Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/22



daily life of an antiquary is usually quiet and unobtrusive. His thoughts and actions relate more to the past than to the present; the common occurrences of the day are deemed of minor importance; he is most interested in things that were; and his special function is to rescue from oblivion that which the busy men of the world have had little inclination, or leisure, to preserve. He makes no conquests which absorb the attention, or elicit the applause of the public, for he is seldom either a general or a statesman; and yet his victories are frequently of greater importance than those which occur on the battle-field or in the senate. The actions of the former may affect the destinies of a nation—the measures of the latter may change the course of his country's policy; but the researches of the man of letters not unfrequently reverse the whole current of public opinion, and thus produce more permanent, and more widely extended effects than the arms of the one or the legislation of the other. Events occur at distant intervals which it would perhaps be impolitic, at the time, to illustrate in all their bearings. The secret causes which