The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-21 00:00:00

EDINBURUH UNITERSI2 I' .

INSTALLATION OF LORD BROUGHAM.
The installation of Lord Brougham as Chancellor of the
University of Edinburgh, the first elected by the graduates
to that office, created by the Scottish Universities Act of
1858, took place in the Music-hall, Edinburgh, on Friday
afternoon. The Rector elected by the students, Mr. IV. E.
Gladstone, had been installed into office on the 16th of
April last ; but the noble and learned lord chosen to the
higher office of Chancellor had been unable to attend at the
same time, and the two ceremonies, were therefore not si-
multaneous, as originallyintended. The demand for tickets

on the occasion was immensely greater than the accommo-

dation afforded by the largest public hall in the city,

but an audience of about 1,800 persons were assembled to

witness the ceremony and hear the noble lord's inaugural

address. The supreme courts of the three leading denomi-

nations in Scotland—the Established Church, the Free
Church, and the United Presbyterian Church—happened
to be all sitting in Edinburgh at;that time, and several hun-

dred of the clerical and lay members of these ecclesiastical
courts were present at the ceremony in their capacity of
graduates, the sittings of the assemblies having been sus-
pended for the time. The accommodation conceded to the
ladies was limited to 150 seats in the front gallery. The

platform was set apart for the academic officials and for
distinguished strangers. There were first conducted to the
platform the following noblemen and gentlemen not in
academic costume :—The Earl of Selkirk, Lord Deas, Lord
Ardmillan, Sir Wm. Jardine, Sir William Gibson Craig,
Bishop Spencer, Principal Tulloch, St. Andrew's, Principal
Barclay, Glasgow ; the Rev. Dr. Maitland, Moderator of
the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland ; the Rev.
Dr. Buchanan, Moderator of the General Assembly of the
Free Church ; the Rev. Dr. Harper, Moderator of the United
Presbyterian Synod ; General Cameron, C. 8., Bailie John-
ston, Messrs. Fyfe, Peat, and Mood (the municipal cura-
tors of the patronage), Mr. Brougham, Mr. Erskine of
Linlathen, and Mr. Robt. Berry, Secretary to the Univer-
sity Commissioners. The academic processsion then entered
the hall, preceded by the janitor bearing the mace. The
Chancellor, Lord Brougham and Vat's, was, on entering
the hall, received with tremendous cheering. He wore a
magnificent flowered satin robes with rich gold embroidery,
and a black square cap with golden tassel. The noble lord
walked up the passage to the platform arm in arm with Sir
David Brewster, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the
University, who wore various academic distinctions. Then
followed the members of the University Court—namely, the
Lord Provost, the Solicitor-General, Professor Christison,
Bailie Grieve, Dr. Alexander Wood, and Dr. John Brown,
in their robes of office. The honorary graduates came next
in succession—namely, the Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Neaves,
Principal Forbes, St. Andrew's ; Dean Ramsay and Pro-
fessor Ferrier, St. Andrew's, Doctors of Laws ; and the Lord
Justice General, the Rev. Dr. Reeve, Trinity College, Dub-
lin ; Dr. Stokes, Trinity College, Dublin ; Dr. Sharpey,
University College, London; Dr. Miller, King's College,

London ; John Foster, Esq., and Wm. Fairbairn, Esq.,
Doctors of Law, elect, all with gowns and hoods proper to
that degree. The members of the Senatus Academicus
followed, and closed the procession.

The Principal and Vice-Chancellor having taken the
chair, the Professor of Divinity (Dr. Crawford) offered up
prayer .
The proceedings of the day were commenced by the Soli-
citor-General, the Chancellor's Assessor, presenting the
Chancellor to the Principal.
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL came forward and said ,—The
duty has devolved upon me of introduci g to this meeting
the Right Hon. Lord Brougham—(loud cheers)—whom this
University, through its General t. :ouncil, has elected to be
its Chancellor. (Cheers.) Such an introduction must, in this
case at least, be eminently formal. The University has chosen
Lord Brougham for reasons and upon considerations which
have been recognised and accepted by the whole world.
(Cheers.) You have asked him to become your Chancellor
as a man pre-eminently great in statesmanship and in phi-
losophy, as a great scholar and writer, and, not least, as a
great philanthropist—(cheers)—as a man whom you know
that if the love of knowledge has not through life been his
strongest passion, it is only because he his loved yet more
truly those best fruits of knowledge which consist in the
advancement and improvement of his kind. (Loud cheers.)
He has now left those pressing duties as a statesman which,
in the course of his very busy life, continually weigh upon
him, to return, after his long and illustrious career, to the
scene of his first manly studies, to receive at your hands the
highest honour which it is in your power to confer upon him
—the first gift of the chancellorship of this University.
(Cheers.) As a man so chosen, so accepted, and so recog-
nised by all the world, it is that I have now the honour to
introduce to the University the Chancellor whom it has
elected. (Loud cheers.)
The Principal then vacated the chair, which was taken
by the Chancellor amid enthusiastic applause.
Professor CAMPBELL SWINTON, as Dean of the Faculty
of Laws, then presented the following distinguished per-
sons to the Chancellor for the honour of LL.D.—namely,
the Right Hon. Duncan M'Neill, Lord Justice-General and
Lord President of the Court of Session ; William Stokes,
M.D., Regius Professor of Physic in the University of
Dublin; John Foster, author of the " Life of Goldsmith,"
" Statesmen of the Commonwealth," &c ; William Shar-
pey, M.D., Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Uni-
versity College, London, and secretary of the Royal Society;
William Reeves, Bachelor of Medicine, D.D., of Trinity
College, Dublin, and member of the Royal Irish Academy;
William Allen Miller, M.D., Professor of Chemistry in
King's College, London, and one of the Vice-Presidents of
the itoyal Society ; and William Fairbairn, President of
the Manchester Philosophical Society and corresponding
member of the Institute of France. The learned Profes
sor, in each presentation, made a brief recital of the merits
and distinctions of the doctors elect, and the Chancellor
conferred the degree.
Lord BROUGHAM, on presenting himself to deliver his
inaugural address, was received with most enthusiastic
cheering. He said,—Great as is the pleasure of meeting
you on this occasion—great beyond my power of expression
—there unavoidably mingle with these feelings others of a
painful nature. All that surrounds us recalls the memory
of those whom we have lost—the teachers of other days ;
Dalzell, whose learned and useful labours contributed so
much to revive the taste for Greek literature, which he was
wont in somewhat irreverent terms to charge the Solemn
League and Covenant with having extinguished, at least
with having banished prosody from the native country of
Buchanan; Dunbar, who most ably and effectually im-
proved upon his master; Playfair, deeply imbued with
mathematical and physical science, possessing in the highest
degree the talent so often wanting in its cultivators, of con-
veying instruction to others; Robison, master of the same
science in all its branches, teaching it by his invaluable
writings, and whose errors on subjects into which he made
digressions, those who most differed from him were prone
to excuse, almost to admire, from his perfect sincerity and
honesty of purpose ; Stewart, illustrating the great geome-
trician's name, which he inberited with his genius, by a
delicacy of taste and a bewitching eloquence so rarely found
in alliance with such severe studies, and enabling him
powerfully to inculcate the truths of the moral and politi-
cal science which he bore so ample a part in founding.
While the voice of these men seems yet to fill the ears, the
form of one yet more illustrious rises before me in all the
grace of his venera'ele aspect, the father of modern chemis-
try, to whom we owe our acquaintance with the nature of
the bodies that compose our planet nearly as much as from
Newton we derive our knowledge of its relation to the uni-
verse. Yes I within these walls I enjoyed the happiness of
sitting with his numerous class, in breathless silence and
rivetted attention, while Black recounted the history of his
immortal discoveries, and with his own hands performed the
experiments by which they had been made, perhaps with
the instruments he then used, acting over again before our
eyes the same part which had changed the face of science, lay.
ing the deep and brJad foundations of his imperishable re.
nown. But there are other sad recollections that now force
themselves on the mina—reollecticigi 4ftigstell9W-Ntudeuts