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XIII. 



ADDRESS DELIVERED ON THE OPENING OF THE 

 NEWTON MONUMENT AT GRANTHAM, 



SEPT. 21, 1858. 



To record the names, and preserve the memory of those whose 

 great achievements in science, in arts, or in arms have con- 

 ferred benefits and lustre upon our kind, has in all ages been 

 regarded as a duty and felt as a gratification by wise and 

 reflecting men. The desire of inspiring an ambition to 

 emulate such examples, generally mingles itself with these 

 sentiments ; but they cease not to operate even in the rare 

 instances of transcendent merit, where matchless genius 

 excludes all possibility of imitation, and nothing remains but 

 wonder in those who contemplate its triumphs at a distance 

 that forbids all attempts to approach. We are this day as- 

 sembled to commemorate him of whom the consent of nations 

 has declared, that he is chargeable with nothing like a 

 follower's exaggeration or local partiality, who pronounces the 

 name of NEWTON as that of the greatest genius ever bestowed 

 by the bounty of Providence, for instructing mankind on the 

 frame of the universe, and the laws by which it is governed. 



" Qui genus humanum ingenio superavit, et omnes 



Kestinxit; stellas exortus uti setkerius sol." {Luc.) 

 " In genius who surpassed mankind as far 

 As does the mid-day sun the midnight star." (Dryden.) 



But though scaling these lofty heights be hopeless, yet is 

 there some use and much gratification in contemplating by 

 what steps he ascended. Tracing his course of action may 



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