Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/250

 Aberdeen : Its Literature, Bookmaking, and Circulating. 1 I. " An old university town, betwixt the Don and the Dee, Looking over the grey sand dunes, looking out on the cold North Sea. " T F, as according to Dr. Arnold of Rugby, the eighteenth -* century was the seed-bed of modern history, then the nine- teenth century (practically and properly commencing with the French Revolution, when the seed first sprang into leaf) is the reaping time of modern history and discovery. Then the first nation to begin the reaping, was our own much loved country. While continential nations, either maddened by fiery drams of carnage and conquest, which in their frenzy they called Glory ; or, helplessly stupefied by opiate draughts of disaster and apparent ruin, lay exhausted and hopeless, then, Great Britain, strong, if not impregnable in its insular position, and in its resources of coal and iron, and immensely powerful in the practi- cal good sense of its population, in their pluck and perseverance, in their continual industry, in their never ceasing manufactures and ever extending commerce ; then, Great Britain, with hardly any of the evils, reaped in the next generation all the benefits which accompanied the advent of the new born Liberty. If it was a glory for men to have lived in the Elizabethan age, so is it with us in the Victorian age, for as in the days of good Queen Bess, discoverers were court favourites, so now all sorts of agencies are employed to extend our knowledge, and discovery is both fashionable and profitable. Christianity sends out missionaries like Moffat and Livingstone. Civilisation seconds it by sending travellers like Burton, Speke, and Stanley. Science comes in to help by its Challenger expedition. Our 1 Communicated to the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Library Association Aberdeen, September, 1893.