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to permit ; and I feel that, having reference to the title of our Associ- 

 ation, I owe a certain amount of apology to "Literature," for having 

 paid all my attentions to her younger sister, and for having seemed so 

 rudely to neglect her not inferior beauty and her rival charms. Literature, 

 however, will have any rudeness on my part more than compensated to 

 her this evening, when we have the pleasure of listening to a discourse 

 on one of the few great modern English poets, delivered by one of the 

 few men who are capable of doing that great poet justice.* Perhaps, 

 also, I may be permitted to add, inasmuch as the remark to a certain 

 extent illustrates the subject of this address, that although our Association 

 describes itself as one for the "advancement of Literature and Science," 

 still, the kind of advancement which is possible, and whicli is being continu- 

 ally carried out, with respect to Science, is impossible with regard to Litera- 

 ture. Probably no man has ever yet lived who had in greater perfection 

 the true scientific mind than Sir Isaac Newton ; certainly no man ever 

 made such advances in science ; and yet, by the necessity of the case, 

 the science of Newton was but a rude and contracted body of knowledge 

 as compared with the science of those who have stood upon his shoulders, 

 and who have inherited his achievements. And the men of to-day will be 

 but as children by the side of the men of the next century; and many of 

 the grandest and most cherished results of the science of to-day may be 

 looked upon by our successors as familiar knowledge. But in Literature 

 this is not so. Shakspeare occupies in this respect a prouder chair than 

 Newton. Shakspeare may safely smile upon the efforts of Associations 

 for the advancement of Literature, if by the phrase is meant such an 

 advance as shall supersede "Hamlet" and "Macbeth" in the manner in 

 which the "Principia" and the "Optics" have been already superseded. 

 There may be an improvement in the general quality of the Literature 

 of a country : the historians may be more candid and pains-taking ; the 

 novehsts may be less trashy, and higher in their tone; the manner and 

 the matter of the thousand and one volumes, which each year produces, 

 may be on the whole in better taste, and of more sterling value : but the 

 giants of the past, specially the giants of poetry, can be surpassed by no 

 * Lecture on "Wordsworth," by Principal Shairp. 



