Monday, Sept. 9.
The proceeding's of the general meeting were opened at half past three o'clock by an address from the President upon the objects of the Association, and the benefits it was calculated to realize. His lordship remarked that a disposition to cultivate intellectual pursuits was making rapid progress in this country, as well as on the continent, and this growing feeling was especially manifested with regard to archæology. Most men of cultivated minds were now beginning to take an interest in examining and pondering over the remains of past ages. They were no longer satisfied with taking for truth the baseless vagaries of the human mind; they wished to judge for themselves, and to form theories that would spring from a study of facts, well scrutinized and established by the test of personal examination and severe criticism. Archæology, thus placed on a sound footing, would go hand in hand with history. The antiquary was no longer an object of ridicule, for it was becoming too palpable that his researches and discoveries, perhaps in themselves apparently trivial, if not immediately applied to practical purposes, were often seized by some master-mind, and rendered subservient to the elucidation of unsettled points of the highest historical importance. In order to foster and direct this growing taste, the Archæological Association had been formed, purposing to embrace a more numerous class of persons, and to enter upon a wider field of active research, than that to which the exertions of the Society of Antiquaries have hitherto been directed. It aspires to enrol among its members, individuals in all parts of the kingdom who will examine and describe antiquities that may be brought to light in their respective localities, and co-operate to preserve them. His lordship then gave a long list of reasons for the selection of Canterbury for the first annual meeting, and referred to the peculiar attractions it afforded to every section of the Association, from an investigation of which the institution could not fail being benefited.
Mr. C. Roach Smith, the Secretary, then read the list of papers which were to be brought before the meeting, and subsequently an address explanatory of the objects, operations, and prospects of the Association.
It having been suggested, that owing to a large accumulation of papers it would be desirable at once to bring forward some portion of them. Sir William Betham read from an elaborate paper on the origin of idolatry.
In the evening, at
THE PRIMEVAL SECTION,
the chair was taken at eight o'clock by the very Rev. the Dean of Hereford, and the proceedings commenced with a paper by the Rev. John Bathurst Deane, on the early sepulchral remains extant in Great Britain, and the connection with similar monuments in Brittany. The paper was illustrated by a large and beautifully executed plan of the extensive Celtic monuments on the plains of Carnac.
