem to tend one way. One feels a sort of revolt at the sweeping manner in which Gibbon, in his history, disposes of all these stories of Eastern origin. He says the common sense of his age was content to see in Britain the colony of the Gauls; that this country was colonised only by the Gauls. And a glance at the map shows that that is the way in which it should be naturally colonised. But at least it is worth while to consider whether there are not sufficient grounds for reviewing this opinion, and considering whether there may not be something more in the eastern origin attributed to us.

There are undoubtedly other grounds of interest which we have in this county. But I may mention one in which I think we cannot help feeling sympathy; and it is this; that this south-west corner of England has been the corner in which, in so many of our great national revolutions, the oppressed and conquered people have found a last refuge to betake themselves. It was long before the Britons were expelled from this part of the country. For the first century of the Saxon dominion, when they were Pagans, it was here in Exeter and the western portion of Devon, that the Christians, and especially the clergy, appear to have found refuge. It is said by one of the old historians, that for more than a century Exeter was known by the name of Monkton, as a place occupied by many monks. That is stated by one of our antiquaries, Hoker. Whether it can be confirmed or not I do not know; but it appears there were a very large number of old British monks who took refuge in this city and neighbourhood, especially at Crediton, from the persecution of the Pagan Saxons. Of the early British church, and of the church subsequent to the conversion of the Saxons, you will still find traces in Devonshire. At a later period, when the Normans swept over the country, Githa, mother of Harold, took refuge here after the battle of Hastings. It was some time before the Normans conquered Exeter, and the account of their taking it stands much to our credit. The inhabitants offered a gallant resistance, and the terms obtained were very much superior to those granted by the Normans anywhere else. Whether, as is stated by some, the castle of Rougemont existed before that time, and merely changed gates in token of its submission; or whether the castle was built then from the ruins of

the houses destroyed, is a question upon which I cannot offer an opinion. But it is interesting to know what the date of the castle is; and no doubt we shall have considerable light thrown upon it in the course of the present visit. This at least we know, that the Normans were obliged to bridle the county with castles; at Totnes, Berry Pomeroy, Dartmouth, Plympton, and other places, especially at points commanding the rivers. These, then, were two great waves of conquest that passed over England, in which the national party found refuge in this part of the country. One cannot therefore help feeling that there is a special interest in this county as being the last refuge of liberty and national spirit. There has been no other invasion similar to these; but there has been more than one occasion upon which Exeter has shown its loyalty to the sovereign, and earned its motto of "Semper Fidelis," and a further occasion on which they offered the rite of hospitality to the queen of Charles I, as aforetime to the mother of Harold. It was here that queen Henrietta Maria, during the middle of the great troubles, came to be confined, and gave birth to the princess whose baptism is always commemorated by that font which we have preserved in the cathedral. Here, in the west of England, almost the last stand was made by Devonshire and Cornwall men-sir Bevil Grenville, sir R. Hopton, and others-in behalf of king Charles. It was from this county that the restorer of the monarchy, Monk, duke of Albemarle,

came.

There is another period of history to which we may turn with even more pride and interest-that is the reign of Elizabeth, when Devonshire produced those great worthies, Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh, Gilbert, who maintained the supremacy of England on the seas, and hurled back the naval power of Spain. You may almost fancy that the heroes of early times were reproducing themselves, and found a parallel in these men. When you see Drake going forth from Plymouth to contend with the gigantic power of Spain, it almost reminds you of the feats of Corineus in hurling down Gogmagog from the Plymouth cliff. Raleigh's setting out from the Dart to colonise the West, almost brings back to us the landing in the Dart of our supposed colonisers from the East. We find remains of these great men still amongst us; and the remains possess for us a human interest. At the old house at Fardell,

so much occupied by sir Walter Raleigh, we have monuments of him. Of Gilbert we have relics at Compton. Plymouth possesses records of Drake; if in nothing else, at least in the waterworks which he brought into the town; and in North Devon are remains of sir Bevil Grenville. So that everywhere there are traces of those men who made Devonshire celebrated in that day and gained for it a proud position. Side by side with your antiquarian researches, look about and see whether there are not traces of these heroes to be found. And remember when you are treading upon this soil you may perhaps be appropriately addressed in the words of that noble epitaph put up by the prince de Condé over his adversary, the count de Mercy—“ Siste viator, heroem calcas!" "Stop, traveller! you are treading upon the dust of a hero." In many places you will be treading upon the dust of heroes. Remember what we have to be proud of. I trust there is no Devonshire man who will not do his part to preserve the records of his ancestors, as something to which he may turn, to which he may point, and which may be an encouragement to his children after him to persevere in the course so well marked out by them.

You have missed a great many opportunities, in this city, of forming a good museum of antiquities. I am sorry to say there are very few things left amongst us: they have gone elsewhere. I was asked to get the Department of Science and Art to send us down the panelling of an old room in Exeter, of which they have obtained possession, and which would undoubtedly have been a beautiful ornament on the present occasion. But they were not able to spare it. We ought never to have let such a thing go. We ought to have had it. Here one of our vice-presidents, Mr. Pettigrew, comes down and flourishes in our faces a number of penates which he has picked up, and which belong to Exeter, -our own household gods. I suppose we should not be justified in laying violent hands upon them: we must not violate the first principle of morality. But look at them, and blush that you let them go from Exeter. They are very curious remains of the old Romans in Exeter, and they have gone to London. It is rather late, perhaps, to begin. It is like asking you to shut the stable door after the steed is stolen. Still it is never too late to mend. We may be able hereafter to discover other remains. There are a few still

in our neighbourhood, in the possession of societies connected with us, which might, perhaps, form the nucleus of such a museum. If there were a proper museum, a proper place of deposit, you would find that many persons would come forward and make gifts to add to that collection. Of course the whole interest of a collection depends upon its being a collection. There is very little interest in one man having an old brass pot in his drawingroom, and another a few coins in his bureau, when compared with that of seeing all those things placed together in connexion one with the other. But, at the same time, all honour to those who keep these things in their own rooms, and preserve them somehow. No doubt the spirit which led them to preserve them under difficulties, will, as soon as a proper museum is ready, induce them to come voluntarily forward and place them where they will be a credit to the town and the neighbourhood. But I do not feel that I ought to say much more upon this matter. Perhaps you will think that I have done it rather with an eye to business, and that I am taking an unfair advantage in urging you to set on foot such a museum. At the same time, if these meetings are good for anything, we must try to make them practical. We ought to commemorate them in some way; and I hope the result of the Association's visit to Exeter will be that something will be done here to establish a museum, to arrange for the collecting of information, and to organize also a system for preserving the records of our old monuments by photographic and other means. Then we shall be able to say honestly that the visit has not been in vain. Our friends will go back to London, not finding us quite so uncivilized as in the centre of England we may possibly be supposed to be; and they will be encouraged to come here again, and to tell us how they can report of our progress since their last visit.

22

BRITISH REMAINS ON DARTMOOR.

BY SIR J. GARDNER WILKINSON, D.C.L., F.R.S., V.P.

In most countries noticed in ancient history we still find traces of the early inhabitants; and the monuments which remain enable us to form some idea of their customs and their mode of life.

Sometimes, indeed, these records of the past are scanty and imperfect; and this may cease to surprise us, when we remember that one people, most noted for their industrial prosperity, and for the extent of their colonization and commercial enterprise-the Phoenicians-have not left a single monumental record, by which their former greatness could even be surmised; and so few vestiges remain of their public or private works that, were it not for some sepulchral cippi and inscriptions, and the evidence of sacred and profane history, we should scarcely know of the existence of that remarkable nation.

It is therefore satisfactory to find some records of our own early ancestors still existing in this country; and though not of any excellence in an architectural point of view, they afford us some notion of the abodes, as well as of the sepulchres, of the Britons, of their rude masonry, of their skill in raising ponderous stones, and of the success they had acquired in fortifying their camps before the Romans entirely subdued the manly spirit of that brave people.

These records occur in many parts of our island, particularly in the mountain districts; but in a hilly country of great extent it was often thought sufficient to defend the outskirts, and to prevent the passage of an invader through its valleys; and we therefore find that the strongest camps of Dartmoor are on the side most exposed to attack from the valley of the Exe, and the lower part of the Teign, and Dart; the rest being thought sufficiently secure, from the nature of the ground, and from the little temptation offered to marauders by its wild and barren aspect. This character of the country enabled the Damnonian Britons long to enjoy their freedom; and though the Anglo-Saxon monarchs had possession of Devonshire, and extended their dominion to the Tamar (which was made