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Proceedings of the Royal Society 
and into some Eastern languages. On this occasion he started at all 
risks, that he might ascertain the meaning of the phenomena before 
him, but changed his course at the request of the alarmed inhabitants 
of Retina, for whom he did all that lay in his power. He died a 
martyr to the cause of science, — a martyr to the cause of humanity. 
And therefore within these walls — could there be a more fitting 
spot ? — I ask leave to pay to his memory one passing tribute — not 
of pity, I can never associate the thought of pity with the close of 
a life sacrificed in the service of fellow-creatures — but of reverence, 
homage, sympathy. With him were lost to posterity the best hopes 
of a full and accurate account of the results of the catastrophe by 
which he perished. 
Let me not, however, seem to forget that a just objection has been 
made against reasonings, which, because no one piece of evidence is 
conclusive in itself, evade and ignore the force which the testimonies 
may possess, when considered as a connected whole. It must be 
admitted, that in the case before us the items, though variant, are 
not discordant ; that they come from Greek and Jew as well as 
Roman, and that in their combinations they certainly do point to a 
great and memorable calamity. There is a fierce eruption of the long 
dormant volcano (Martial, Plutarch, Statius, Josephus, Suetonius, 
Pliny) ; the destruction of cities, not distinctly connected, I think, 
with the eruption by Tacitus or Pliny, but connected with it by 
Plutarch and Statius ; great loss of life expressed or implied by 
Plutarch, Statius, Tacitus, and perhaps Josephus. The date of Titus 
on the throne is supplied by Josephus and Suetonius ; and rightly 
calculated thence, I doubt not, by Clinton and others, for th.Q first 
year of that reign, namely, a.d. 79. The younger Pliny adds the 
day, namely, the 24th of August, a day to be made memorable in 
after ages by an eruption of another kind in a country north of Italy, 
in the France of 1572 ; for the 24th of August is the Festival of St. 
Bartholomew. 
Such is the sum — I believe, the complete sum — of all the contem- 
porary evidence. I pass on to the statements of a witness of a later 
period. But “ Hold,” cries out an important and gifted school of 
inquirers, “you have no business to take such a step. All history 
must rest upon contemporary written evidence, and what is beyond 
this is of little worth.” Of this school I must regard the late Sir 
