Mr. Buckingham's Address. 



for<nation for the gratification of others, I may be adding to my stores of knowledge for 

 my own deUght, 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 Scriptmal and Classical countries of 

 the East abound, namely, that of oral discourses, or extemporaneous lectures, may ap- 

 pear to some to be less dignified, as it is undoubtedly less usual, than the diffusion of 

 this class of information through printed books. But it may be defended, first, on the 

 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 least, that thou- 

 sands would be induced to assemble to hear a traveller personally narrate his adventures, 

 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- 

 chester, Leeds, Birmingham, Sheffield, Hull, Bristol, Bath, and others oi our largest 

 and most intellectual cities, audiences increasing from five hundred to two thousand 

 persons have been attracted for six succesfive nights, without apparent inconvenience 

 or fatigue — the proof of the superior attractiveness of spoken discourses, over printed 

 books, may be considered as complete. Of their superior efficiency there is even still 

 less doubt; forlhevery fact ofso many persons being assembled together at the same time, 

 and hearing the same observations at the same moment, excites an animation, sympathy 

 and enthusiasm, which is contagious in its effects on both speaker and hearers, till their 

 feehngs flow in one common current; the facts sink deeper into the memory at the 

 time, and the subsequent conversation, criticism, comparison, and reflection, to which 

 this gives rise among those who attend, implant them with a firmness that no amount 

 of mere reading could accomplish. 



For precedents or authorities, it is not necessary to go far in search, so profusely do 

 they abound in ancient and in modern annals. In Scriptural ages, the oral mode of 

 communication was almost the only one in use, from the days of Abraham, who, ac- 

 cording to the testimony of Josephus, thus taught the Chaldean science of Astronomy 

 to the Egyptians — down to the time of Solomon — who discoursed so eloquently of 

 the productions of Nature in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and from whose lips 

 the profoundest maxims of wisdom were poured into charmed ears — and from thence 

 again to the days of Paul, who stood before Festus, Felix, and Agrippa, at Cesarea; 

 and who, clothed in all the majesty of Truth, addressed assembled thousands at Anti- 

 och, at Ephesus, at Athens, at Corinth, and in Rome. 



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 them of communicating knowledge by oral dis- 

 courses, rather than by written books, when the pupils or disciples of Socrates, of Plato, 

 and of Epicurus, received their information from these great masters, in the gardens and 

 the porticos of Athens, or when the hearers of Demosthenes, of Eschylus, of Sopho- 

 cles, or Euripides, hung with rapture on their glowing sentences, as pronounced in the 

 Areopagus — the theatre — the gymnasium — or the grove. 



Of classical authorities, the memorable instance of Herodotus will occur to every 

 mind. This venerable Father of History, as he is often called, having been first ban- 

 ished from his native country Halicarnassug, uixder the tyranny of Lygdamis, travelled, 



