VICINITY OF BURY. 411 
tion. All will not be obliterated. Fragments of 
antiquity will remain with fragments of their his- 
tories, to show what has been, and to tell their 
uses and purposes. Where arts and civilization 
have existed, a few scattered and imperfect spe- 
cimens will be found to amuse and edify remote 
posterity, a tincture will diffuse itself to amelio- 
rate the character of a long series of ages and 
generations still to be born. 
But this is not the only way in which a civi- 
lized people confers benefits upon mankind ; they 
leave us correct histories of their own internal 
affairs, and they mingle with them all external 
ones which arise out of their foreign policy as 
regards other nations less civilized than them- 
selves. To Greece we owe all we know of the 
ancient histories of the semi-barbarous East ; and 
in the pages of imperial Rome we read most of 
what we know of ancient Gaul, Kelt, or Kyme- 
rian. It is hence chiefly, in connexion with 
what remains of art, that we derive the materials 
for constructing the scanty fabric of the ancient 
history of our own country, now so superior in 
every respect to the haughty pretensions of the 
dictators and conquerors of the best part of the 
world then known. 
