Mr. Buckingham’s Address. 
formation for the gratification of others, I may be adding to my stores of knowledge for 
my own delight, I doubt not that I shall find among you all the kindness of aid. for 
which you have so long been renowned. 
The mode that I have chosen for the communication of the interesting details with 
which the past history and actual condition of the Scriptural and Classical countries of 
the East abound, namely, that of oral discourses, or extemporaneous aie may ap- 
ground of its greater practical utility, being at once more attractive and more efficient ; 
and secondly, on the ground of its high antiquity, and of the sacred and classical, as 
well as noble and historical precedents in its favor. 
As to the ground of its attractiveness, it has been found, in Britain at idesat, ita tii 
sands would be induced to assemble to hear a travelle 
and describe the objects he has seen, where it would have been difficult to get even 
hundreds to bestow the time and labor of reading the same things in printed books; 
and when I add that in London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Glasgow, Belfast, Liverpool, Man- 
or fatigue — the proof of the superior attractiveness of spoken discourses, over prin 
books, ay, be considered as x eneaplete, Of their superior efficiency there is even ea 
v oF 
and hearing I 
and nh which is contagious in its —— on both alae and i hearers vill ok 
feelings flow in one common 5 the fac! memory at the 
time, and the subsequent conv Setestion: ee Snes, and piocion to which 
this gives —_ sates those who attend, implant them with a firmness that no amount 
of ing d aecomplish. 
or precedents or authorities, it is not eee? to go far in search, so profusely do 
ey abound in ancient and in moder nals. In Scriptural ages, the oral mode of 
vo was almost the ae on - use, from the davs of Abraham, who, ac- 
) 0 the testimony of ee ites taught the Chaldean science of Astronomy 
to the a down to the time of Solomon — who discoursed so eloquently of 
the productions of Nature in the scat and vegetable kingdoms, and from whose lips 
n to the days of Paul, who stood before Festus, Felix, and Agrippa, at Ces esarea ; 
at Sin. clothed in all the majesty of Truth, addressed pasar: poaeeade at Anti- 
och, at Ephesus, at Athens, at Corinth, and in Ro 
In classical countries the custom was universal, and there are many who conceive, 
with the great Lord Bacon, that one of the causes of the superior intellect of the 
Greeks, was the method in use among t ‘oe of communicating knowledge by oral dis- 
courses, rather than by written books, when the pupils or disciples of a of Plato, 
and of Epicurus, received their information from these se great masters, in the g: 
the porticos of Athens, or when the hearers of Demosthenes, of Sochadeh = see ; 
cles, or Euripides, hung with — on their iti epee as pronoun 
Areopagus nasium — 
Of classical authorities, the memorable instance of Herodotus will occur to every 
mind. This venerable a ee sneer 
Pack fen 
eT 
We OVULuly 
