who, if required to extend his walk a few yards further still, can forget the squalor of the notorious Lock's-fields, and the degeneracy of Walworth, in the memory of those merry days when the stalwart youth of London, the sturdy bowmen of those romantic times, met together on those then verdant and shady spots to test their prowess at the Butts of Newington! Surely, then, to be able to derive such pleasure from such sources, is one of the triumphs of the human mind; and surely, even in its first elements and stages, the study of a science which produces these effects needs no apology, no justification, and no defence.
Unimaginative minds may consider this love of the things of the past an exaggerated sentiment; if, however, it be a passion, it is at least an innocent one; and without injuring one human being, it has done, and is still calculated to do, much good. Thanks to it, modern Vandalism has been compelled to suspend its ravages, and false taste its melancholy efforts at embellishment scarcely less disastrous.
Better versed than heretofore in archæological lore, the people of England comprehend that it is their mission to preserve the edifices as well as the faith of their forefathers; and thus they cheerfully second the efforts of authority, and the representations of science, to preserve or to restore all ancient time-honoured monuments. In this love of ancient things, whatever is mere fashion and caprice will pass away and be forgotten; but the substantial results, those master-pieces of art preserved from destruction, and those relics of other ages, which possess a priceless value, rescued from oblivion, will remain. Unlike men's virtues and their vices, the archæologist's good deeds will live on brass; his weaknesses be inscribed on water.
