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association, but rather act as feeders to it. The Institute deals with the general history of the whole country; the local association investigates all the minute details of one particular district, so that the two combined furnish scope for all antiquarians, and serve to remedy a defect so well described by Mr. Freeman, the President of the Historical Section of last year at Cardiff, when he said,—"The local historian who does not raise his eyes to general history is undoubtedly a very poor creature, but I venture to think that the general historian, who thinks himself too great to cast his eye downwards on local history, is a poorer creature still. The facts gathered together by the local antiquary may be put to use by those who know better than himself how to arrange them in their due place and order."

This, then, appears to be the great advantage of such meetings as the present, that it brings the general historian and the local historian face to face for their mutual edification.

In attempting to give a short sketch of the history of our county, it is impossible for me to go into a detailed account of every object of historical or archaeological interest in it, and I must leave it to those who will follow me to deal with the various points which they have specially studied, and which they will put before you in the most interesting form.

I have already alluded to Winchester, which takes us back almost to the earliest point of our county's and country's history.

It would appear that in the British period there were several districts to which the natives gave the appellation of Gwent, or open champaign country, in distinction to the vast wooded tracts of impenetrable forest. For instance, there were the Gwent of the Belga, Hampshire; the Gwent of the Silures, Monmouthshire; and the great eastern Gwent of the Iceni, whose capital was Norwich; and even Kent is by some supposed to be a softened form—caint—of the same word. In the centre of the Gwents the natives established their strong places of abode and defence, and Winchester was selected as the protected site of the capital of the great Gwent, or open down country of Hants. Here the Britons remained till attacked by the Belga from Gaul, who, landing, we may suppose, at Southampton, pressed their