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the narrow area of our own Britain—fertile as it is in great names—but those which adorn the history of all lands represented amongst us. "We may disown a heritage in the deeds of oppression, cruelty, and crime, which, local in their influences, may be relegated to the spots in which they were enacted, and claim a purer, holier endowment in the love of freedom, of order, and self-respect—in all that is exalted, great and good which antiquity has bequeathed to us.
And where can the testimony of these virtues be preserved more suitably than in Public Libraries, free of access to all who esteem such recollections, who desire that their minds may be refreshed and their principles confirmed by intercourse with the great exemplars, in which
"Conducted by historic truth,
You tread the long extent of backward time."[1]
In entering on the threshold of which you feel conscious of the thoroughness of the poet's sentiment—
"The place that does contain
My books, my best companions, is to me
A glorious court, where hourly I converse
With the old sages and philosophers;
And sometimes, for variety, I confer
With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels,
Calling their victories, if unjustly got,
Unto a strict account, and in my fancy
Deface them as ill-placed statues."[2]
