Essay on the progressive improvement of mankind. An oration, delivered in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, on the day of Commemoration. Monday, Dec. 17, 1798 / [Anon].

  • Melbourne, William Lamb, Viscount, 1779-1848.
Date:
1799
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essay on the progressive improvement of mankind. An oration, delivered in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, on the day of Commemoration. Monday, Dec. 17, 1798 / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [ 1? ] Spite of her frail companion, dauntless goes O’er Lybia’s deserts, and through Zembla’s snows; She bids each slumbering energy awake, Another touch, another temper take; Suspends th’ inferior laws that rule our clay : The stubborn elements confess her sway, Their little wants, their low desires refine, And raise the mortal to a height divine. Gray. Fragment of an Essay. While generation is following generation, while the sceptre of power is passing from the grasp of one nation into that of another; while the dank dews of night are imperceptibly wear¬ ing away the monument and the column; while cities are going to decay, and stupendous piles of marble and brass moulder into dust; while the material universe bears evident marks of its perishable composition, and the astronomer in vain requires the star which his predecessors have observed in the heavens ; the mind of man grows more vigorous from time, and is ever strug¬ gling onwards with increased energy, in pursuit of that perfec¬ tion, which to have sought after, though perhaps it can never be attained, exalts and glorifies human nature. And when we reflect upon Avhat mortal powers have already accomplished; when we remember that the den of the savage has risen into the