Blair Collection > History of the Celtic language

IV DEDICATION.
unknown, that whilst your breast glows with the
fire of the patriot, beautifully harmonizing with the
taste of the scholar, your energies are likewise
engaged on the side of that pure religion of
your fathers, with which your own mind has
been so early imbued, and which, joined with
Education, is, as has properly been said, " the
cheapest defence of a nation;" as it is the only solid
foundation whereon to build our hopes of bliss in
a world to come. This is the spirit, this the
principle which obtained for the great and noble
names of antiquity a consecrated place in our
memory — whether philosophers whose minds led
them to investigate the mysteries of human nature
and the laws of things in general, or statesmen
who commanded the senate not less by their
oratory than by the wisdom of their counsels:
this is the spirit, this the principle which made
England mistress of the world; and this is the
spirit, this the principle which is wooing this
great empire to the name of the Right Honour-
able Sir Robert Peel. That this volume,