from joining us at the present time have been already announced, and I will, by permission, lay before you several communications which have been subsequently received. I cannot conclude without offering my hearty congratulation on the highly favourable auspices under which this meeting has so happily been conducted, and the hopeful promise which is afforded to us by the character of its proceedings."
The President then expressed on the part of the following gentlemen their regret at having been unavoidably prevented from attending this Meeting,—the very Revs, the Deans of Exeter, Salisbury, Peterborough, and Chichester, His Excellency the Chevalier Bunsen the Prussian Ambassador, the Rev. the President of Trinity College, Oxford, Archdeacon Burney, Rev. Dr. Spry, Rev. Dr. Bandinel, the Right Hon. Sidney Herbert, M.P., P. Hardwicke, R.A., A. Poynter, A. Acland, R. B. Phillips, Esquires, and W. B. Turnbull, Esq., Secretary of the Antiquarian Society of Scotland.
The President then said,—We have now to proceed to the more important business of the day—that of making the regulations for our guidance in the future, and there is one point of considerable importance to which I will now direct your attention, as it is one on which may arise misconception or misconstruction. We ourselves, and the public generally have been put to great inconvenience—to use a vulgar and old saying—by there being two Simon Pares in the field. It is inconvenient to persons wishing to join us,—it is inconvenient to persons wishing to join other associations,—it is inconvenient to all, and seeing the way in which we have been supported by the public, they are, I think, entitled to consideration at our hands, and I therefore am of opinion we ought to change our name. I have thought of this before, and immediately before I went abroad I held a conversation with Mr. Way respecting it, to see if we could not make some arrangement before another meeting. I thought it right to recommend that some mutual agreement should be come to by the two Societies, and a change of designation take place. I recommended to our rivals,—not that I mean to call Lord Albert Conyngham my rival, for I believe that his intentions are of the best kind, although I am afraid he has allowed himself to be deceived,—that both, by common consent, should change our names, and that, as there were two words to the present title—Archæological Association—we should take one word and they the other; that one should be called the Antiquarian Association, and the other the Archæological Society, I will read to you Lord Albert's reply, which I think most honourable to him individually. I am sorry to say I cannot read you my letter to him, I unfortunately did not preserve a copy of it. The Marquis then read Lord Albert's letter, which was to the effect, "that he could, not well make the Marquis's proposition to members of an association who had just elected him their president, as by so doing, they would admit that they had assumed a title without any claim to it. That they were willing to listen to any proposal for re-uniting the society, but that such proposal must come from the other side, and that he himself was will-
