" If the advance of civilization, and of the true interests of 

 man, be, under Providence, mainly owing to the appearance 

 from time to time of those great luminaries, which, perfecting 

 and exalting humanity, give a new bearing and tendency to 

 the predominant notions of their time, tinging them for ages 

 with the native hue and cast of thought, in them original 

 and underived, surely we may by parity of reasoning infer, 

 that, were those lights multiplied, were those bright con- 

 stellations of genius more thickly spread over the face of the 

 intellectual heavens, we might now be walking, not in bright 

 sunshine, for that will never in this life be granted to man, 

 but in a clear and steady light, to which our present glimmer- 

 ing is but as darkness. And if I may be permitted to argue 

 from the analogy of God's Providence, as manifested in the 

 works of nature, which of the innumerable seeds, both in the 

 vegetable and animal creation, permits but comparatively 

 very few to come to perfection, we are led by the hand, as it 

 were, to the conclusion that, of the vast amount of uncul- 

 tivated intellect and rude genius which, at any given age of 

 the world, existed in the great mass of mankind, but a very 

 minute and insignificant portion has been drawn forth for the 

 use and advancement of man. Well has it been said, in lan- 

 guage which no repetition nor frequency of quotation can 

 strip of its beauty, 



' Full many a gem, of purest ray serene, 

 The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.' — 



As illustrating those views, — and the illustration is peculiarly 

 appropriate here, — I may mention the case of Jeremiah 

 Horrox, of this town, who died at the early age of twenty- 

 two ; an honour not alone to his country, but to the very age 

 in which he lived : of him it may be said, as Newton said of 

 Cotes, had he lived longer, we might have known something 

 at last of the laws of nature. He was the first who, from 



