An Essay on the Study of Antiquities

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ON THE STUDY Of ANTIQJJITIES. TH E mind of Man always aftive and inquifitive feems feldom to exert it- felf with more pleafure than in retracing the memory of thofe Ages which are paft, and of thofe events and characters, which are Never To Return. There is an involuntary attachment to that which is...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ON THE STUDY Of ANTIQJJITIES. TH E mind of Man always aftive and inquifitive feems feldom to exert it- felf with more pleafure than in retracing the memory of thofe Ages which are paft, and of thofe events and characters, which are Never To Return. There is an involuntary attachment to that which is irrecoverably fnatched from our prefence, and removed beyond the reach of our hopes and wimes, which we daily experience, while we view the monuments of thofe, who have pafled, perhaps but few years, to the Irre Versible deftiny of human nature: and the fenfations, which we feel are feemingly excited not more by the fuggeftion of the general lot of humanity, than by the reflection that they are Gone For Ever. A 2, This This attachment to the paft, often indeed undifcerning and invidious in its companfons of the prefent, induces us to behold with a kind of religious awe the- obfcureft veftiges of Antiquity. But thefe fenfations of the Mind are then more powerful and poignant, when arifing from the contemplation of places, once the fcene of actions, that, perhaps, decided the fate of Empire, eftablifhed the laws of Government, or refcued an opprefled people from flavery and fuperfttion: Or were once frequented by fome of the few, who have diftinguifhed themfelves from the great body of mankind, and commended their names to the reverence and admiration of pofterity, by the invention of Arts, which contribute to the ufe and ornament of Life; or ftand foremoft in the Annals of Science. And further, thefe impreffions become doubly powerful, when confirmed by the immediate infpedtion of any furviving monument of Antiquity, the profpecT: of which excites our reverence in a manner perhaps chapter{{Section 4kfs rational, yet feemingly not diffimilar to that natural and ir...