remarks to confine myself as much as possible to the humbler province of introducing the Association to my own county, and of introducing my own county to the Association; and if I do venture to touch upon matters antiquarian or archæological, I beg to assure the experts that I do so, not for the purpose of offering any remarks that may enlighten; but rather to shew them what is the depth of ignorance which they have to penetrate and dispel by coming amongst us, and that I look upon myself, and request them to look upon me, in the light of what has been called by an eminent statesman, in a saying which doubtless many of you are familiar with a foolometer. By seeing the depth of my ignorance they may gauge the necessity for enlightening us upon these interesting topics. I introduce the society to you, my fellow Devonians and Exonians; and I do so in the perfect confidence that you will feel great pleasure, and will derive great profit, from following these eminent men in the investigations which they are about to make in different parts of the county. I feel sure that the observations which they will make in your presence will open your eyes to many things which you have probably been in the habit of passing unregarded from day to day, and will open out to you new sources of interest which, perhaps, you hardly conceived were within your grasp. And I introduce my own county, and this picturesque and ancient city, to the Association, in the full and confident hope that they will find them not less rich in the materials of archæological lore than any other county or any other city which they have been heretofore in the habit of visiting. There is only one danger against which I must warn them they must not allow themselves to be too much led away by the beauties of nature from the pursuit of those peculiar objects which they come to seek; for I must warn them, if they are not aware of it, that they are going, as I see by the programme, to visit objects of interest in the midst of most lovely scenery, and they must take care not to allow the scenery to interfere too much with the archæological curiosities they are going to seek.

It does not require that we should be very deep archæologists ourselves to enjoy an archæological gathering like the present. The truth is, that this science is one of the most natural, and, I think I may say, one of the most rational, that men can engage in. We are naturally curious to know

how it is that we find ourselves in the position in which we are; and it is impossible that we can understand rightly what we are unless we know how it is that we have come to be that which we are. We find that we have stepped into a rich inheritance, like the people of Israel who entered into a land full of treasures which they had not collected. We find that our forefathers have collected for us that which adds to the enjoyment and the interest of life; and beyond that, we find ourselves continually adding to, and improving and advancing upon, that which they have left us. That, it appears to me, is what distinguishes men from the brute creation. I have always thought one of the most interesting definitions of man was that which represents him to be a being looking forward and backward, not looking merely to that which is around him, but considering the progress that he has made, or that his forefathers have made, and what progress he is himself called on to make. It is that which distinguishes man's works from the wonderful works done by animal instinct. If we look at the works of animals, at the works of the brute creation, we find that beavers construct their houses, that birds build their nests, and that other animals perform their different works precisely as they have done from the beginning of the world. But we are continually advancing; leaving behind us that which was done for us by our ancestors, and advancing from it to something which we shall hand down to posterity. It is because archæology is the science which leads us to appreciate this progress, which leads us to see and know what was done by our ancestors, and therefore points out to us the work we are to carry on for the benefit of posterity, that it is a noble and interesting and elevating science. Let me ask you, in illustration of what I have said, to try to conceive the different kinds of discoveries that an archæologist would make in countries differently circumstanced in respect of progress. Suppose that you make archæological inquiries in a country which has been for a number of years in a stationary condition,such, for instance, as the great empire of China,-consider what the nature of your archæological discoveries would be. Very probably you would there find exactly that which is in daily use in our own day, only a little more mouldy and moth-eaten and sullied and defaced by time. Then take the case of countries which have been the seats of

great empires, where the highest civilization has been attained in former times, but where there has been since a decay and relapse into barbarism. Witness Nineveh and Babylon and Asia Minor, and consider what a melancholy state of things it is when you find amongst a people now barbarous the relics of bygone civilization; traces of the decay of morality, and the decay of power, amongst a people once so favoured. Contrast with these two such a country as our own, in which you have a progressive state, in which you look back to a state of things which causes you neither to blush for your ancestors, nor to blush for yourselves in respect of your improvements upon your ancestors; a country where you are able to look back through a long vista of improvements gradually progressing and developing into the more perfect state in which you now find yourselves, and which at the same time affords you lessons of encouragement and lessons of humility. I say that all these are the kinds of lessons that you may gather from the archæological studies to which we invite you. I am quite certain that these studies are to be found not only attractive in detail, but that they are interesting in the larger view which moralists would naturally take,-that they should not be regarded as a mere pastime of the moment, but should be looked upon as a serious and important branch of human study. Archæology is one of the tributaries of history. It is one of our greatest objects to throw light, by the investigations we are able to make, upon the history of human progress.

We find in such a country as I have described,—a country in a continually progressive state, archæological relics of two different kinds. You will find some remains which are so old, which belong to a time so far bygone, that they excite in us little else than wonder. You find others which carry us on continuously up to the present day, and seem to have a more living and present interest for us. Of both of these we have specimens in this county. have specimens upon Dartmoor of the old remains of a bygone time, upon which we may exhaust ourselves in speculation, but which do not seem to touch us with anything like present and living interest. On the other hand, we have in every town, in every old church, sometimes in our old houses, and even by the way-side, memorials of times

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more or less remote, but still with which we seem to feel that we have a connexion. In both these classes of memorials there is an interest; but it is a different kind of interest which we have to awaken in the one and in the other. I venture to say that the county of Devon furnishes the archæologist with very important and very interesting classes of study; for here it is, if anywhere, that we are to look for the earliest traces of the original inhabitants of this land of Britain. Here in this south-west corner of England, if there are any traces to be found of the earliest inhabitants of the country, we are to look for them. There can be no doubt that the earliest notices which can in any way be considered to apply to England in classical writings, have reference to the Scilly Isles, probably to Cornwall, and if to Cornwall, probably also to the whole or great part of Devonshire. It appears that in days long before the time of the Roman conquest there were communications between the tin-producing districts, the "tin islands" as they were called, the Scilly Isles and Cornwall and Devonshire, and the eastern nations. We find that the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians traded with the Cassiterides, or tin islands. From all we can gather, it would seem that the tin islands referred to were the Scilly Islands and that portion of England which I have been speaking of. In a very old book, attributed to the poet Orpheus, describing the expedition of the Argonauts, and in the works of the father of history, Herodotus, we find references to communications between the ancient world and this part of England. I must not lay too much stress upon all the legends and traditions connected with the intercourse; but undoubtedly there are a great many circumstances, small in themselves yet all bearing in the same direction, which seem to point to a connexion between this south-west of England and an eastern origin. I dare say I should provoke a smile at my credulity if I referred to old legends about the original colonization of this country by Brutus and the Trojans who came with him. But the legend is worth some consideration. It says that some time after the destruction of Troy, Brutus, the grandson of Eneas, came with his followers and landed at Totnes. What is there peculiar about this? No doubt the story about Brutus and the Trojan descent was put afloat for the sake of getting a high and noble origin for the people

of Britain; but there is something remarkable in the chroniclers having fixed upon Totnes as the place to which the colony was supposed to have come. Totnes lies far up the Dart. Why should the expedition be brought to a place far up the river, and not to a point on the sea coast? That reminds us that Totnes was an ancient British town. No doubt it is a town of very high antiquity. It lies also conveniently for the trade of Dartmoor. And this chimes in with evidence we have that there was a connexion between eastern nations and the tin-producing districts of Dartmoor; for it is upon Dartmoor and the neighbourhood that you find remains of tin works, which appear to be of very high antiquity. That, I say, is one slight evidence which we have of the connexion between our people and the east.

Then, again, there are those records which are more authentic, and upon which we can rely, of the trade which sprang up between the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians with our own country. The Phoenicians preserved a strict monopoly of this trade. Herodotus says that the other nations were not able to discover where it was that this tin was brought from. We are told at a later period, that, when the Carthaginians, as a Phoenician colony, had got possession of the trade, they kept it so secret that the Romans, who endeavoured to ascertain where the metal came from, were unable to do so. Scipio the younger, who made inquiries, was told that the Gauls and others knew nothing of the district. There was a story current, and probably a true one, that a Carthaginian ship engaged in this traffic, being pursued by a Roman vessel, ran aground in order to prevent its track being discovered; and that the Carthaginian people were so pleased with the patriotism of this man, who had wrecked his vessel rather than let the secret be discovered, that by national contributions they made up the loss to him. Such matters are of interest because they directly bring to our minds one of those touches of nature which make the whole world akin. It is a specimen of that commercial jealousy which, from the very earliest ages of the world, has been found to prevail among commercial nations. The Greeks, the Carthaginians, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Venetians, the Dutch, all desired to preserve strict secrecy with regard to the sources whence their wealth was derived. The secret so well kept by the Carthaginians, was after