discover, in some cases, that the talents or virtues of an individual (like those of a Czar Peter, or an Alfred) had suddenly imparted a new character to the institutions and manners of his country; and, in others, that intelligent strangers from a more enlightened region of the earth had produced, by their information and their practical aid, the same benign effects. In the early traditions of Greece and Italy some traces of such sources of civilization may be found: and the benefactors of nations, who were said to have descended from the skies, and were honoured as gods, are reasonably supposed to have been no other than intelligent foreigners, who first brought the useful arts of their own countries to a rude and ignorant people. A similar origin has been ascribed to the civi lization which was found in some kingdoms of South America, on their first discovery. by the Spaniards. If the nations of the old world had their Cadmus and Saturn, Peru

also had her Mango Capac, who instructed her once barbarous people in agriculture and the liberal arts, and whose accidental arrival from some unknown region probably gave rise to the fable of his descent from the sun.

Conquest, it must be admitted, has been the harsh and more ordinary medium by which the blessings of civilization have been conveyed from one part of the world to another; but this has been because no other has often been attempted. Polished nations. have commonly been too selfish to send the plow and the loom to any country, till they have first sent the sword and the sceptre.

Commerce, however, which, after the first introduction of civilization into any country, has contributed to its progressive improvement beyond any other cause, Christianity excepted, has rarely been first extended in any new direction by force, or by any grand and concurrent efforts. The peaceable en

terprises of individuals, aided by encouragement less important than that which our institution may be able to impart, have often been sufficient to explore the resources, excite the industry, and call forth the commercial faculties of distant and uncivilized nations. Let it not be supposed then that our association is chargeable with aiming at ends tɔo vast, or too difficult for human efforts to accomplish. If we propose any thing more arduous than has often been effected before, it must be because it is more easy to do good by accident than by design; from the impulse of selfish than of benevolent feelings.

The immense extent of the field before us ought indeed rather to animate than to damp our efforts; for in the communication of knowledge,-of such practical knowledge at least as is of universal interest, and within the reach of every capacity-the difficulty is chiefly found in the first stage of the process. Like a hardy exotic in a kindred soil, it may

be speedily propagated on the largest scale, when once brought to flourish on the smallest. Every pupil soon becomes a teacher; every successful example adds to the number of imitators; and though the field of exertion be originally small, the ultimate benefit will be proportioned to the extent of the sphere through which the knowledge thus communicated may be at last diffused.

When it was discovered, a very few years ago, that there is among the secrets of nature a sure and simple, though wonderful preventive, of one of the most fatal and loathsome diseases to which the human frame is subject, it was a work of no small difficulty to establish the credit of the discovery, and bring it into use, even in this enlightened metropolis. Yet already the practice of vaccination is known to the most distant nations of the earth; and it is probable that there will soon be no civilized

people in the world, by whom it will not be generally adopted.

This example, in another view also, may afford us encouragement: for by what means has a discovery so important to mankind been so widely and speedily imparted to distant nations, but by the efforts of private benevolence, aided by a voluntary association of individuals, in this country? Prejudice and incredulity resisted its progress as stubbornly perhaps as they may resist improvement in Africa; and the secret, though known in a western county, might never have been heard of even in London, if its propagation, instead of being assisted by the active and combined endeavours of a great society, had been left to accident, or to the comparatively inefficient efforts of individual benevolence.

Was Dr. Jenner's discovery one, the value of which might be demonstrated by experi