The Sun.
London, England, 1857-01-17 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, JANUARY 17, 1857.

INS7'ALLATION OP SIR E. B. LYTTON AS
LORD RECTOR UP GLASGOW TIATIVER3ITY

On Thursday afternoon Sir E. Bulwer Lytton was in-
stalled as Lord Rector of Glasgow University, to which
office he was appointed in Noveoiber last by a majority in
all the ❑ations over his opponent, Lord Stanley.
A little after 2 o'clock Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, in the
robes of the Lord Rector, entered the hall, preceded by the
mace •bearer, and with very great difficulty found, or rather
forced, his way through the closely-wedged throng to the
chair. He was most heartily cheered. The Lord Rector
was accompanied by the Ven. Principal Macfarlan and the
Professors of the University, Lord Elgin, the Lord Provost
of the City, Sir Archibald Alison, Mr. Hastie, &c.
In other pasts of the Hall were Sheriff Bell, Sheriff Smith,
Mr. Walter Cram, Mr. Wm. Ewing, Mr.'John Blackwood,
publisher, Edinburgh, several of the city clergy, tc.c. The
proceedings were opened by a Latin prayer, delivered by
the Rev. Principal. Professor Weir read the record'of his
election and administered the oaths.

Sir EDWARD BDLWER LYTTON, on rising, WAS received
with immense applause. He spoke as follows :—Mr. Prin-
cipal and Gentlemen, —lf there be many more deserving
than myself of the honour which has been conferred upon
me, there is at least no one by whom it could be more
highly valued or more gratefully received. (Cheers.) Per-
haps, indeed, an Englishman has a yet livelier sense than
even a native of Scotland of all that is implied in the dis-
tinction which connects him with this ancient seat of learn-
ing by the free choice of its youthful students. Ho knows
that he cannot owe so gracious a favour to the accident of
birth or to local prepossession—that it must be the recogni-
tion of some rank or property in repute, which, being
achieved by his own exertions, wins the sympathy of the
rising generation. For youth, and more especially the hardy
youth of Scotland—(cheers)—pressing forward to force way
for itself through this crowded world, has a natural interest
in seeking to ennoble every instance which confirms its own
heroic hopes in the attainment of worldly distinction by
the nerve and sinew of intellectual labour. lam sure
that no student who has honoured me with his vote from
agreement in my political opinions will misunderstad me
when I say I am well pleased to believe that it is less as the
politician than as the man of letters that you this day re-
ward my labours and dignify my name. Not because I
am not cordially gratified if my views of the polioy which
should govern those realms find favour with a large pro-
portion of the intellect among you—not because Ido not
feel a warm and loyal attachment to the party with whom
I act in Parliament, or am indifferent to that sanction of
their cause which such a compliment to one of their num-
ber may convey ; no, but because, now that a contest which
I did not seek, and of which I was only aware two days
before the issue was made known to me, is peacefully con-
cluded, I would fain link myself in lasting fellowship with
every student among you—and politics can but join us
for the day ; literature unites us throughout the ages.
(Cheers.) I think that I am the more justified in
assigning your kindness to this bond of association, be-
cause the candidate who was not unreasonably preferred by
some of you—a young. nobleman whose vigorous intellect
and brilliant promise would have done credit to your choice
—happens (no matter what differences of opinion on iso-
lated questions may or may not exist between him aild me)
to belong with myself to that great party of which his own
father is the acknowledged chief. (Cheers, dissent, and
renewed cheers.) Nor can I believe that there can be any
great disunion between those who profess the same broad
outlines of policy as my Lord Derby, because this much at
least all who differ from that noble personage will allow—
that the principles he does profess proclaim to his parti-
sans, and utter to the world, are conveyed in a diction
unequalled for lucidity and force, and prompted by a mo-
tive conspicuous for sincerity and honour. (Cheers.)
Seeing, then, that the candidate who divided your votes
was not taken from the ranks of a hostile party, and that
politics, therefore, could not have entered very warmly
into the contest, I venture to assume that you designed
through me to pay a generous compliment to those
English authors and men of letters whose names,
d e n nobler
bo
otkh aonf mine,eef.
m aadr
eeinscribedo that t
place lae
elib inrocii
whichoro, orno gneooli
us can inherit, all of us may aspire to obtain. Accordingly,
it is on their behalf as well as my own that I receive the
compliment and return the thanks. Gentlemen, when I
look round this crowded hall I am seized with the same
idea which presented itself to my great predecessor, Mr.
Macaulay. Like him I at once comprehend how, on a simi-
lar occasion, before a similar audience, Edmund Burke,
the most elaborate and the most impassioned orator in the
grand age of orators, suddenly became confused, and fal-
tered forth the excuse that " he had never before addressed
so learned an assembly." And yet it is not the learning of
this distinguished audience which most impresses me with
a sentiment of diffidence and awe; for, if we were assem-
bled to witness some exercise of intellectual skill, in whit
learning alone was to be the judge, I should not be
the speaker, but the ligtimer. It is not to men who
have matured their full renown—it is not to your ac-
knowledged chiefs of erudition and science that I could
presume to offer suggestive remarks or persuasive counsel.
Theo it is my duty to address to that other part of this
audience which, comprising their pupils, represents, as it
were, the generation of their own children. And maxima
ieietur puero reverentia, I am intimidated by a sense of
the reverence which is due to the young. Can I glance to-
wards these ingenious and ardent listeners, whom I am
called upon by office to exhort or advise upon the future,
and not feel with sincere emotion that the future is their

lives, and that in their lives Providence may select the
agents to influence a future for unborn generations ? How
cautious should he bo who would animate the exertions of
youth not to discourage the audacities of genius, nor, on the
other band, to shrink from enforcing the sober doctrine,
that, to all genius labour is essential ; that the genius that
would realise the palace of Aladdin must still be the genius
of the I imp. How anxious he must feel to avoid the cold
pedantry of conventional admonition, and yet to give a can-
did utterance to the affection which prompts advice. Above
all, students of Glasgow, he who addresses you should haven
spirit so warmed by sympathy with the generous aspira-
tions of youth, so embued with the remembrance of what
your fathers have been before you, that his mind may
escape from every sentiment unworthy the ears of that
young chivalry whiob Scotland rears and sends forth to
the battle of human life, with her lion at toair hearts and
her white cross of St. ,Andrew on their shields. (Great
applause) An orator of no mean repute in the old French
Republic has in one :of his speeches a striking address to
the 19th century, which was then just dawning over the
lurid ashes of the Reign of Terror. In the jargon of that
rhetorical philanthropy which then prevailed he foresaw
the march of light, and the full development of human
faculties and social progress, dating from the downfall
of that disciplined order which the philosophers of his
day called " privileged usurpation," and the removal
of those sacred checks which they denounced as " priest-
craft." Well, the 19th century rose, advanced, it is
now more than half completed, and if that orator
were Latin living he might indeed bo startled to see
what light has been diffused, what the development of
human faculties, what the advancement of social progress !
During the earlier half of this century what great authors
have delighted ns or refined ! what magical inventions
science has conceived and put to use—what continuous
efforts have been made, and are making still, to mitigate
the severity of laws, and bind us more together, not in-
deed, in Cain-like fraternity, but in Christian brotherhood!
(Cheers.) But how and where have these benignant agen-
cies of the 19th century been the most manifestly at work?
How 1 Not by the disrupture of the old social ties, but by
their renewed cement ! Where ! Not in those lands in
which to borrow Danton's despairing cry, " Revolution,
like Saturn, devoured its own children." No. But in
these steadfast kingdoms, where liberty has not violated
order, nor philosophy presumed to depose religion.
(Cheers.) Look back at the commencement of this cen-
tury—contemplate the work of that generation which you
are now rising to succeed. See what your Scottish fathers
have done to snatch the firebrand from the hands of those
drunkards of knowledge who, reeling hero and there amid
palaces and temples, fancied that they illumined society by
the conflagration of its fabrics. That brand your fathers
snatched, not to extinguish its living lame—no, but to
place it, aloft and calm, upon stately watch-towers, a guid-
ing light, and not a consuming fire. (Cheers.) Already,
indeed, during the latter half of the last century, Scotland
had produced a school of philosophers who prepared the
reason of her sons to resist the plausible, but perilous ma-
terialism by which Diderot and the writers of the French
Encyclopedias sought to quibble away the soul from man,
and the Maker from the universe. Already, for more than
30 years, a professor in this university, Thos. Reid, had
expanded into an original system the suggestive lessons of
Hutcheson, the founder of Scotch metaphysics. Reid died
in 1796, but he left behind him a brilliant pupil, Dugald
Stewart, peculiarly adapted by the graces of acquirement
and a persuasive eloquence of style, to render popular
the doctrines of his teacher, and to influence a wide
range of minds that, whether in literature, or action,
have powerfully affected the character of their age and
country. (Cheers.) I am not hero to pronounce an un-
qualified culogium upon that school of Scotch metaphysics ;
indeed, of late years, I have hail so little leisure to re-exa-
mine those analytical inquiries into the origin and forma-
tion of idea which delighted rue in early youth that I could
not venture to be a criticon metaphysicsbeforean audience
of Scotch collegians. But he would wholly fail to appre-
ciate theimmense benefits which Hutcheson Reid, and
Stewart rendered to sound philosophy, and through' hilo-
sophy to the direction of popular thought and action, who
should overlook the influence which those Scottish specu-
lative' reaseners have exercised over the great schools of
Germany—over all succeeding schools, moral or metaphy-
sical, that have awed to paralyse and disperse the ribald

builders of the atheistical Babel who startled the last cen-
tury, and left behind them the fragments of their impious
laFours, a futile monument of the confusion of their own

,ongues, and the forlorn memento of a vanished deluge

(Cheers.) But Scotland was not confining her intellect•
only to those subtle speculations which act latently on the
springs of practical life. Already in .his university had
been educated, and in this university taught and lectured,
the great author of the " Wealth of Nations." Here was
a book destined to guide the dawning century, that took
the machinery of States out of the hands of dreamers like
Condorcet and Sieyes ; laid down those laws for the regula-
tion of commonwealths which Plato hadobsoured, and even
Aristotle had left undefined ; showed to monarchs how trea
Buries might be filled, and to labouring populations how

industry might be best applied and rewarded ; here, above
all, at a time when liberty was wronged, and multitudes
bewildered by schemes for destroying the barriers round
life and property—here was a book, written by no servile
upholder of antique prejudice, but by the most innovating
philosopher since the age of Bacon, which proved that secu-
rity to life is the first necessary to freedom, and safety to
property the paramount interest of the masses. Here was a
book that before the dawn of this century had already en-
tered into the practical government of these kingdoms; for
here was the book which, more than all others of that day,
skilled and disciplined the mind of William Pitt. (Loud
cheers.) Not, however, with this achievement did Scotland
halt in her " march of light"—not to that memory do you
stint your obligation in your illustrious Academy of Was-
' gow. In yonder streets, while Joseph Black was deducing
his voluminous problems from chemical science—while
Adam Smith was tracing the sources of all national wealth
—a young man, the listener and friend to both, was pon-
dering upon the applicat ion of earl:flood science to the
wealth of nations, the very vapouiin the lamp of philoso-
phy became the most material agent in the subjugation of
time and space to the power of men, and the prophecy of
Roger Bacon was realised in the inventive genius of James
Watt. (Immense cheering.) But it is not science alone
L hat instructs the world and regulates the actions of man
kind. Literature, too, has a noble mission beyond that of
mere solace and delight. See at the close of the last cen-
tury how tame and tawdry a thing was the literature of the
Revolution I Except only the orations of Mirabeau, and a
few verses by Andre Chenier, who perished on the guillo-
tine, sighing forth, as he touched his forehead, " And yet
there was something here 1" Except these, and what feeble-
ness and what fustian I What varnished ignorance both of
books and of human nature 1 The Frenchauthors who wrote
under the Empire are certainly better; but they want origi-
nality and depth. In Italy one or two fair but sickly
plaits struggled forth, but the root was not such as to
allow much spread to the boughs. In Germany, indeed, a
mighty era in literature had commenced, but its influence
had not yet extended over the rest of Europe; or where it
had become visible it was through wretched translations of
that effeminate kotzebue or ballads that enlivened the nursery
with skeletons and hob-goblins; and even the gigantic
Goethe was chiefly known to Europe as a orackbrained
sentimentalist, who had invited unaympathising
readers rather to laugh than to weep over the " Sorrows
of Werter." The first great literature produced by this
country which spread over the civilised nations, thrusting
back into dusty shelves the verse without soul and the prose
without muscle, which had formed the circulating library
of Europe—the first great literature that strode forth to
civilise and to conquer, restoring the ancestral past to its
due place in human reverence, recalling from exile truth
and nature, binding man to man in the genial chain of
character and humour, refreshing the work-day world with
a joyous holyday of romance, —the first great literature
which poured its own young blood into the century, and,
rushing over Europe, found a home on every hearth, rose
in these islands, and, paramount in that literature for an
influence not less beneficent than supreme, towers your
immortal countryman Walter Scott. (Great applause.)
Measure not Scott's greatness by his effects only on the
imagination. (Hear.) By the law of all mental vibration
opinion is moved by the sounds that first agitate feeling.
What way Scott prepared throughout Europe for the in-
troduction of our language, and with our language on"
reasoners as well as our poets I Before his day how muck
the language of France had overweighted the balance of
intellectual power in Europe I Scott threw into the op-
posing scale the language of the Anglo-Saxon, and the in-
tellect of these kingdoms became henceforth, not the casual
guest, but one of the ruling immarchs of the continent.
Thus Scotland gathered together the broken and stormy
rays of intelligence that had before rather terrified than
cheered the dawn of the nineteenth century, and forming
them first through science into pure and tranquiljight,
then dispersed them through literature to beautity
the world with all the pomp and variety of colour.
(Great applause.) Meanwhile, religion rather encouraged
than opposed the culture of the philosophy which did not
invade its province. I might say, in passing, that the ge-
neral character of ecclesiastical eloquence in Scotland, in
that peculiarity of subtle disquisition, which has been
alleged against it as a fault, has had an effect akin to phi-
losophy in the demand it makes on the reasoning and re-
flective power of the listener. But I hurry on to one illus-
trious instance of the sympathy established here between
the philosopher and the preacher. I remind you of your
own great Chalmers. (Cheers.) In this town he delivered
hie famous astronomical discourses, and from the printing
press of Glasgow issued those essays in which he has brought
to bear upon subjeots purely social or philosophical an un-
derstanding so masculine, couched in a style so gravely
sweet. Formed by such teachers, guided by such auspices,
your fathers went forth upon the world. Not, indeed, all
to be the votaries of literature and science; not all to win
distinction for their individual selves; the large majority
were contented with the simple paths of practical life. But
that large majority, still adding to the aggregate character
of your country, by the attributes of strong sense, patient
courage, tranquil heneaty, that moral dignity which com-
mands respect, and thus, spreading on every soil where
they found home the healthful influence of the native Boil,

(Cheers.) Students, these are the men you are to succeed,
and from the homes and hearths of these men you come
here to discipline your energies and advance the name that
you inherit. And will nut that thought animate you
more than any dry exhortation to industry or labour?
ikye,
himwhostill or
amonmgye thouwe
ould grudge any toil that might
joy and pride of a Scottish
home, or give to Scotland another of those names
which preserve her nationality more distinct and so.
vereign than if the Stuait still reigned in liolyrood,
and the thistle were not blended with the rose ? '
(Loud cheers.) Well, then, I take your industry
for granted; let us see how and where it should be applied.
And, first, there immediately comes before us the learning
of Greece and home—those still dead languages of that
still dead world, which seems to the ignorant so indefi-
nitely remote, and which to scholars and statesmen is
always so intimately near. It has indeed been asked in
our day, " But what avail to spend so much time in the
acquisition of languages which are only of use to profes.
sional scholars ? It might be very well in the dal k ages,
when no other literature existed. But now in modern
tongues there is a living literature. Why not confine our-
selves to the language we may have to talk, and to the
books by which modern ideas are convoyed 1" This sounds
plausible enough; but before you allow the argument to
weigh with you ono jot ask any man not a professional
scholar, but who has in youth acquired a fair acquaintance
with the classic languages, and who has since attained to

lancient tongues over an exclusive or preponderant atten-
Lion to the modern. Study as wo will the Greek and Latin,
we do not make ourselves loss purely national in our own
ideas or our own modes of expressing them. But if, in
youth, which is the season of imitation, we were to culti-
vate exclusively, say the French or the German, ten to
one but we should half denationalise ourselves—WO should
Frenchify or Germanise our minds and our style ; and
I think you must have observed occasionally in Great
Britain, but perhaps more frequently in America, that
writers who, not having accomplished themselves in classic
literature, apply with passionate devotion to a foreign
modern lenge age—say the German—do really so corrupt
and adulterate sober English that it seems as if they sought
to torture their own language into the agonised confession
that it was a thievish impostor that had run away from
another. (Laughter, and cheers.) And, whether we would
or not, I will now show you why those ancient languages
must, in preference to all modern tongues, remain the
groundwork of a liberal and comprehensive educatiOn. I
have said that youth is the season of imitation. We place
before youth not only books to read, but authors who are
to serve as models of ideal excellence, and whom we com-
mend
to its special love an l approbation. Where could we
agree as to such models in any modern language? Take, for
Instance, the French. It is clear that models of a language
must be sought in the greatest masters of its style and dic-
tion. Who are the two greatest such masters in French ?
Unquestionably still, in their several ways, Rousseau and
Voltaire. But what prudent teacher would commend Rous-
eneu and Voltaire as models to be studied night and day. by
inquisitive and imitative youth ? Pass to Italy. However
re admire the sublimity of Dante, his austere and Gothic
beauties cannot furnish the models for general study ; while
the other Italian masters, such as Aristo and Boccaccio,
who might furnish hints for more flowing and easy graces
of style, are scarcely those whom the people of these king-
doms would like to see the elementary moralists in a manly
and healthful education. Turn to Germany ; and Goethe
meets us colossal at the threshold. But would Goethe's
warmest admirer commend to his own young sons that
calm artist who so profoundly depicts our infirmities and
frailties, but who rejects from his canvass the rude outlines
of fortitude and heroism—would he commend to his sons
as their early study and model the greatest of the Germans
whose mind has been compared to a cupola lighted from
below, with the same confidence with which ho would dismiss
them to their Homer, to learn there " in the large language
of the early gods"— learn to love in Hector the defender of his
country and admire in Achilles the foot that cannot yield,
end the lips that hate a lie as the gates of hell ? Again,
in the ancient language both the popular mythology and
the philosophical freethinking are so wholly remote from us
that we have no fear of their injuring the Christian tenets
we profess. I apprehend that no student would be tempted
to raise an altar to Jupiter, nor be seduced by Lucretius
into a belief in the doctrine of atoms. Bat in the great
body of modern continental languages, when we escape
from the writers who openly or covertly sap Christianity
to the writers who most warmly oppose infidelity, the in-
separable distinctions between the Roman Catholic religion
and all denominations of our Protestant faith obstruct us
the moment we come to decide upon models for minute
study and passionate attachment. If, for instance, I were
compelled to turn to France for models of eloquence in
that language—those who afforded the roost classic study
for the arrangement and method of discourse—were the
two Roman Catholic preachers, Bourdaloue and Bossuet ;
yet would these two ornaments of the Papacy be mode's as
harmless to the creed of Protestant pupils as our old
heathen friends, Demosthenes and Cicero ? (Cheers.) For
these reasons and for many more, though modern languages
must always be a most valuable accessory to a polite educa-
tion, they can never become exclusively its groundwork ;
and, unless we did for hardy youths at college what is
done, I suppose, for young ladies at boarding-schools—(a
laugh)—mince up the literature of whole nations into sap-
less
extracts ; or unless we confined ourselves rigidly to
the literature of our own (and even there we could scarcely
agree upon the authors to be received universally as models),
we must, perforce, come back to the languages of Greece
and Rome. And is that a subject of regret? What lite-
rature is so peculiarly adapted as that which thoselanguages
contain for citizens and freemen,? In an age when so much
more was learnt from conversation than from books the
life of study and the life of action were so close to each
other that the roar of the Agora shook the Platain trees in
the gardens of the Academe. Hence it is the characteristic
of ancient literature that it is pre-eminently practical ; it
abounds with lessons useful to civilised men in all lands and 1
all times—it never grows old. A newspaper of last year is i
a staler thing, more apart from the talk of the very hour in
which I am now addressing you than a quotation from a I
speech of the Corinthian ambassadors at Thucydides, or a :
reference from Hoface to the graves principum amicitias. I
And with this practical character there is nothing mean or . I
cynical. Cast from your memory a few licentious passages ' i
episodical to the true spirit of the chaste Camcenae, from ' ,
which I am sure that you turn with the quick instinct of
masculine purity you take from your Scottish homes, and ,
what a mass of healthful literature remains ! Love of coun-
try,
recognition of social duties, the spirit that can defy
the haughty, the humanity that spares the subjected, re-
verence to virtue as that celestial something which neither :
takes nor resigns its dignities " arbitrie pop'elaris aura"—
is it nothing that all these should come before our eyes in
youth, radiant with the loveliness of Atheris, or stately
with the majesty of Rome ? Thus far, then, we are agreed,
and you will lose no opportunity now presented to you to
increase your intimacy with the languages and the authors '
whose uses in after-life yon so evidently appreciate. Bat
unquestionably your culture of the ancient learning is not
to supersede your natural destination as the examiners and
enforcers of the new ideas which link you with the age in
which you are to be actors. (Cheers.) You have your
choice in the many subdivisions of intellectual labour—the
church, the bar, the various branches of the medical pro- ,
fession, commerce and manufactures—in short, the busy
callings of life. I pretend not here to add to the lessons of
the eminent persons who administer the instruction of '
the university. I can but suggest a few general hints,
which may equally apply to each vocation that you may
severally adopt. And, first, let me impress upon you the I
value of definite purpose. Having once chosen that calling
which then becomes your main object in life, cling to it
firmly—bring to bear on it all your energies, all the infor-
mation you are elsewhere variously collecting. All men
are not born with genius, but every man can acquire pur- i
peso, and purpose is the backbone and marrow of genius
—nay, I can scarcely distinguish one from the other. For
what is genius ? Is it not an impassioned predilection for ,
some definite art or study, to which the mind converges
all its energies, each thought or image that is suggested by
nature or learning, solitude or converse, being habitually
and involuntarily added to those ideas which are ever re-
turning to the same central point, so that the mind is not
less busily applying when it seems to he the most released
from application, That is genius, and that is purpose—
the one makes the great artist or poet, the other the great
man of action. And with purpose comes the grand secret
of all woruly success, which some men call will, but which
I would rather call earnestness. If I were asked, from
my experience of life, to say what attribute most impressed I
the minds of others or most commanded fortune, I should I
say " earnestness." Take, for instance, the House of
Commons as the highest type of a popular assembly.
What is the great secret of success there ? You all re-
member that Demosthenes placed the threefold art of the
orator in delivery. I think the word he used was acting
or stage play. But though delivery, no doubt, is the ap-
propriate excellence of the mere orator, the threefold gift
of the Parliamentary speaker is earnestness. Have but
fair sense and a complete knowledge of your subject, and
then be thoroughly in earnest to impress your own
honest conviction upon others, and, no matter what
your delivery, though your gestures shocked every rule
in Quintilian, you would command the ear and in-
fluence the debates of the most accomplished, the most
fastidious, and, take it altogether, the noblest assembly
of freemen in the world; while some man, in whose deli-
very no fault could be detected, except the one defect of 1
that earnest conviction which Itoscius himself could not
teach if the man has not got it, would be indeed admired
as a firework, but would never guide like a star. As it is
in the House of Commons, which is but the representative
of the national mind, so it is with all life throughout these .
nations. The earnest man wins way for himself, and ear- :
nestness and truth go together. Never affect to be other I
than you are—either richer or wiser. Never be ashamed I
to say, " I do not know." Men will then believe you when
you say " I do know." Never be ashamed to say, whether
as applied to time or money, "I' cannot afford it"—" I ,
cannot afford to waste an hour in the idleness to which you
invite me—l cannot afford the guinea you ask me to throw
away." Once establish yourself and your mode of life as I
what they really are, and your foot is on solid ground, 1
whether for the gradual step onward, or for the sudden
spring over a precipice. (Cheers.) From these maxims I
let me deduce another—learn to say " No" with decision ;
" Yes" with caution—" No" with decision whenever it
resists a temptation ; " Yes" with caution whenever it im-
plies a promise. A promise once given is a bond inviolable.
(Cheers.) A man is already of consequence in the world
when it is known that we can implicitly rely upon him. I
I have frequently seen in my life a person preferred to a
long list of applicants, for some important charge which
lifts him at once into station and fortune, merely because
he has this reputation, that when he says he knows a
thing he knows it, and when he says he will do a thing he
will do it. Muse, gentlemen, over these maxims; you will
find it easy enough to practise them, for when you have
added them altogether the sum total locks very much like
—a Scotchman. (Applause.) Let me now touch, though
bat humbly, as becomes a layman, upon those sacred truths
which are interwoven with your faith and enforced by
your spiritual teachers. It is enough for me earnestly to
impress on you a reference of all your actions to that Di-
vine standard of good which we can never attain, but
should ever seek to approach, so that, to use a homely
image, the conscience may be the bookkeeper of life.
Every man who would perform great actions must pezpe-
tually refer to some judgment or criterion elsewhere, which
serves both for his stimulus and his guide. In that terrible
night when Alexander the Great was forcing his way
across the swollen waves of the Hydaspos, thunder and
lightning and hurricane around him, anti the elephants of
Pores on the opposite bank, he is said to have exclaimed,
"Oh, Athenians, what dangers I brave to be recorded with
praise by you !" But in conquests more arduous and last-
ing than those of Alexander--conquests which every one
has to achieve over his own heart and its tempters, how
grand and how accurate becomes the motive that iwa-
lates and guides to the man who habitually inquires,
" How will this bear a record iu the eyes of Him who
alone unerringly reads each desire, and alone impartially
weighs every deed ?" (Cheers.) Gentlemen, following
the example set by more than oue of my predecessors, it is
my intention to offer some prizes to your generous compe-
tition. I shall place, for that purpose, the modest sum of
50 guineas in the hands of your professors, leaving it to
their discretion to select such subjects as their experience
may suggest, most useful or pleasing to the general body of 1
the students. But, in addition to those prizes, I myself willf
1
now propose to the highest class of your scholars a prize of
30 guineas to the candidate who shall most worthily render
into lyrics, Greek or Latin, at the choice of the competitors,
one of the immortal songs of Robert Barns. (Vehement ap-
plause.) At that name I find myself, in conclusion, natu-
rally carried back to the ideas with which I commenced my
direct appeal to you as your Rector. I commenced that
appeal by invoking your national ,pride, so that you might
be worthy the heritage and transmission of your national
renown. Nor do I believe that there is one thoughtful
Englishman who will blame me for that invocation • for
what patriot can desire, what reasoner expect, what states-
man he enabled, to erase from a land the traditions that