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Language, by a gentleman of great attainments and of high station 
in our national University: from which seat of learning, it seems 
not too much to hope, that we shall soon receive many other con- 
tributions in the department of Polite Literature, as well as in 
other departments. It is, of course, understood that the awarding 
of prizes is not to be confined to scientific papers, but is to be ex- 
tended, as indeed it has always been, under some convenient regu- 
lations, to literary and antiquarian papers also. 
I was to say a few words respecting that other department of 
our Transactions, namely, Antiquities, or the study of the Old; 
and if, at this stage of my address, those words must be very few, I 
regret this circumstance the less, because I know that the study is 
deservedly a favourite here, and that I am surrounded by persons 
who are, beyond all comparison, more familiar with the subject 
than myself. 
In general, I may say, that whether the study of Antiquities be 
regarded in its highest aspect, as the guardian of the purity of his- 
tory,—the history of nations and of mankind; or as ministering to 
literature, by recovering from the wreck of time the fragments of 
ancient compositions ; or as indulging a natural and almost filial 
curiosity to know the details of the private life of eminent men of 
old, and to gaze upon those relics which invest the past with 
reality, as the palzontologist from his fossils reconstructs lost 
forms of life: in all these various aspects, the study is worthy to 
interest any body of learned men, and to occupy a considerable part 
of the Transactions of any society so comprehensive as our own. 
The historian of the Peloponnesian war was also himself an anti- 
quarian ; and prefaced that work which was to be “a possession for 
ever,” by an inquiry into the antiquities of Greece. And while he 
complained of the svrws araratmwpos trois wonrois 4» Cnrncis ris aAn- 
Osias, that easy search after truth which cost the multitude nothing; 
he also claimed to have arrived at an én rexynpiov, a linked chain of 
antiquarian proof, by which he could establish his correction of their 
errors. Indeed, the uninitiated are apt to doubt,—perhaps too they 
may sometimes smile,—when they observe the earnest confidence 
which the zealous Antiquary reposes in results deduced from argu- 
ments which seem to them to be but slight; nor dare I say that I 
