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hurrying forward and being the first in the
field to incorporate by its united voice a body of its faithful
and devoted sons, sworn together to preserve the records of its
glorious past. This growing feeling in favour of the science of
Archaeology—growing, I say, although it has already
spread far and wide, and struck its roots deep into the ground—is
one of the most pleasing signs of these days, The antiquarian is
not now, as in the times of our grandfathers, made the subject of
the witless jests of every booby who had nothing to do but to
crack his jokes against those who were wiser and better than
himself. Now in these "days of progress," as they are
called,—now that our advancement in science has gone ahead
beyond the example of any former times,—there has, as it were,
providentially grown up by the side of that bold and daring spirit
of development a feeling of admiration for what is good and
beautiful of past
times—a desire to preserve, to chronicle, and to record all that
we can cull from the past. This seems implanted in us side by side
with our aspirations after progress, in order that, while our
posterity may reap the utmost benefits of the learning and
intellect of our day, they may also know the progressive stages by
which our present knowledge, our present growth in science, have
been attained. To this end we have founded this Society; and when
we remember what the county is in which it has been founded, we
cannot but foresee a rich crop of golden treasures to reward our
husbandman's care. Kent is that county which in our history
earliest looms through the mists of long-forgotten ages,—that
district of Britain the first known to the civilized world by the
invasion of Julius Caesar and his landing on its shores,—that
county which, from his day downwards, has ever played a prominent
part in the history of England: Kent, which yields us fruits of
antiquity as long ago as the Druidical times in that curious
monument which exists within a few miles of this spot, Kit's Coty
House,—which, coming down to the times of the Romans, supplies
us with the ancient structure in Dover Castle and the Roman city,
for such it was, of Richborough,—which furnishes us with Norman
monuments in the cathedral of Rochester, and of a grander style of
architecture in that of Canterbury. In this county also we have
ancient manorhouses of the most important period of English
domestic architecture, already alluded to by the Noble Chairman.
Kent, in those days, contained in itself the Manchester, the
Wolverhampton,
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