The tower, which many of you so well remember the daily sight of, in
your youth, above the "winding shore" of Thames,--the tower upon the
hill of London; the dome which still rises above its foul and
terrestrial clouds; and the walls of this city itself, which has been
"alma," nourishing in gentleness, to the youth of England, because
defended from external hostility by the difficultly fordable streams of
its plain, may perhaps, in a few years more, be swept away as heaps of
useless stone; but the rocks, and clouds, and rivers of our country
will yet, one day, restore to it the glory of law, of religion, and of
life.
6. I am about to ask you to read the hieroglyphs upon the architecture
of a dead nation, in character greatly resembling our own,--in laws and
in commerce greatly influencing our own;--in arts, still, from her
grave, tutress of the present world. I know that it will be expected of
me to explain the merits of her arts, without reference to the wisdom
of her laws; and to describe the results of both, without investigating
the feelings which regulated either. I cannot do this; but I will at
once end these necessarily vague, and perhaps premature,
generalizations; and only ask you to study some portions of the life
and work of two men, father and son, citizens of the city in which the
energies of this great people were at first concentrated; and to deduce
from that study the conclusions, or follow out the inquiries, which it
may naturally suggest.
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