The Council have to acknowledge the liberal donations of books, drawings, and prints, a list of which will be prepared and printed in the first annual volume of the Society's Transactions.
The Rules for the regulation of the Society, which have been prepared with great care, are now submitted for sanction and confirmation.
The Council beg to resign into the hands of the Society the trust reposed in them, and to express their willingness to resume their duties if re-elected.
The Adoption of the Report was moved by
J. C. W. Lever, Esq., M.D., seconded by Thomas Clark, Esq., and unanimously carried.
The Proposed Rules were then read, revised, and adopted.
The Office-bearers having been duly appointed, the Meeting adjourned to the evening.
At Seven o'clock the Members and their friends, in number nearly two hundred, again assembled; and the proceedings were commenced by the Chairman's delivery of the following Inaugural Address:—
Ladies and Gentlemen,—I take it for granted that all who are now present are members of this Archæological Society, or at least are interested in archæological pursuits. This being our first meeting, it may affect our future proceedings—a great deal depends upon how we make a start. (Hear, hear.) I dare say you all remember a character in one of Foote's farces, ridiculing this kind of thing, representing the parties as trying to get a complete collection of Tyburn-turnpike tickets. (A laugh.) There might be something to learn from that. If at the out-set you start with no higher object in view than picking up old coins, pieces of old iron, fragments of broken vases, and scraps of tiles, your researches will be exposed to great and deserved ridicule. If, on the other hand, your exertions be directed towards worthier and more extended objects—of which those relics may be made one of the instruments—you may be of considerable use—you may fill an important office, as I will endeavour to show. All great works of art—a great building, a great picture, or a great poem,—are made up of the grand design and the subsidiary details. Take any piece of art—say that you are painting a picture. Well, there is the great subject, the conception to be carried out, and there are the details. If you bestow your attention, as an artist, entirely upon the details, you must make a bad picture; if, on the other hand, you keep the details subsidiary to the grand plan or subject, you will make a good picture. If you, as members of this Society, are devoted to collecting pieces of broken pottery, or metal, or old coins, you will come to no good result—and you ought not to come to any good result. (Hear.) Now the first thing is one which is rather difficult to define, and that is "Antiquity." What do you mean by the state of being old? What is old? Ladies are never old, you know. (A laugh.) This reminds me that Horace relates a story.
