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].

  • William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
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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    and pour the light of science upon the subterranean darkness of the Laplander; may it abash the proud front of insolent supe¬ riority, and exalt the meek brow of dependence; may it shower plenty upon the dwellings of penury; may it strike the fetter from the galled limbs of the supplicating slave; may it shame injustice; may it baffle oppression, and lighten the load of mis¬ fortune wheresoever it lies heavy upon the innocent; may it proceed in this glorious career, promoting throughout the habit¬ able world, wheresoever there exists an intellect to conceive, or a voice to assert the truth, the cause of rational Liberty!—of rational Liberty; not of that grievous despotism, which, gene¬ rated by luxury, by tyranny, by vice and corruption, has grown up into a monster even more abandoned and abominable than its parents; and still unsated, after the desolation of Europe, crosses the sea in search of new climes, where for ages the peace¬ ful plains have not been wounded by the hoof of the war-horse, nor the echoes have reverberated the clang of the trumpet, that other victims may tell, from woeful experience, of its specious appearances and delusive promises, of its open rapine, wanton cruelty, and undisguised injustice. It must be the earnest and incessant supplication of all, whose bosoms exult in the joy, and grieve for the misery of others, that this sanguinary spirit of ferocity and intolerance, which has been permitted, for pur¬ poses to us inscrutable, so long and so dreadfully to scourge the
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