LORD MACAU LAY ON ENGLISH LITERATURE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2471, 12 May 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

LORD MACAU LAY ON ENGLISH LITERATURE.

'And thus I am brought back to the point from which I started. I hare been requested to invito you to,fill your glasses to the Literature of Britain ; to that

literature, the brightest, tho purest, the | most durable of all the glories of our country ; to that literature, so rich in precious truth and precious fiction ; to that literature which boasts of tho prince of all poets and of the prince of all philosophers ; to that literature which has exercised an influence wider than our commerce, and mightier than that of our arms; to that literature which has taught France the principles of liberty, and has furnished Germany with models iof art; to that literature which forms a tie closer than the tie of consanguinity between us and the commonwealths of the valley of the Mississippi ; to that literature before tho light of which impious and cruel superstitions are fast taking flight on the banks of the Ganges ; to that literature which will, in future ages, instruct and delicht the unborn millions who will have turned the Australasian and Caffrarian deserts into cities and gardens. To the Literature of Britain, then ! And, whoreever British Literature spreads, may it be attended by British virtue and by British freedom!'