modern diplomacy. Sir Robert Morier, her Majesty's late representative at St. Petersburg, was of Huguenot descent and a Fellow of our Society. His successor, Sir Frank Lascelles, is also I believe of Huguenot origin; and so too is Sir Mortimer Durand, who has recently been appointed British Minister at the Court of Persia; whilst, in connection with this subject, you will perhaps pardon a passing allusion to my own former official residence at Madrid and Constantinople. We may also take some pride in the fact that (for the first time, so far as I am aware) a Huguenot is now Prime Minister of England.

I have said that the past year has been uneventful for our own Society, and it would seem to have been equally so for our friends abroad. We have continued, indeed, to receive several valuable publications from them, but fewer than usual. None at all have reached us from Holland or America, but the Bulletin of the Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français has appeared each month with its accustomed regularity; and we have also had some excellent monographs from the German Huguenot Society, and the periodical publications of the Vaudois and other foreign Societies with which we are in correspondence. Scattered through their pages are many articles of considerable interest, but I do not know that I need commend any of them to your special attention. I much regret that nothing has been published lately by the Huguenot Society of America. It has, I believe, held several Meetings during the past year, at which papers of much interest and importance have been read. I venture to hope that in due time these will find their way into print, so that we on this side of the Atlantic may benefit by them.

I have unfortunately been unable to scan the items of our recent receipts and expenses as carefully as I could wish, but the experience of former years makes me feel confident that our finances have been judiciously administered, and that our Treasurer, Mr. Roumieu, has exercised his usual watchfulness over them. You must allow me the pleasure of according him our best thanks for all he has done for us, both in his own special department, and also for the general wellbeing of the Society.

I should deplore my continued absences from England, and consequently from your Meetings, even more than I do, were I not kept so constantly and fully informed as I am of all your doings and of everything of Huguenot interest occurring here and elsewhere. For this information and for much other

kind help, I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness to our Honorary Secretary, Mr. Faber, who, in so many ways and in so great a measure, contributes to the Society's welfare.

I have already alluded to the obligations we are under to the editors of our publications and the contributors of Papers for our Meetings, and in thus commending to your grateful attention the labours of others, I am rendered the more keenly alive to my own short-comings. But I look hopefully forward, and trust that the time may not be far distant when, with renewed health and energy, I may be once more able to do some good service to our Society whose interests I have so much at heart.

On the conclusion of the Address, the Hon. Secretary was instructed by a unanimous resolution of the Meeting, to convey to Sir Henry Layard their thanks for his having so kindly sent it in spite of long continued illness, and to express to him their hearty concurrence in its closing words, and their earnest hope that he might speedily be restored to health and strength.

The ballot was then taken for Officers and Council for the ensuing year, with the following result:

Officers and Council for the year May 1894 to May 1895. President, The Right Hon. Sir Henry Layard, G.C.B.

Vice-Presidents,-Sir Henry William Peek, Bart.; MajorGeneral Sir Edmund F. Du Cane, K.C.B.; Arthur Giraud Browning, F.S.A.; William John Charles Moens, F.S.A.; Robert Hovenden, F.S.A.

Treasurer, Reginald St. Aubyn Roumieu.

Honorary Secretary,—Reginald Stanley Faber, M.A.

Members of Council,-Alexandre Louis Foucar, Charles A. Govett, Thomas Noel Hugo, Richard Herbert Lapage, Louis Hooper Le Bailly, P. De Lande Long, T. Miller Maguire, LL.D., Victor Maslin, Henry Merceron, William Minet, F.S.A., William Page, F.S.A., W. Harry Rylands, F.S.A.

A Programme of arrangements for the Summer Conference in Ireland was submitted and approved, and it was decided to hold the Conference on Wednesday and Thursday, the 11th and 12th of July, but owing to the death of Sir Henry Layard on July 5th, all these arrangements were ultimately cancelled.

DR.

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Assistant Secretary's Salary

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The Right Hon.

Sir Henry Austen Layard, G.C.B., D.C.L.

FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY.

APRIL 15, 1885-JULY 5, 1894.

The closing words of the President's Address, breathing that spirit of indomitable energy and enthusiasm which characterised him through life up to the very end, have now a pathetic interest for all members of the Society, and especially for those who, in listening to them, felt constrained, though hoping against hope, to persuade themselves that what they heard was indeed the prelude to their President's further work, and not his last farewell. Yet so it was, and in less than two months all was over and the Society was left to mourn an irreparable loss.

Henry Austen Layard was born at Paris on March 5, 1817, his father being an Englishman, but of Huguenot origin and connected with many distinguished Huguenot families. Born in France and brought up in Italy, Layard passed his early life amid surroundings forming a curious counterpart to those of his closing years, which were destined to be so largely spent at Venice and in elucidating the history of France in its Huguenot aspect. At sixteen he left Italy for England, and the future explorer and diplomatist began life in the uncongenial atmosphere of a lawyer's office, being articled to his uncle, Mr. Austen, a London solicitor. Useful as this training was to him (and Layard was not the man to neglect its advantages or disparage its value), it necessarily failed to satisfy his spirit of adventure and natural aptitude for widely different pursuits, and in a very few years we find him turning his steps eastwards to begin. that remarkable and stirring series of travels, adventures and discoveries, with which he has made all the world familiar by his successive volumes on Nineveh, Babylon

and (last in order of publication, though first in subjectmatter) his early wanderings in Persia, etc.

On such well-known works it is needless here to dwell, but passing mention may be made of their author's habitual reluctance to respond to the attempts so often made to induce him to talk about his own explorations and their interest and importance. A relative of the present writer has told him that she was one of a large party at Burghley House where Layard happened to be staying when in the hey-day of his fame on returning from his first expedition to Nineveh. The lady in question was taken in to dinner by the lion of the evening, her host whispering to her that she (a young girl at the time) ought to think herself lucky in being so honoured. "But," she used to say, "not only did Mr. Layard preserve an almost oriental silence to myself, but not once all through the evening could anyone prevail upon him to tell us anything about Nineveh, and he seemed as unconscious of its existence as if he had

never been there!" This reticence and a generally reserved and at times brusque manner, distinguished Layard through life, but he was nevertheless one of the most genial and kind-hearted of men, with a keen sense of humour, full of warm sympathy when his feelings were aroused, and ever ready to help anyone in any way possible. He was perhaps easily misunderstood by those who did not know him, but those who did were wont to regard him with the strongest attachment.

Layard's career in middle life in the field of politics and diplomacy is of minor interest compared with the brilliant achievements of his earlier years, and even these do not appeal to the members of the Huguenot Society so strongly as the memory of him as their first President, and of all the keen interest he took in the Society's work and well-being from the day when he occupied the chair at its foundation to the closing days of his own life, when, as he said in his Address, he had not strength to do more than send those few words to be read at the Annual Meeting. Sir Henry's very last work for the Society was to append his signature to the diplomas of the Fellows elected during the past Session, but after he could no longer attempt even so slight an exertion, he still continued to enquire eagerly after the Society's