Recapitulation. 321 



ever unskilfully sketched, are presented with suf- 

 ficient-accuracy to show that they are striking, 

 and worthy of more minute examination. They 

 are not, indeed, all calculated to give pleasure to 

 the benevolent mind : some are distorted and dis- 

 gusting, and a few heavy and uninteresting; but a 

 much greater number are at once strong, highly 

 illuminated, and preeminently engaging. If these 

 be mingled, as in most pictures that are drawn 

 true to nature, it is presumed that, in the present 

 instance, the agreeable features predominate in a 

 greater degree than in any delineation of a former 

 period of similar extent. 



Those, therefore, who have witnessed the close 

 of the century under review, have indeed reason 

 to congratulate themselves as a highly favoured 

 generation. Though they have been pained 

 with the sight of some degrading retrocessions in 

 human knowledge, and almost stunned with the 

 noisy pretensions of false philosophy, they have 

 seen, at the same time, improvements in science 

 which their fathers a century ago would have an- 

 ticipated with astonishment or pronounced alto- 

 gether impossible. They have seen a larger por- 

 tion of human society enlightened, polished, and 

 comfortable, than ever before greeted the eye of 

 benevolence. They have, in a word, witnessed, 

 on the one hand, the accession of honours to 

 science, which it could boast in no lormer pe- 

 riod ; and, on the other, a degree of usefulness re- 

 flected from science to economy and art, no less 

 conspicuous and unrivalled. The lapse of iiu- 

 other century such as the eighteenth — a century 



Vol. III. Y 



