210 EDITOR. 



between the human intellect and the instincts of the inferior animals. 

 In accordance with this principle, there are few who would not be 

 travellers if they could. The great bulk of mankind, however, are tied 

 down by circumstances to some one particular locality, and it is for- 

 tunate that there is no locality in which the love of novelty may not 

 be gratified in which, however tied down, we may not become 

 travellers, and enter, time after time, on a new field ; and this, not by 

 changing place, but by connecting it with some newly-acquired science, 

 and thus changing, as it were, its nature. I have strikingly experienced 

 this with regard to this district of the north. Having exhausted it 

 with respect to its connection with the history of our country and those 

 remnants of the belief of our forefathers, which let us more thoroughly 

 into the thoughts and feelings of the past, I have set myself to exhibit 

 it as a locality in which the naturalist a White of Selbourne, for 

 instance might have delighted : and I straightway found that I had 

 travelled into a new district. Objects, before unnoticed, or but slightly 

 regarded, rose into interest. Even the spiky leaves and light florets of 

 the thirty or forty sorts of the humble family of the grasses, which I 

 met with in my short walks, every insect that enjoyed itself on the 

 breeze or the stream, grew into beauty and importance. Still more was 

 I interested when, passing from the present creation, I found the 

 locality a rich museum of the remains of former creations. Set your 

 imaginations to work, conceive the most wonderful and unheard-of 

 things, and the history of the district in which we now are will go 

 beyond your extremest conceptions. Would that I could raise the 

 curtain, as it rises in a theatre, and show you scene after scene as it 

 arose ! (Cheers.) We are surrounded by the well-known creatures of 

 the present creation ; and the remains of two older creations, each 

 different from the other, and both from the present, are under our feet. 

 Where we now are, in the remote past there existed an immense lake, 

 more extensive, perhaps, than the Lake Superior in North America, 

 filled with the strange uncouth creatures of the second age of the 

 world, creatures whose very type is lost. This state of things passed ; 

 untold ages went by, and. where we now are there extended a wide 

 ocean, filled with its peculiar inhabitants. The master reptiles of a 

 later time and the strangely beautiful plants of a tropical climate 

 flourished upon its shores. (Cheers.) But enough of this. It has 

 been well remarked by Burke, that by fixing the mind strongly on any 

 set of ideas, the sense of present evils may cease to annoy us. This is 

 one of the great advantages resulting from the pursuit of literature. 

 It raises the thought above the annoyance of the present time, and 

 makes those troubles which come to all sit upon us more lightly. I 

 trust I may say I have had experience of this ; but I have dwelt upon 

 the subject too long, and shall not further detain you. I have ever owed 

 much to the kindness of friends, and never before perhaps did I see so 

 many of them assembled together.' (Cheers.) Mr Miller again ex- 

 pressed his grateful acknowledgments, and sat down amidst the cheers 

 of the company. 



