426 STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



same titles, be decorated with the same orders, and 

 the mind and the arm of the nation will be indis- 

 solubly united for its glory or for its defence. 



(293.) We cannot altogether abandon the hope, 

 that at a period unexampled in our history for the dif- 

 fusion of knowledge among the people, in a time when 

 the name of Brougham will be inseparably connected 

 with this new era of intellectual developement, and 

 that not as a private individual, but as the Lord High 

 Chancellor of these realms, possessing rank, power, 

 learning, and eloquence, all that is necessary, in 

 short, for conceiving and executing the most noble 

 designs — we cannot abandon the hope, that some- 

 thing effectual may yet be done, even in these our 

 times, to remove the stigma that has so long rested 

 upon our national character. We might suggest to 

 that exalted individual a truth which he will at once 

 perceive, that unless the spring-heads of knowledge 

 are sedulously repaired and renovated, the stream 

 will be soon exhausted ; and that in proportion as 

 we may anticipate a demand for more and more 

 information, we cannot furnish that supply unless we 

 sedulously protect those few secluded founts whence 

 alone it will gush forth. While we are indefatig- 

 able in diffusing that knowledge which is already 

 possessed, let us be equally careful in creating a 

 fresh supply, to be poured forth abroad when that 

 which we have in keeping is exhausted. With- 

 out such prudence, it is not difficult to foresee the 

 injurious effects which will follow ; for the science 

 of the country already begins to show them in its 

 declension. Knowledge, indeed, will be diffused, 

 but it will become proportionably superficial: all 



