2 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
one of the characteristic features and special glories of our time, 
allow me to call your attention for a short time to some of its 
achievements of late years, and specially in the realm of Literature. 
We whose lot is cast in the close of the nineteenth century 
enjoy advantages unknown to any previous age. Geology has 
lifted the veil which once concealed the early history of our 
Globe. Astronomy, taking a wider range, presumes to investigate 
the origin of the Solar System itself. But these and other Sciences 
deal with inert and senseless matter. It is the glory of Literature 
that it reveals to us Man — his feelings, thoughts, and aspirations. 
" O'er the brown moor some love to roam, 
And with the hammer's dint 
To strike from its old chalky home 
The curious-rounded flint. 
Or they with brightening eye will bring, 
From bed of dingy clay, 
Some bony frame of a scaly thing, 
Unused to garish day. 
1 ' But in a far-diverging way 
My best-loved fancies go. 
Man is my theme ." 
Casting our eyes back, which, thanks to History, we can do 
along an avenue of four thousand years, how many illustrious 
names do we see shining in the darkness, and as it were looking 
down to encourage or instruct us ! Just before the battle in 
which he defeated the power of the Mamelukes, Napoleon is said 
to have galloped in front of his soldiers and, pointing to the 
Pyramids whose hoary tops overlooked the plain, to have ex- 
claiirfed, " Soldiers, remember that forty centuries are looking 
down upon you !" The appeal was not made in vain. In a few 
hours the soldiers of Italy had defeated Monrad Bey, and rendered 
the Battle of the Pyramids one of the eight most illustrious names 
that now irradiate the Conqueror's tomb. The student, whose 
well-stored library is furnished with the writings of the good and 
great of every age and tongue, can partake at will of these 
inspiring influences, and quench the thirst of his spirit at fountains 
flowing with perennial freshness. Surrounded by such a magnifi- 
cent display of intellectual power, his heart glows with the same 
enthusiastic pride which fills the successful general, who looks 
round on his battalions, hardened by peril and fatigue, and feels 
that with such troops he can "go anywhere, and do anything." 
