The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-23 00:00:00

S Ny MARCH 23, 1849.

INSTALLATION ofMR. MACAULAY
AS LORD RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF
GLASGOW.
We gave yesterday an outline of the interesting pro-
:eedings attendant on Mr. Macaulay's installation. We
.ow present our readers with a detailed report.
The ceremony excited much interest in Glasgow, and
he demand for tickets of admission was, if not absolutt ly
inprecedented, at least very brisk. The proceedings
vere fixed to commence at twelve o'clock, but long be-
'ore that hour the venerable gates of the college were be-
•ieged by eager applicants for admission, consisting prin.
:ipally of the students and their friends. The College-
hall, in which the installation took place, is in nowise a
-emarkable structure. It is spacious, and there its merit
Begins and ends. The room is long and narrow ; along
portion of one side runs a long elevated bench ; oppo-
.ite is a small pulpit and desk; and at either extremity,
two galleries cross the hail at right angles. The floor is
taken up with unbacked benches, inscribed with the
lames of the different classes in the University who have
a right to occupy them.
On the prt sent occasion the students, togati and
non-togati, marched into the hall frc.m their respective
class-rooms, and the space appropriated for them was
.peedily crammed by as noisy a set of young gentlemen
is can well be conceived. The galleries were set apart
exclusively for ladies, and were well filled.
The students had been admitted soon after eleven
,'clock, and from that time until twelve the uproar was
incessant. Calls were continually made for cheers for
popular, and groans for unpopular, personages. The
lames of the professors were mostly received with ac-
elamation. Then the ladies in the gallery were ho-
noured with three deafening cheers, and the name of the
Earl of Eglintoun obtained a similar tribute. Three
tlistinct rounds of groans were appropriated to the police
(there had, we believe, been some slight altercation with
these functionaries at the gates), and three cheers, and
ultimately countef-cheers, were given for anybody or for
nobody in particular.
A few minutes before twelve o'clock the dignitaries of
the college made their appearance. Mr. Macaulay, in
his robes, as Lord Rector, marched behind the mace-
bearer; after him came the Reverend Principal, the Pro-
fessors, and some of the municipal dignitaries. Mr.
Macaulay took the chair, supported on one hand by
Principal Macfarlane, and on the other hand by Profes-
sor Ramsey. The other professors were ranged right
end left, and amongst them sat Lord Belhaven, the Lord
Advocate, and Bailies Smith, Orr, and Stewart.
The party was received with great cheering from the
students.
The Rev. PRINCIPAL opened the proceedings by a
short Latin prayer. After which
Professor RANsET read the minute of election—also
in Latin—by which Mr. Macaulay was declared to have
been duly chosen Lord Rector. The Learned Gentle-
man then recited the formula of an oath, which Mr.
Macaulay repeated after him, and which he signed.
The LORD RECTOR then rose, and after bowing to the
Principal, addressed the assemblage in the following
wordss—My first duty, gentlemen, is to return you my
thanks for the high honour you have conferred on me.—
(Cheers.)
That honour, as you Well know, was wholly
unsolicited, and I can assure you it was wholly unex-
pected. I may add, that if I had been invited to become
a candidate for your suffrages, I should have respect-
fully declined the invitation. My predecessor, whom I
am so happy as to be able to call my friend—(Cheers)
—declared from this place last year, in language which
well became him, that he would not have come forward to
displace so eminent a statesman as Lord John Russell.
I can with equal truth declare that I would not have
come forward to displace 30 estimable a gentleman and
so accomplished a man as Colonel Mure. But be belt last
year that it was not for him, and I feel this year that it
is not for me, to question the propriety of your decision,
in a point on which, by the constitution of your body,
you are the sole judges. I therefore accept with thank-
fulness the office to which I am called, fully purposing
to use whatever powers belong to it with the single view
of the promotion of the credit and the welfare of this
university.—(Loud cheers.) Gentlemen. I am not using
a mere phrase of course, when I say that the feelings
with which I bear a part in this ceremony are such as I
find it difficult to clothe in words.—(Hear, hear.) I am
not surprised that, when that great master of eloquence,
Edmund Burke, stood where I now stand, he faltered
and remained mute. Doubtless the multitude of
feeling and thoughts ehich at that moment rushed on
his mind were such as even he found it difficult to
arrange and to express. And it might well be so. For,
to the reflecting mind, I doubt whether any
spectacle be more affecting and more striking than that
which a great historical place of education presents on
the day of a great public solemnity.—(Hear, hear.)
There is a something essentially affecting and interesting
in the contrast between the venerable antiquity of the
body, and the fresh and ardent youth of the gee at ma-
jority of thos• who compose it.—(Cheers.) Reeolfee
Lions and hopes crowd on the mind; the past and the
future are brought near us at once in a manner in which
no other ceremony links them together. Our thoughts
wander heck to the de) s when the foundations of this
ancient building were laid, and forward to the times
when those whom it is our office to teach and guide, will
be the teachers and the guides of our posterity.—
(Cheers.) And on the present occasion, we may, with
peculiar propriety, give such thoughts free cenrse, for
it has so chanced that my magistracy has fallen
in a great secular epoch. This is the four
hundredth year of the existence of your university.—
(Cheers.) At such jubilees as these—jubilees of which no
man sees more than one—it is natural, it is good, that a
body like this, which outlives all the transitory parts of
which it is composed—a body of corporate existence and
perpetual succession—should revie n its annals—should
retrace its progress from infancy to maturity, and try
to derive from the experience of generations which have
passed away some lessons which may be profitable to
generations yet unborn.—(Cheers.) And in this case,
gentlemen, the retrospect is full of interest and import.
ance. I doubt whether it would be possible to name a
point of time since the Christian era more remarkable
and more important to the highest interests of mankind
than that at which this society began to exist.—(Hear,
hear.) It was an era of a great destruction, but it was
also an era of a great creation. Your society began to
exist just at the moment when the Empire of the East
was falling—that strange empire, which, dragging on a
lingering existence through the long age of darkness,
connected together two great ages of light—that empire
which, adding itself nothing to our stores of knowledge
—which, producing itself not one man eminent in liters •
tare, science, or the arts—yet preserved, in the midst of
barbarism, those monuments of Athenian genius which
the highest minds still contemplate, and long will con-
tinuo to contemplate with admiring despair.—(Loud
cheers.) But at that very moment, when the fanatical
Moslem was sacking Constantinople—giving to the
flames piles of. Grecian eloquence—breaking to frag-
ments master-pieces of Grecian sculpture—at that mo-
ment, in a distant part of the world, a few humble
German artizans, who little knew they were creating a
power, compared with which that of the victorious
Sultan was insignificant, were busied in cutting and set-
ting the first printing types.—(Loud cheering.) Your
society began to exist just early enough to see the last
vestige of the Roman empire disappear, and just late
enough to see the earliest printed book.—(Cheers.)
At that period—a period of unrivalled interest in the
history of letters—a man never to be mentioned without
veneration by any lover of letters held the first place in
Europe. The attachment which we feel for our Protestant
faith must not prevent us in this place and on this day
from doing justice to the memory of the founder of the
University of Glasgow—the greatest of the revivers of
learning—Pope Nicholas the Fifth.—(Hear.) Sprung
from amongst the common people, he yet at an ealy age
attracted the notice of the great. Ile studied much—he
travelled far—he visited Britain, which was to his na
tive Tuscany what the vast settlements of America are
to Britain now. He was the companion and the friend
of those merchant princes of Florence who first en-
nobled trade by making it the ally of letters, science,
and taste. It was he who, under the protection of the
munificent and discerning Cosmo, collected and ar-
ranged the first public library of which modern
Europe could boast.—(Cheers.) From obscurity
and privacy your founder rose to a throne, but on the
throne he never forgot the noble studies which had de-
lighted him in obscurity and privacy. He was the centre
figure of an illustrious troop, composed partly of the last
great scholars of Greece, and partly of the first great
scholars of Italy. Need I repeat that bright bead roll?
There was Theodore Gaza and George of Trebizond—
Bessarin and Silelfo—Marsilio Ficino and Poggio Brac-
ciolini. The great Pontiff of whom I speak founded the
library of the Vatican, and enriched it with the most
precious of the treasures snatched from the wreck of the
Byzantine Empire. His agents were to be found in
every part of the world—in the bazaars of the furthest
East—in the monasteries of the furthest West—
transcribing and purchasing those mouldy and
worm eaten parchments, traced with words worthy
of immortality.—(Loud cheers.) Under his patronage
were prepared accurate Latin versions of the greatest
works of the Greek philosophers and poets: but no de-
partment of knowledge owes more to him than history.
By means of this great and good man, Western Europe
first became acquainted with those two unrivalled models
of historical style—the works of Herodotus and Thucy-
elides. It was to him that our ancestors first owed their
knowledge of :ho lucid grace of Xenophon, and the
manly good sense of Polybius.—(Loud cheers.) It. was
then, gentlemen, in the midst of cares like these, that the
attention of your founder was called to the iutellectual
wants of this region—a region now rich with cultivation
—now abounding with wealth—a region of great ports
its
incomparable cities—which sends forth, borne by mighty fleets,
incomparable fabrics, to parts of the world which no
geographer of the fifteenth century knew—a region
which Has then a rude, a poor and half barbarous
tract, on the verge of human civilization, almost
on the verge of the knovi n world.— (Hew., eat.)
here however," Nicholas the Fifth determined to found
.
a university, and he declared that this university should
possess the same privileges as those which belonged to
the University of Bologna. Gentleman, I can conceive
that a passing smile brightened over the Pontiff's face
es he named, in juxtaposition, Bologna and Glasgow.—
(Cheers and laughter.) At Bologna, he himself had
.tudied. No part of Europe. owed more either to na-
ure or to art. It was situated in a beautiful land—a coun-
ry of corn-fields, and vineyards, lying beneath the
warm 'sun of the south. It was governed by t 49 great

house of Pentivoglio, which vied with the great house
of the Medieis—which enriched the seat of its power
with temples and palaces, and munificently patronised
letters and the arts. As to GlasgoW, alt the Pope
could know of it was, that it was what he would have
called an obscure and mean town, and he would, per-
haps, have added that it would never become any-
thing else—it lay upon a soil so sterile, and under
a sky so inclement—a soil and a sky which would
have made an Italian shudder.—(A laugh.) But it is
not upon the soil or the atmosphere that the greatness
and prosperity of nations depend.—(Cheers.) Slavery
and superstittion can make the country of the Campagna
a land of beggars.—(Cheers.) But it is not beyond the
power of human intelligence and energy, developed by
civil and spiritual freedom, to change sterile rocks and
pestilential marshes into busy cities and smiling gar-
dens.—(Cheers.) Enlightened as your founder was, he
little knew that he was himself the chief agent in a
great revolution, moral and physical—political and re-
ligious—in a revolution which was destined to make the
first last and the last first—in a revolution which was
destined completely to invert the relative position of
Glasgow and Bologna.—(Hear.) I do not know that we
can ;better employ a few moments than in tracing the
progress of that revolution to which our country and
your university owe so much. That review shall be
very short ; indeed I cannot do better than pass rapidly
from one centenary period to another. Look at the world
one hundred years after the seal of Nicholas had been
affixed to that instrument which egged your university
into existence. We find Europe and Scotland going
through the agonies of that great revolution which we
emphatically call the Reformation.—(Hear, hear.) The
munificent patronage which Nicholas, and men like
Nicholas, had bestowed on learning—and of which the
creatien of this seat of education is not one of the least
remarkable proofs—had produced au effect of which they
never dreamed. Ignorance had been the talisman of
their power, and that talisman they themselves had
broken.—(Hear, hear.) They had called up knowledge
as a handmaid to decorate superstition, and the event
was such as it has always been, and always will be.
Men's minds, refreshed by the best literature of Greece
and Rome, grew too strong for the trammels of scholastic
theology. I need not, of course, tell you what a great part
the votaries of ancient learning, and of Greek learning in
particular, the Humanists, as they were called, bore
in the great struggle for spiritual freedom. They were
the great leaders of the movement. Need I mention, in
a Scottish University, the names of Knox, of Buchan-
nan, of Melville, and I may say, of Maitland, of Leth•
ington ? That, in truth, every great Reformer was a
Humanist, and every great Humanist in the north of
Europe was, according to the measure of his courage
and uprightness, a Reformer.—(Cheers.) Their in-
fluence was not, as it might have been in early ages,
confined to the highly educated classes to which they
themselves belonged ; for printing had brought books
within the reach of every ploughman and every artizan.
Thus there was, from the Mediterranean to the Frozen
Sea, a general agitation in the public mind of Europe ;
and this agitation was nowhere greater and„stronger
than it was here. It was in the midst of martyrdoms
and proscriptions—in the thick of the war of
truth against power, that the first century of
your university's existence closed.—(C beers ) Pass an-
other century, and you are in the midsi of another revo-
lution. The war between Popery and Protestantism had
been terminated by the victory of Protestantism, but the
result hsd given birth to a new war, that between Prelacy
and Puritanism.—(Hear.) Each of the hostile religious
sects became allied to, intermingled with, confounded
with, a political party. The monarchical element of the
constitution was most warmly espoused by,the Prelatist,
the popular element of the constitution was regarded
with especial fondness by the Puritan. Then an appeal
to the sword took place. Puritanism triumphed, but it
was soon divided against itself. Independents and Re-
publicans ranged themselves on one side, Presbyterians
and Limited-Monarchy men embraced the other.
It was at the very darkest moment of that
dark time, in the midst of battles, sieges, and
executions, when all Europe was still standing
aghast at the recent spectacle of a British King standing
before the judgment-seat, and laying his neck upon a
block—it was when the mangled remains of the Duke of
Hamilton had just been laid in the tomb of his ancestors—
it was when the head of Montrose had just been placed
over the Tolbooth of Edinburgh—that the second century
of your university's existence terminated.—(Hear, hear.)
Another hundred years, and we have at length reached
the commencement of happier days. The price with
which our civil and religious liberties had been paid was
a fearful price; but these liberties had been actually
bought—that price ,had been actually paid. The last
I British rebellion was over—the last battle bad been
fought on British ground—the last black scaffold had
been art up on Tower-hill. The evil days were over,
and a bright and tranquil century a coitus)
of toll rat len —of domestic peace a century 01
temperate freedom and of equal justice was begin-
ning. That century closes this year; and when we 1,, k
back on it, and compare it with any equally long period
in the history of any other great nation, we shall find
abundant cause for gratitude to the Giver of all Good.
—(gear, hear.) And nowhere, gentlemen, should that
feeling bo stronger than here; for over the whole king
dom I doubt whether there be any region which has
shared so largely in the blessing of that progr.ss as has
Clyth slile.—(Cheers.) And your University has par-
taken in the prosperity of your city and your neighbeur-
hood. The same tranquillity and security which have
been propitious to the industry of the merchant and of the
manufacturer, have been no less propitious to the indus-
try of the scholar. To the last century belong not all,
but the greater part of those names which constitute the
boast of the University. Time woull fail me were I
to recount every one of the eminent men who, within
that period, have taught or heard wisdom within
these ancient walls. There were natural philosophers,
moral philosophers, metaphysicians, jurists, philo-
logists, poets. There were Simpson and Miller, Young
and Reid, Stewart and Black, whose diseovet ies consti-
tuted an era in chemical science. Adam Smith, whose
doctrines constituted an era in polical science, and Jas.
Watt—(Loud cheers)—who, perhaps, did more than any
man since Bacon wrote the New Atlantis, to accomplish
the glorious prophecy contained in that wonderful
volume.—(Loud cheers.) I may add another name—a
final name—that of Thomas Campbell.—(Cheers.) I
was one of those who not long ago followed his coffin to
the grave, in that illustrious transept where the ashes of
Chaucer, of Spenser, and of Dryden are laid.—(Hear,
hear, and sensation.) I will not carry the enumeration
further. I think I have said enough to justify a boast
that Glasgow now need fear no comparison even with
Bologna.—(Hear and a laugh.) Another century is
now about to commence—it is about to commas ce,
as many well tell you, under melancholy auspices—but
from me you must expect no such gloomy prognostica-
tions. I have heard them too long and too constantly to
be scared by them. Since first I began to observe the
state of my country, I have been seeing nothing but
growth, and hearing of nothing but decay.—(Loud
cheers.) But the more and the longer I contemplate
our institutions,the more firm becomes my conviction that
they are sound at heart, and that they have nothing of
age —save its dignity.—(Cheers.) Their strength is still
the strength of youth. We still see them standing ma-
jestic and immovable while dynasties and polities lie
in heaps of ruin around.—(Cheers.) The hurricane
which has recently overthrown so much which was great,
and which seemed durable, has only proved their solidity,
and I see no reason to doubt that by pursuing a good,
and wise, and temperate policy—a policy of which the
principle shall be to preserve what is good, by reforming
in time what is evil—(Cheers)—that our institutions
may descend, unimpaired, to a lute posterity; while, un-
der the shade of these political institutions, out educa-
tional institutions may long continue to flourish.
I trust, then, that, during the next hundred yeats, and
even after that time, that this celebrated school of learn-
ing will continue to deserve well of our country and of
mankind. I trust that the installation of 1949 will be
attended by an even larger assemblage of students than
that which I have now the pleasure to see.—(Cheers.)
It is possible that your desendants may not sit where
you sit to-day. It is possible that these venerable
walls may then have disappeared. It is possible that
my successor may speak to your successors in a more
stately edifice, which will be admired even amid the
splendid buildings of the Glasgow of that day, as a fine
specimen of the architecture which flourished in Eng-
land in the times of good Queen Victoria ; that though
the site of your institution may have changed—though
the walls of your institution may have changed, the
spirit of your institution, I trust, will be- the same.
—(Hear, hear.) 24), successor will, I hope, tell
your successors that the fifth century nt! the
University has been not less glorious than the fourth,
and he will, perhaps, point, in proof of that as-
sertion, to a long list of eminent men—to: great masters
of
our
native the severer sciences, of ancient learning,
the
native eloquence—the ornaments of the senate,
pul-
pit, and the bar. He will, I hope and bheilgiehveh,nnfenenlerhitm•
h;
self bound in justice to mention with
names of some of my young friends whoh are
ing to me.—(Great cheering.) Aunlohnplies,bne-
d h
ableextolst in themoadelt werehatth notat ta lent andthe that learning which he
debased by
courageously and
being will,
rused w listen-
ing
for any
ignoble or selfish obj' c
generously employed int'obradter toy were
promote the good of the
moral, in order tPo°sesxestsendsg—hteheeimrpigroenodf m,pahn)soievaeir. and
species of their the
fe n materialof toleration world—that
and ltihbee.)r.tyw ere
against etad bigots°3ed. andfur, tyrants,ithe de
and fofr
all
le
ddievfiennec ea
nodf virtmanue
and a
wosr.—s(rLanguattinesht
eteires ene-
mies
o
I
given utterance, genten, to a part, and part only,
ohlavtbee feelings of which, on this solemn occasion, my
mind
is full. I again most cordially thank you, and I
assure you that while I live I shall never cease to feel a
great interest in the prosperity and the fame of that
venerable seat of learning with which, by your kindness,
1 have this day become connected.—(The Right Hon.
Gentleman resumed his seat amid loud and long-con-
tinued applause.)
The Rev, Parszcirei. then pronounced a short Latin
benediction, and the proceedings terminated.

f DS

The appointment, by Goyernment, o. _r. Froude,
whose book has attained such an enviable notoriety, to
the headship of a college in Hobart Town, is said to
have been cancelled. The preliminary proceedings said
to have been taken to deprive him of his fellowship in
Exeter College have been anticipated by his resignation,
thus becoming fugitiTe frQW discipline."