LITERATURE AND SCIENCE OF ENGLAND. 29 



conducted them, or with any unnoticed and remark- 

 able facts which chance may have thrown in their 

 way. 



I would hope that, however little able I may be 

 to execute the design as it ought to be done, even 

 this attempt to show the connection which Bath has 

 had in times past with the literature and science of 

 England, and to recount those of its residents whose 

 names are to be found connected with our literature 

 and science, while it may assist in removing a 

 popular reproach from a city whose true character is 

 but imperfectly understood, may also serve to sti- 

 mulate our own exertions. Imagines Majorum ad 

 virtutem accendunt, is a sentiment of ancient wisdom 

 founded in a true knowledge of human nature. It 

 has not been my good fortune to have been a frequent 

 visitor of Oxford, but I have several times paced its 

 Picture Gallery, and never without feeling that to its 

 silent admonition we owe much of the genius and 

 fine spirit of our countrymen. But hills and woods 

 and streams, and even streels and houses, have their 

 very nature changed and become vocal, when they 

 are associated with the remembrance of the great 

 and good, and particularly of those who are seen but 

 indistinctly through the dark vista of time long past. 



