_To my Lord_ PEMBROKE. I have sometimes in travelling been apt, within my own mind, to make a comparison between the excellence of the study of Philosophy, and that commonly called Antiquity, that is, ancient history. The beauties and the advantage of natural inquiries I cannot but be highly sensible of; yet I must needs give the preference to the latter, as it more nearly concerns the rational part of the creation, for whom the whole was made: it is a comment upon the wonderful volumes of divine wisdom, and the conduct of providence in the management of its supreme workmanship. God has given us indeed a large manuscript of his power, and other adorable attributes, in his wide-extended products, the furniture of the world; but in man, a more correct epitome of himself; a delegated immaterial particle of his spirituality, a self-moving principle of free agency, from the very fountain of all existence. As he is the great master-wheel and _primum movens_; so we are the subordinate executors of his mighty purposes, by his direction and superintendence carrying on the regular government and unseen operations thereof. Whoever declaims against this, ought to be looked upon as one of a poor, narrow way of thinking, and who does not deserve so much as that noble faculty of the soul, reminiscence or memory, which is the same to a single man, as ancient history is to the whole community: such a one no more claims the name of a scholar, than he that knows but the letters of the Alphabet, or whose study consists only in Gazettes. It is the knowledge of antiquity that can give us a maturity in judgement, either in persons or things; and how unfit such a one is, that is destitute of it, in the executing the great offices of life, I need not inculcate. But nothing I can say in favour of this subject, can be so great a panegyric to it, as your lordship’s illustrious name prefixed. The glorious ardour for this kind of learning, that kindled in your younger years, and that through a long cultivation of it has produced a boundless extent of knowledge, with the deepest penetration, the strongest judgement, the fire of the soul, and all sublimest qualities which the world admires in your lordship; bears down all opposition to the study of antiquities, wherein you preside most worthily; wherein no one dares to be rival, or hopes to be equal. We see the fruits of it in the best-chosen library of ancient authors, in the best collection of most ancient coins, statues, busto’s, and learned marbles, which the world can show. You, my lord, by treading in the steps of the great Arundel, have brought old arts, Greece and Rome, nay Apollo and all his Muses, to Great Britain: Wilton is become tramontane Italy.