Tho Rev. J. H. Bradney's Address. 237 



reaping hooks, the brambles and other rubbish are quickly cleared 

 away, and at length he has the satisfaction of finding the verses, 

 though half eaten out by time, inscribed on its basis. Then he 

 boasts (Cicero was rather given to this — it was the weak point 

 of his character ; but here he legitimately boasted) that one of the 

 noblest cities of Greece, and one likewise the most learned, had 

 been ignorant of the monument of its own most lofty-minded 

 citizen, had it not been discovered to them by a native of Arpinum 

 — that is himself. Nor let it be said in disparagement of archaeo- 

 logy that sometimes her attention has been lavished upon unworthy 

 objects. They had doubtless heard of the expedition of Cobbett to 

 the United States, in search of Tom Paine's bones, with a view to 

 bring them back to their native soil. • Now he (the Chairman) 

 thought — and doubtless they would agree with him — that Tom 

 Paine's bones had much better have been left to rot where they 

 were, and that if Mr. Cobbett had no other object in his visit to 

 the States, he had better have stayed at home. Here they had a 

 ludicrous contrast with what he had just stated, both as to the 

 searchers and the object sought. Cicero and Cobbett were both 

 orators and writers ; but, oh ! of how different a stamp. And 

 between Archimedes and Tom Paine there was just this difference 

 — that whereas the efforts of the one seemed directed to the exalt- 

 ing and ennobling of our common nature — the writings of the 

 other were calculated to sink it to the level of the beasts that 

 perish. Sometimes the labours of the archajologists were not 

 spoken of in the most respectful terms. Lord Byron calls a search 

 after archa;ological antiquities, "rummaging": — 



"What are the hopes of man ? Old Egypt's king 

 Cheops erected the first pyramid 



And largest, thinking it was just tho thing 

 To keep his memory whole, and mummy hid ; 



But somebody or other rummaging, 

 Burglariously broke his coffin's lid. 



Let not a monument give you or me hopes, 



Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops." 



But Lord Byron lived at a time when archaeology was not so 

 much thought of as at present, and those pursuits, which ho did not 

 himself appreciate, he hud a happy knack of, or rather an unenvi- 



